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Daily Rituals

Daily RitualsDai­ly Rit­u­als, by Mason Cur­rey (Pic­a­dor), has for its sub­ti­tle, How Great Minds Make Time, Find Inspi­ra­tion, and Get to Work. It is a quirky, but high­ly enter­tain­ing book of anec­dotes about how writ­ers (as well as visu­al artists and com­posers) orga­nize their work­ing day. It is not about their process of cre­ativ­i­ty, but their day-to-day habits of work. Thus, Gertrude Stein wrote out­side in the sought out pres­ence of rocks and cows for fif­teen min­utes a day. Hem­ing­way rose at 5:30 AM to write. Woody Allen takes many show­ers. Dick­ens liked silence and his desk arranged just so. Cer­tain things come through. Ear­ly ris­ing and work­ing is more preva­lent than night work. Long walks are com­mon. Cof­fee is more impor­tant than alco­hol. (Balzac drank fifty cups of cof­fee a day!)

What is shared by all of these cre­ative artists is dis­ci­pline. Even when these habits are idio­syn­crat­ic, they are reg­u­lar habits, the dai­ly means for the indi­vid­u­als to get down to work, even though Melville and Thomas Wolfe stood up when writing.

If I were teach­ing a writ­ing course this would be the first book I would have stu­dents read. The mes­sage: I don’t care how you get to work, just get there.

7 thoughts on “Daily Rituals”

  1. I was able to vis­it Hem­ing­way’s house in Cuba. He stood while writ­ing too. He also had a sep­a­rate apart­ment for his many cats. It was won­der­ful to vis­it such a beau­ti­ful place!

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  2. Cof­fee. Then turn­ing the phone ringer off, and turn­ing the phone around so I don’t even see that a call is com­ing in to voice­mail. Then putting head­phone on for silence. Then it’s a GO.
    At least Woody Allen’s rit­u­al leaves his body clean ;).

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