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.”)