William Styron's Daily Routine

William Styron wrote Sophie's Choice and The Confessions of Nat Turner, which won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize. He pinned Flaubert's maxim about an orderly life to his workroom door, then kept an unconventional writing routine for 30 years. It started at noon and put the work in the late afternoon.

He slept late, read and thought in bed for another hour or so, and had lunch with his wife Rose. Errands, mail, music and daydreaming eased him toward the workroom, where from 4:00 PM he spent 4 hours perfecting each paragraph until 200 or 300 words were done. Cocktails and dinner with family and friends followed, then drinking, reading, smoking and music until the small hours, while Rose guarded the door and ran the household, a day Mason Currey first posted on his Daily Routines blog.

It's for people whose minds wake late and who can keep their mornings free. It works best with someone, or something, guarding the door, as Rose did.

You get one protected block with a clear target, a few hundred words, and a long evening to unwind. Take the quota and the late start, and leave the drinks and the 3:00 AM bedtime behind. The exact bedtime and a day that repeats all week are our simplifications.