‘Daily Rituals’ Of The Brilliantly Creative

John Wilwol at NPR:

The Onion published an essay recently called “Find The Thing You're Most Passionate About, Then Do It On Nights And Weekends For The Rest Of Your Life.” The piece was satire, but it's how many of us respond to the question Mason Currey raises in his entertaining new book, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work. “How do you do meaningful creative work,” he wonders, “while also earning a living?”

A product of the author's now-defunct blog, Daily Routines, Daily Ritualsassembles the regimens of 161 assorted creative geniuses into a lean, engaging volume. Its brief entries humanize legends like Hemingway and Picasso, and shed light on the working lives of less popular contemporary geniuses, like painter Gerhard Richter, choreographer Twyla Tharp and illustrator Maira Kalman.

The book makes one thing abundantly clear: There's no such thing as the way to create good work, but all greats have their way. And some of those ways are spectacularly weird.

Nikola Tesla typically worked from noon until midnight, breaking at 8:00 p.m. for dinner every night at the Waldorf-Astoria. Among the many peculiarities of this ritualized repast was his practice of not starting the meal until he had computed his dinner's cubic volume, “a compulsion he had developed in his childhood.”

More here.