About
- The Daily Routines blog is no longer active. A book based on the site, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, was published by Knopf in 2013. A sequel, Daily Rituals: Women at Work, came out in 2019.
Miss the blog? Read more about how writers, artists, and musicians got to work (or didn't!) in my Subtle Maneuvers newsletter.
Editor: Mason Currey
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- "A gem" --Slate
"Fascinating" --BoingBoing
"Appropriately titled"
--The New YorkerAlso: Emdashes, Filmmaker, Georgia Review, The Guardian, i09, Kottke, Lifehacker, Los Angeles Times, T Magazine, Times Online, Toronto Star, Typepad, Very Short List
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"Time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle maneuvers."
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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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The Slate Series
Can You Become a Great Writer by Emulating Flaubert's Work Habits?
Is Waking Up Really Early the Secret to Artistic Success?
Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka, and Other Artists Who Wouldn't Dream of Working in the Daylight
Artists Who Drink Crazy Amounts of Coffee. (Balzac Was a 50-Cup-a-Day Man.)
The Secret to Ayn Rand's Success: Benzedrine
Did Drinking Make Hemingway and Fitzgerald Great—or Hold Them Back?
Eat Like an Artist: You'll Be More Creative—and Lose Weight!
Why Are Great Composers—Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Mahler—Obsessed With Taking Long Walks?
Great Architects Love a Good Nap
Edgar Allan Poe, Franz Kafka, and Other Great Procrastinators
Does Masturbation Make You More or Less Creative?
Freud's Wife Put the Toothpaste on His Toothbrush
T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, Joseph Heller:They All Had Day Jobs
Benjamin Franklin Liked Air Baths. Franz Kafka Did Naked Calisthenics.
Great Artists Don't Wait for Inspiration; They Work, Work, Work