Can’t Make the Time to Write? Here’s How Some of Your Favorite Writers Do It
The writing routines of the rich and famous.
Mason Currey was always fascinated with the writing rituals of famous artists, so several years ago, he began collecting them in a blog. "I just felt like it'd be fun if there were like a central clearinghouse for these anecdotes and these stories," he says.
If Currey read something interesting about, say, Stephen King's or Toni Morrison's writing routines, he would cut and paste them into his blog, which he estimates had around 12 readers the first year.
But a few sites picked up his blog, and slowly and steadily, Currey, who was working as an editor at Metropolis magazine, amassed a following of thousands.
The publishing world took notice offered him a book deal. Currey released Daily Rituals: How Artists Work in 2013, which features the day-to-day working lives of creative minds. But realizing his first book was a little heavy on the Y chromosome, he followed up with Daily Rituals: Women at Work, focusing exclusively on female artists.
In total, Currey has chronicled over 300 writing rituals from the likes of such greats as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Maya Angelou, Ernest Hemingway, and Jane Austen.
Some of these rituals are practical. Stephen King, for example, writes every day of the year, including his birthday and holidays, and doesn't stop until he reaches his 2000-word quota.
Some are bizarre. Patricia Highsmith (author of The Talented Mr. Ripley) used to lie on her bed in a fetal position, surrounded by coffee, donuts, cigarettes, and a jar of sugar before she typed a word to make the act of writing as pleasurable as possible.
Here are other highlights from Currey's books:
Benjamin Franklin Long before his mug appeared on the $100, the founding father was a prolific writer. Franklin would wake up early every morning and sit in his room completely naked and read or write to get him in a creative mood. He called this his daily "air bath."
Jane Austen The author of such classics as Pride and Prejudice and Emma woke up early and played the piano. After breakfast at 9 am sharp, she wrote with her mother and sister sewing nearby. If any visitors showed up or servants lingered, she would hide her papers and pretend to be sewing for fear that people would suspect she was doing what was considered a job for gentleman only.
Nikola Tesla. The scientist worked from noon until midnight, taking a break for dinner at the fancy Waldorf Astoria in New York City. But he would only start eating after he figured out his dinner's cubic volume.
Truman Capote only wrote while he was lying down either in bed or stretched out on a couch. His routine started with coffee, shifted to mint tea, and ended with a martini. He wrote four or five hours a day then revised his work the night and the following day. Capote had some weird superstitions. He wouldn't allow three cigarette butts in the same ashtray, and he would never write on Fridays.
Toni Morrison. The Nobel Prize-winning author had a 9 to 5 job as an editor at Random House most of her career. Her ritual was to get up around 5 am every morning, make coffee, "watch the light come," and then start writing until it was time to go to work.
Ludwig Van Beethoven The classical music powerhouse rose at dawn and made coffee with precisely 60 beans per cup. Then he worked until 3 pm. After an early dinner, he took long, vigorous walks, carrying a pencil and a couple of sheets of music paper in his pocket to record his musical inspiration.
Soren Kierkegaard The Danish philosopher owed at least 50 coffee cups with different designs. Before drinking coffee, Kierkegaard asked his assistant to choose one cup then justify why he made that decision. When it was time to drink his morning cup, Kierkegaard poured a bag of sugar to the cup's brim. Then he poured coffee over that.
Listen to this week's Write About Now to learn more about the writing rituals of the rich and famous.