For the past five days, I’ve lived like five great writers to see if borrowing their genius makes me any better, if their routines work at all, or if I should stick to my writing schedule of not actually writing very much.
Haruki Murakami’s Routine
- Wake up at 4:00 a.m.
- Write for 5–6 hours
- Run a 10k or swim 1500m
- Read and listen to music
- Go to bed at 9:00 p.m.
Saturday, January 25
9:48 p.m.
Murakami had this thing about repetition. His routine was his gospel—it was his way of reaching a deeper state of mind.
The first hour of the day was easily the worst. I sat in bed, reminding myself to blink, and by 5:00 a.m., I only had forty words. I almost gave up on the whole idea because I couldn’t believe I had gotten up at four in the morning to write the equivalent of two posts on X. Just before 7:00 a.m., I took a break to google Dow Jones and listen to “Evacuate the Dancefloor” by Cascada three times. I wrote a little over a thousand words in the two hours after that, which I took to mean that 4:00 a.m. is way too early, and Murakami has never been a twenty-one-year-old girl.
I ate and went to the pool to swim 1500m, which is sixty laps and not the sixty-six I convinced myself it was. It felt nice under the water. I liked the quiet.
Later, I read Sum by David Eagleman and played Nico’s “Chelsea Girl” on my roommate’s CD player because mine was out of batteries. Thanks, Kate. I fell asleep reading, woke up, read more, and fell back asleep. I spent practically the whole day alone, and it’s noticeable.
Murakami has a schedule too lonely for me.
Charles Dickens
- Wake up at 7:00 a.m.
- Eat breakfast at 8:00 a.m.
- Write from 9:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m.
- Go on a three-hour walk
- Spend the evening with family and friends before retiring at midnight
Sunday, January 26
3:06 p.m.
I didn’t write very well today. There’s something that makes it especially difficult for me to write when the sun is up, like my brain is too conscious, and it has unwanted company. I like writing when it’s quiet, maybe when I feel lonely, while the rest of the world sleeps, which is why I couldn’t move to New York City—not for very long, anyway.
The loveliest part of my day happened to be the most dreaded: my three-hour walk. I don’t go on walks often, never without the company of headphones or people. I didn’t listen to music because Dickens didn’t strike me as the Walkman type, and it was cold, so I brought my scarf and allowed myself to miss people. When I got to the river, there were birds, so many that I openly wept. It all felt so magnificent. I cried at spiderwebs, at the mountains and their stillness. I walked for fifty minutes before my cold-induced asthma started giving me a hard time, and I had to blow my nose from all the crying I was doing. I’ll be back when the weather is warmer or when I wear better gloves.
Jack Kerouac
- Write by the light of a candle, from midnight to dawn
- Pray before starting
Tuesday, January 28
4:41 a.m.
In the middle of the night, there’s an urgency to write, but no hurry to be someplace else. It’s when I write best. I lit my unscented pink candle, since the rest of mine were too low to light, and prayed for new ideas, the patience for them, and that I wouldn’t be too tired for tomorrow’s 9:30 a.m. class.
This might’ve been my most productive day. I didn’t write much, but what I wrote was good. A little after 4:00 a.m., my mind started racing, but I was too tired to tell if my ideas were good ones anymore. So, by 4:30 a.m., I figured it must be dawn somewhere in the world and slept, first blowing out the candle.
E.B. White
- “If you like to write and want to write, you write, no matter where you are or what else you are doing or whether anyone pays any heed.”
Tuesday, January 28
9:32 p.m.
Today I kept a notebook on me and wrote whenever I had a spare minute, partially because I had a lot of classes and partially because I don’t think my body can handle any more 4:00 a.m. schedules. I wrote down my good qualities and the bad ones, and it took me way too long to think of my bad qualities, which then made it on the list as “I possibly think too highly of myself.” I wrote in class, at the stoplight, during conversations—which felt and was very rude. I wrote the least today but got my best ideas. I’ve been so disciplined with my routine lately that I haven’t left much room for inspiration.
I take a lot of time to say obvious things, so what I’m really trying to say is today worked. I’ll try to keep a notebook in my back pocket more often.
Simone de Beauvoir
- Make tea
- Write 10:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.
- See my friends
- Write 5:00 p.m.–9:00 p.m.
- Go to the movies or put on the radio
Wednesday, January 29
11:18 p.m.
I’ll be honest, today fell apart a bit. A lot. It probably started with me forgetting to make tea.
Writing from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. went okay. I wrote a poem that feels good enough to show people, and everything else I wrote will stay secret. I met up with my sister, Lauren, and got lunch at 4:00 p.m.
I tried to write again at 5:00 p.m., but my mind was blank except for the other things on my mind, which were so heavy I couldn’t write about them. So I called my neighbor, Jadyn, and we went to the movies early: the 7:00 p.m. showing of the first Twilight.
Right now I’m sitting in bed, writing, finishing up this post. I’ve got peppermint tea on the desk because it’s the least I could do for Beauvoir, even if it is fourteen hours late.
This week taught me that I need to get more sleep. If you want to be a better writer, write at every hour of the day until you find your niche. And leave time to exist outside of your writing. Make time. It’s much more difficult to write about a love you’ve yet to experience.
Goodnight.
By Regan Roberts
Header image from Todoran Bogdan, pexels.com
