- “A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.”
Kurt Vonnegut’s recently published daily routine made we wonder how other beloved writers organized their days. So I pored through various old diaries and interviews — many from the fantastic Paris Review archives — and culled a handful of writing routines from some of my favorite authors. Enjoy.
I loved this. I have tried all kinds of things and then for 5 years, I wrote maybe . . . 3 whole poems and I'm just getting serious about it again. I do think that I was gathering material during those 5 years, but I still wish I'd been working in the writerly sense of the word. It's interesting to me that a lot of the time, writing is seen as this sedentary occupation and yet a lot of these guys have exercise as part of their routines. There certainly is something about sweating that makes the mind work though and I've been off my lifting routine lately, but I'm starting to feel like I need to get back into it.