I made this list when my oldest was only 3. He’s 6 now.
Before I closed his bedroom door last night, I said, “Happy reading!”
“Happy… whatever it is you do after I go to bed,” he said.
“Goodnight!” I said, smiling and tiptoeing away…
The ideal routine
This schedule went viral on Twitter with the caption: “Ursula K. Le Guin’s writing routine is the ideal writing routine.”
It’s a lovely, lovely thing, but it should be pointed out that it was an “ideal” routine for her, too, as she says in the 1988 interview it’s excerpted from. (Left out: “I go to bed at 10:00 p.m. If I’m at the beach there would be one ore two long walks on the beach in that day. This is a perfect day for me.”)
I’m sure that life got in the way a lot for her, just like it does for all of us. In fact, I was just thinking about her take on interruptions the other day when a mother wrote to me about the crush of having young kids and trying to work. I sent her this quote:
“Babies eat books. But they spit out wads of them that can be taped back together; and they are only babies for a couple of years, while writers live for decades…”
I love how her schedule doesn’t exclude mundane ordinary things like housework or dinner. “An artist can go off into the private world they create, and maybe not be so good at finding the way out again,” she said. “This could be one reason I’ve always been grateful for having a family and doing housework, and the stupid ordinary stuff that has to be done that you cannot let go.”
I also love how much time is set aside for reading. (Stephen King says he writes all morning and reads all afternoon.) It’s too easy when you’re writing full time to feel like you should stuff every single minute with writing, even when you know reading is a huge part of your job.
“Don’t feel guilty if you spend the first 90 minutes of your day drinking coffee and reading blogs,” Nate Silver once advised young journalists. “It’s your job. Your ratio of reading to writing should be high.”
Even after you achieve great things, that guilt might still linger. Here’s director Paul Thomas Anderson:
I still have trouble reading a book during the day because it somehow feels indulging… You know, like oh, my – this is so naughty. I’m actually reading at 10 o’clock in the morning. I think it’s just your upbringing – something about like you got to go to work, and you’ve got to – and move on. And still even – this is how I make my living. I still feel guilty. 10 o’clock, I mean – and it’s – but I’ve sunken into the pleasure of it – to think, my God, I’ve got my life in a way where I can read a book in the middle of the day.
I love that last sentence so much. I’ve always thought a great question for sorting out your life is: “What do you want your days to look like?”
Leonardo’s lists
Remember: You can be woke without waking up to the news.
A sampling of one of Leonardo’s to-do Lists:
- Get the master of arithmetic to show you how to square a triangle
- Examine the Crossbow of Mastro Giannetto
- Find a master of hydraulics and get him to tell you how to repair a lock, canal and mill in the Lombard manner
- Draw Milan
Here’s one of the first pages from The Steal Like An Artist Journal, filled out by me:
See also: Walter Isaacson’s new biography and Michelangelo’s grocery list
Without hope and without despair
Raymond Carver loved to quote Isak Dinesen, who said that she wrote a little every day, without hope and without despair.
“Someday,” he wrote, “I’ll put that on a three-by-five-card and tape it to the wall beside my desk.”
I stole his idea for my bliss station:
EVERY DAY, WITHOUT HOPE AND WITHOUT DESPAIR.
His widow, the poet Tess Gallagher, said these words were a “quiet banner of determination” that flew over the last decade of his life.
They are now my banner, and they can also be yours, if you like.
Carver, when asked about the impact he thought his work would have on people, was extremely skeptical about the possibility that his stories and poems would profoundly change the world or save anything in it. Of his art, he said:
It doesn’t have to do anything. It just has to be there for the fierce pleasure we take in doing it, and the different kind of pleasure that’s taken in reading something that’s durable and made to last, as well as beautiful in and of itself. Something that throws off these sparks—a persistent and steady glow, however dim.
That “steady glow, however dim” reminds me of the gospel song we used to sing in Sunday School: “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.” It also reminds me of Edith Wharton: “There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” (If you don’t have your own light, you can reflect someone else’s — just don’t be Human Vantablack.)
I, too, am skeptical that my work will actually make any kind of lasting impact. To believe such a thing, when one considers the span of cosmic time, seems downright delusional. And, frankly, I no longer need my work to change anything — I just know I need to do it.
I often think of my favorite line from Groundhog Day:
“What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?”
How you answer that question is your art.
Advice for the recent graduate
(For graduates, or anyone broke, in between things, or living at home.)
The chances are good that if you’ve recently graduated, you’re broke and living with your parents. (Cheer up: you’re in the majority.)
Here are 5 things you can do right now that will make your life better and won’t cost you much:
1. Treat your day like a 9-5 job.
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days.
—Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
This is especially important if you’re unemployed. A structureless life is a depressing life. Our days work better when they have a reliable shape. Grab a copy of Mason Currey’s Daily Rituals (if you can’t afford it, see #2 on this list) and read about the daily routines of famous artists, scientists, and creative people. Take inspiration from them. Cobble together your own daily routine and stick to it. As tempting as it is to sleep in, train yourself to get up early and do the thing that’s most important to you. (When you do something small every day, the days add up.) And at the end of the day, take Ralph Waldo Emerson’s advice to his own daughter:
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
2. Hang out at your local library.
I am a librarian. I discovered me in the library. I went to find me in the library… I discovered that the library is the real school.
—Ray Bradbury
School can burn you out on reading because you’ve been stuck reading a ton of books you didn’t choose for yourself. Now’s the time to jump in and fall in love again, by reading the stuff you actually want to read. (“Read at whim!”)
A lot of young people complain they don’t have money for books — get your butt to the library! If they don’t have the books you want, ask the librarian how you can request them.(You can start by looking for my books.) When you get to the library, you might find that they also have free, fast wi-fi, access to online eBooks and databases, and a rad DVD collection. Unlike Starbucks or Barnes & Noble, you can hang out there all day without buying anything and not feel bad about it. They also have a lot of resources for people looking for work. Go up to a librarian and ask them to show you around. You’ll make their day.
3. Take long walks.
I set out to dispel daily depression. Every afternoon I get low-spirited, and one day I discovered the walk…. I set myself a destination, and then things happen in the street.
—Vivian Gormick
Walking is tremendous exercise for the body, the mind, and the spirit. Many of the great thinkers have built walking into their daily routines, for example, Dickens used to take epic, twelve-mile strolls around London and work out his writing. Hit the bricks. Find somebody with a dog who needs walked. Again, it doesn’t cost anything, and you never know what you’re going to see. (Maybe a “We’re Hiring” sign?)
4. Teach yourself to cook.
Please, America, cook your own food. Heating is not cooking. Heating heats. Cooking transforms. It matters. And it’s not hard.
—Michael Ruhlman
If you can cook for yourself, you can eat better and save a ton of money. Pick up some simple cookbooks when you’re at the library (try Bittman’s How To Cook Everything) and look up some YouTube videos. If you’re lucky enough to have a relative who’s decent in the kitchen, cooking is a nice way to spend time together, and cooking for them is a good way to pitch in for your free rent. For tools, start with a sharp knife and a cast iron skillet and go from there. (Tip: The easiest dinner in the world is roast chicken and potatoes.)
5. Keep a journal.
The point… is not to record what you already know about what happened to you in the last 24 hours. Instead, it’s an invitation to the back of your mind to come forward and reveal to you the perishable images about the day you didn’t notice you noticed at all.
—Lynda Barry
Especially when you’re down-on-your-luck or just in between phases of your life, writing in a notebook can be the easiest way to feel like you’re accomplishing something.
Set a timer for 15 minutes and fill as many pages as you can, or, if you have plenty of time, do Julia Cameron’s “Morning Pages” exercise, and fill 3 pages every morning before you start your day. (And yes, you have to do it by hand.)
You might think you know what you’re thinking, but seeing your thoughts down on the page tells you what’s really going on inside your head.
A journal is also a great place to write down all the bad ideas, bad thoughts, and bad feelings you shouldn’t tweet.
Carry your journal around with you and write in it all the time: make notes in between job interviews, doodle while you’re watching Netflix, daydream about what you want out of life, etc. Any old notebook and pen will do, but if you have $10 or a generous parent, you can grab the journal I made.
Never throw out your journals — keep them, pull them out in ten years, and you won’t believe how far you’ve come.
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Update: Here are 5 more pieces of advice for graduates…