Your Daily Routine as a Creator?

[Katy133]

I recently read a book called Daily Rituals : How Artists Work by Mason Currey. It's a collection of artists, writers, and other famous creators explaining the daily routines they use to be productive. There's also a blog version of it you can check out.

Summary/Blurb of the book: "How artists work, how they ritualize their days with the comforting (mundane) details of their lives: their daily routines, fears, dreams, naps, eating habits, and other prescribed, finely calibrated "subtle maneuvers" that help them use time, summon up willpower, exercise self-discipline and keep themselves afloat with optimism. Artists considering how they work--in letters, diaries, interviews, beguilingly compiled and edited by Mason Currey. Portraits that inspire, amuse, and delight and that reveal the profound fusion of discipline and dissipation through which the artistic temperament is allowed to evolve, recharge, emerge. From Beethoven and Kafka to George Sand, Picasso, Woody Allen and Agatha Christie; from Leo Tolstoy and Henry James to Charles Dickens and John Updike, here are writers, composers, painters, choreographers, playwrights, philosophers, caricaturists, comedians, poets, sculptors, and scientists on how they create (and avoid creating) their creations. A Sampling of Daily Rituals Charles Dickens Dickens's eldest son recalled that, "no city clerk was ever more methodical or orderly than he; no humdrum, monotonous, conventional task could ever have been discharged with more punctuality or with more business-like regularity than he gave to the work of his imagination and fancy." Dickens rose at 7:00, had breakfast at 8:00, and was in his study by 9:00. He stayed there until 2:00, taking a brief break for lunch with his family, during which he often seemed to be in a trance, eating mechanically and barely speaking a word before hurrying back to his desk. On an ordinary day he could complete about two thousand words, but during a flight of imagination he sometimes managed twice that amount. Maya Angelou I keep a hotel room in which I do my work--a tiny, mean room with just a bed and, sometimes, if I can find it, a face basin. I keep a dictionary, a Bible, a deck of cards, and a bottle of sherry in the room... "

This got me wondering: What are the routines visual novel developers, writers, and artists have?

[Mammon]

Writing is pretty much when I have the opportunity and calmth of surroundings for it, whether I'll actually get some writing done is another matter. I also do it whenever I have my laptop but nothing to do, for example while riding the train. I can't burn myself out with writing, at least not inevitably.

Drawing on the other hand, I need a strict-ish schedule for that because if I draw unhinged without time limits I will be super-motivated until it's suddenly all gone. Getting back to work on the sprites will be more difficult once that happens. So, I have a few streams and podcasts that I'll listen to while drawing and I will not draw before the next one is put on youtube. Making sure I can't and don't exhaust my drawing enthusiasm has worked moderately well thus far.

Coding.... That's more a matter of telling myself not to let the drawing and art go to waste and to get off my lazy ass. Get something done every day, Mammon.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

I've discovered a few things about myself over the years that determine my productivity.

One, I can't draw when I'm angry. Just like, I don't have the concentration for it, and it seems like my motor skills go to crap. So, if I want to have a productive art day, I really need to avoid emotional triggers for myself. I draw best in a zen state of calm, which from art school I recognize as weird, since most artists seem to need to be overflowing with emotion to create art.

Two, I don't write well in a zen state of calm. I write best when I'm angry. So that works out, as I can alternate writing days with drawing days based on emotional state.

Three, I've discovered that having a creative day job is TERRIBLE for my personal creative productivity. It's like I wake up in the morning with only so much 'creative juice' and it can all be exhuasted before I get home to work on my own projects. The most productive period I ever had was while working in a super boring job. I only had to do 5 minutes of actual ANYTHING an hour, so I could think and write and draw in a notebook most of the day. (The company went out of business - can you believe it? ;P )

Four, I have too many projects. I have one passion project where I have 300 pages of notes on the game, 100 pages of actual script, 60 pages of technical documents (under-the-hood numbers and formulas, game logic), and several spreadsheets of character progression breakdowns. It's probably my favorite project, but also one I can't really commit to, because I know it would probably take 5+ years of part-time and full-time work to complete it to my satisfaction.

I try to aggressively trim down projects to the bare bones where they can be completed in a realistic time frame, but I lose personal interest when they get too simple. Some of my best achievements and work has been on simple projects, but I wasn't very creatively fulfilled by them.

[JBShields]

Writer here! I am part of a writer's support group. We sit around in coffee shops and write (but we each have our own individual projects). I know, very stereotypical.

[Lesleigh63]

It's not the same for each day.

Day's I go to my day job (4 days a week) - I get up early and do some practice art (just in a sketchbook) for 90mins. Makes me feel I've achieved something for me for the day and puts me in a good mood [although it's not always easy to get myself out of my nice warm bed - but once I'm up it's fine].

Over the other three days - I want to try and do something for my visual novel. I've only the one project running. So either some writing or some bg art for the time being. I'd like to try to fit in at least 8 hrs on this over those 3 days.

[TheJerminator15]

Angrily stare at the screen and procrastinate until I can write something down.

[Aviala]

I have finally found some sort of a routine - I wake up around 9 or 10, eat breakfast and watch some youtube videos or something and start working around 11 or 12. I'm currently suffering from a burnout and can't work more than around 4 hours a day, so I usually stop around 3PM. If it's art, though, I feel like I can work for long periods - mentally. Physically, my wrist starts hurting after a while. As for my tasks, those vary wildly. I usually just do what's most urgent. Usually that means answering emails and keeping up with freelancers, and if that's done, writing. I have a hard time fitting coding into my schedule - it's less fun than other tasks, so I tend to postpone it...

[Sonomi]

I'm doing my best, but there's a reason why I posted in Ideas and not Works In Progress. lol

My daily routine now is getting ready for work, coming home in the afternoon to write a few things I thought about, maybe work on music, and then repeat the next day. Art...yeah, I need to work on that! Ahhh :3

[Imperf3kt]

My routine?

5:15 alarm goes off, turn it off or ignore it
~5:45 get out of bed
5:50 make bed, get dressed
6:00 leave for work
6:30-5:00 work
~5:00 - 5:15 leave work, go check mail, pay bills, etc
5:30 park car in garage (I live only 5 minutes from work)
~5:35-6:00 shower and wash work clothes (my job is very dirty so I need to wash my clothing daily)
~6:00-7:00 make lunch for next day while trying to eat dinner and have coffee
~7:00 go lay in bed with laptop beside me
Start Ren'Py
Wake up 15 minutes later, sometimes in a pool of drool
Put laptop into sleep mode and place on floor beside bed
Go play videogames for ~2 hours
~9:30 Go back to bed, get laptop out again
Stare at Ren'Py for five minutes
close Ren'Py, go browse internet until midnighy
turn laptop off, roll over, go to sleep


This has been my routine for the last two or three weeks