Kurt Vonnegut's Daily Routine

Kurt Vonnegut wrote Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat's Cradle, novels that fold science fiction into satire and gallows humour. In 1965, while teaching at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he still got 4 hours of writing done before lunch. He set the day down himself, in a letter to his wife Jane.

Mason Currey's Daily Rituals quotes the 1965 letter, reprinted by The Marginalian. He woke at 5:30 AM, wrote until breakfast, ate at home and wrote again until mid-morning. Then he walked into town, ran errands and swam half an hour in the municipal pool, which he had to himself. Afternoons went to teaching, and in the evening he cooked supper, read and listened to jazz on the radio until he was asleep.

It's for anyone with a day job and a book they keep not writing. It suits people who are sharp early and flat by mid-afternoon.

You give your project your freshest hours, get a daily swim and end with an evening that asks nothing of you. He also numbed his mind at 5:30 PM with several Scotches, but the schedule works fine with tea or nothing. The teaching block and the lunch time are our estimates, and weekends match weekdays.