I launched Daily Routines on a Sunday afternoon in July 2007, while procrastinating on a writing assignment due the following day. It was intended as a hobby, and for the first year and a half I had a readership of about a dozen friends, coworkers, and family members.
Then, in December 2008, Slate wrote a story about the quest for the perfect morning routine that quoted liberally from my blog. Suddenly I went from having a record of five visitors in one day to almost 18,000, and more than 80,000 visitors for the month.
Along with all of these visitors came a steady stream of comments and e-mails—including a few e-mails from editors and literary agents suggesting that I turn the blog into a book. Two weeks after the Slate article came out, I signed on with one of those agents; over Christmas vacation, I wrote a book proposal. By April 2009, after lots of back-and-forth with several editors, I signed a contract with my dream publisher, Knopf.
Now, four years later, the Daily Routines book—officially titled Daily Rituals: How Artists Work—is finally coming out. It presents the routines and working habits of 161 creative minds—among them, novelists, poets, playwrights, composers, painters, philosophers, and scientists. It is packed with anecdotes about getting up super early, staying up super late, drinking heroic amounts of coffee, taking precisely timed naps and long daily walks, and much more.
In other words, if you enjoyed the blog, I'm confident that you'll like the book even better. It comes out April 23, and can now be pre-ordered from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell's, or IndieBound.
Thanks for reading!
Mason Currey
