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Quotations

  • Habit is not mere subjugation, it is a tender tie: when one remembers habit it seems to have been happiness.
    Elizabeth Bowen

  • Sooner or later, the great men turn out to be all alike. They never stop working. They never lose a minute. It is very depressing.V.S. Pritchett

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Comments

Ha, ha! This blog is a great idea!

I disagree with this "wasted time" assertion. Writing has been an excruciating process for many of the great writers, and from what I've heard this was true of Kafka as well.

When he says that this routine was "all he could bear," I totally get it.

Great idea for a blog. Am adding it to my blog roll. Now re: the writing routine idea, many well-published authors have felt pretty good about sharing their rather regimented writing schedule. After all, without discipline, there cannot be much valuable productivity.

I concur with Chris, such a great blog idea!

Agreed,this is a great blog. Also,this was apparently recently discovered:

Kafka's Daily Schedule:
1. Wake up
2. Realize that I am some kind of hideous bug
3. Oh man
4. Question whether or not I am, perhaps, still dreaming.
5. Not dreaming
6. Well, fuck
7. What is that, an apple? Hey!
8. Sulk about the apple in my back
9. Seriously, what is going on here?!

It's official- Kafka is my favorite.

'The truth was that he wasted time'?!

Ugh, how judgmental. Perhaps he was better able to access his creativity at night, when the day world is silent and the unconscious, the hidden, seems closer to the surface...this is certainly the case with me. I can relate to his situation.

I think we eccentric night owls are unfairly discriminated against by so called 'normal' people.

Kafka's daily routine, according to himself: «From 8 am to 2 or 2:30 pm the office, lunch until 3 or 3:30 pm, from then on sleeping in bed... until 8:30 pm, then 10 minutes of exercise, naked at an open window, then one hour of walking alone or with Max or another friend, then supper with my family... then at 10:30 pm (but often even at 11:30) sitting down to write and remaining at it according to my strength, desire, and luck until 1, 2, 3 o'clock, once even until 6 A:M.»
He had a job schedule that left him plenty of time to write without having to stay awake until dawn. He was in office about 6 hours/day. He lived about a 12 minutes walk from his job. He said he had lunch until 3 or 3 pm. No need to waste 5 hours sleeping in the afternoon until 8:30 pm. A 30 minutes nap would do. At 4:00 pm he could take a walk and do some reading or writing until dinner time. Supposing he had dinner at 8:00 pm, from 9:00 pm until say 12:00 am at the most, he could write again. Maybe he had to wake up at 7:00 or 7:30 a.m. to go to work. At least he had to sleep 7 or 8 hours per night. What he did year after year, staying awake most of the night was complete suicide, sleeping much less than 7-8 hours/night. No wonder he died of tuberculosis...

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