Because We Love Some Good Navel Gazing on Process

Daily routines of writers and other creative sorts. I'm partial to Collette's approach of physical fitness and blood transfusions via a young donor (one step removed from Helen Mirren's bathing in the blood of virgins).

But, oh! Am I feeling Kafka's pain:

It is rare that writers of fiction sit behind their desks, actually writing, for more than a few hours a day. Had Kafka been able to use his time efficiently, the work schedule at the Institute would have left him with enough free time for writing. As he recognized, the truth was that he wasted time.

The truth was that he wasted time! The writer's equivalent of the dater's revelation: He's just not that into you. "Having the Institute and the conditions at his parents' apartment to blame for the long fallow periods when he couldn't write gave Kafka cover: it enabled him to preserve some of his self-esteem."