My most resourceful friends continually reaffirm my beliefs about the creative muse:  She’s no flake.  Those who innovate and invent in the greatest quantity and highest quality work in consistent and structured ways.  They face their pens, easels or stages whether or not they think they have the next great thing.

In Daily Rituals:  How Artists Work, Mason Currey compiles a range of renown creators’ practices.  Like my friends, most work or worked in consistent, disciplined ways.  That doesn’t mean they left superstition or vice behind, some of which are noted below.  I’ve got 1 and 8 covered.  I drink a fair amount of coffee, so I’m making headway on 3.  I’ve got a little of 5 and wouldn’t mind 7 a bit.  Watch out world, here I come.

1)    ECCENTRICITIES GALORE

In company:  Edith Sitwell (Poet, 1887 – 1964), Vladimir Nabokov (Writer, 1899 – 1977), Georges Simeon (Novelist, 1903 – 1989), and Erik Satie (Composer & Pianist, 1866 – 1925), Buckminster Fuller (Designer & Architect, 1895 – 1983)

2)    TENDENCIES TOWARD WORKAHOLISM

In company:  Jonathon Edwards (Theologian, 1703 – 1758), Margaret Mead (Cultural Anthropologist, 1901 – 1978), Somerset Maugham (Writer, 1874 – 1965)

3)   STIMULANT (WHETHER COFFEE OR AMPHETAMINES) & ALCOHOL INGESTION

In company:  Ludwig van Beethoven (Composer, 1770 - 1827), Jean-Paul Sartre (Philosopher, Writer & Activist, 1905 – 1980), W.H. Auden (Poet, 1907 – 1973), Edmund Wilson (Essayist & Critic, 1895 – 1972), Ayn Rand (Writer, 1905 – 1982)

4)    INSOMNIA OR A PREFERENCE FOR NIGHT HOURS (PERHAPS, BUT NOT ALWAYS, DUE TO 3)

In company:  Louise Bourgeois (Artist, 1911 – 2010), Jean Stafford (Writer, 1915 – 1979), Marilynne Robinson (Writer, b. 1943)

5)    MOODINESS (PERHAPS, BUT NOT ALWAYS, DUE TO 3 & 4)

In company:  Ann Beattie (Writer, b.1947), William James (Philosopher & Psychologist, 1842 – 1910)

6)    RIGID SCHEDULES

In company:  Simone de Beauvoir (Writer & Activist, 1908 – 1986), Ingmar Bergman (Filmmaker, 1918 – 2007), Anthony Trollope (Writer, 1815 – 1882), Twyla Tharp (Dancer & Choreographer, b. 1941), Joan Miró (Artist, 1893 – 1983)

7)    WIVES OR LONG-TERM FEMALE COMPANIONS WHO PROTECT SAID SCHEDULES

In company:  Gustav Mahler (Composer, 1860 – 1911), Alexander Graham Bell (Inventor, 1847 – 1922), and James T. Farrell (Writer, 1904 – 1979)

8)    CREATIVITY IN BED (GET YOUR MIND OUT OF THE GUTTER; MANY CREATIVES WORK IN BED)

In company:  Patricia Highsmith (Writer, 1921 – 1995), Voltaire (Writer & Philosopher, 1694 - 1778), Marcel Proust (Writer, 1871 – 1922)

Resources & References

• Currey, M. (2013).  Daily rituals:  How artists work.  New York:  Alfred A. Knopf.
• Photo Credit:  Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, The New York Public Library. (1934). Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, November 4,1934. Retrieved from http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47db-c3b8-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99