my daily routine

this is a fun one to think about because i am so wildly out of it right now, having just come back from a lot of travel and family in town. i am desperately trying to find it again.

also, i recently read some posts from austin kleon (steal like an artist) about why we obsess over the routines of great creatives. much like kleon, i get it—i spent a fair time obsessing over them, myself.

he talks about how it can help you to see what a creative life can look like: how you might build one for yourself.

when i was first starting out, i used to feel very insecure about my writing habits, not because i thought i was doing something wrong, but because i wanted to be as close to a real writer as i could. I was looking for anything that would give me the Secret (TM) to writing better stories.

it turns out, exact schedule had very little to do with it. the amount of time spent at the practice, maybe a different story. there is no substitute for time spent putting words on the page. or, for that matter, reading good things, learning from others, and from the world.

but for the actual writing! you’ll find many who say write a little every day, some who say it doesn’t matter. they’re both right. do it every day. do it when you can. do what works for you. there is a book about perfectionism that i’ve mentioned before, and it opts for a granular sort of scheduling—many productivity modes to. Scheduling the moment, making sure you’re not frittering away the time as we’re wont to do on things that matter less to us than we say our writing does.

i have the privilege of writing mostly full time—other than teaching, which is something i do one-on-one and not in a course-based lecture style—writing is what makes up my day-to-day. i also have no children or caretaking responsibilities at the moment, which also impacts how i can spend my day.

the danger with being so entranced with other artists’ schedules is that you start to compare yourself, or castigate yourself for not matching their dedication. ‘if they can spend 4 hours concentrating on writing, why can’t I?’ ‘they have xyz responsibilities and can manage this much writing—i don’t have those responsibilities and i can only do this much smaller amount of writing!” (this is the same thing that happens in the fitness sphere, just replace “writing” with “training.”)

the productivity whip is real and ever present. rarely is there a carrot in these discussions; only more work, only more whip.

at the same time, there can also be a helpful demystifying process when we see our peers. “where do they get the time?” we ask. and the answer is often, “they have to fit it in, too!”

i also happen to love whatever day of the year when visual artists make a mini comic of their day. it’s my favorite, because their art gets simple and sketchy and the creativity of how they depict things and the humor of a boring, normal work day and all of our human silliness.

my schedule changes. all schedules change as life changes. mine has changed from how i worked when i first started writing full time. it changes from book to book, deadline to deadline. i experiment with it. there are a few things that remain the same, more or less.

• every week day, i do morning pages a la Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way: 3 composition notebook pages of my morning stream of consciousness (lately, i have not been doing them first thing like i should). sometimes, i explore creative ideas. sometimes, i tend to be very stupid and we won’t talk about that. this takes ~45 min if i am not distracted.
• admin - sending emails about event stuff, accounting, meetings
• most week days, i do a workout of some sort. i try to do these also sooner rather than later, because they can help me wake up, and i waste less time, but i have been letting them slide later into the afternoon. i used to use them as a lunch break. i used to do them at the end of the day with my partner. things change. strength tends to be 20-30 min, at home, not including warm-up and procrastination. running tends to be 30-70 min, not including procrastination. some days i only do one of these. some days, i do both (~ 70 min).
• food. it goes in there.
• writing. it usually starts after lunch and workout and admin and i work until my partner gets off work. sometimes it is creative. sometimes it’s a blog post. usually, it is about 3-4 hours.
  • many blog posts get written on the weekend. it depends on what ideas have come up and when i have the time. but i like to be at home some weekends, and this is what i like to do.
  • if i am reading student work, i usually don’t write. i read all day and write feedback.

Sometimes, i wish i had a more rigid schedule. that i was good at sticking to time blocks. some periods, i am better at it than others. mostly, i just believe in getting the work done. i know what work needs to be done, i know when it needs to be done, and i move accordingly, making adjustments as need be.

do you like seeing artists’ schedules? what’s yours like, if you have one and want to share?

stay sharp,

C. L.