It’s not easy being depressed, and it’s not easy being a writer. Being a depressed writer is worse than the sum of the parts. I often wonder why I bother; why not just go for the easy life of staying in bed all day long, which is often what I most often most want to do? Instead I struggle to make time for my writing.
It does mean that for depressed writers there is the question of how can we best arrange our time to facilitate writing? Of course it’s a problem all writers and creative people share. One of the best books I have read recently is Daily Rituals: How Great Minds Make Time, Find Inspiration, and Get to Work by Mason Currey (2013). Unusual creativity comes from unusual people living unusual lives. It is quite difficult to discern a pattern in the most creative lives. Have a look at this nice graphical representation of the daily routines of a sample of creative people (including creative scientists):
https://podio.com/site/creative-routines
With all sorts of caveats, and with many exceptions, the pattern seems to be get started early, exercise, relax. I’m not being prescriptive: until I cut down my quetiapine medication I was incapable of getting started early. And when I was Dean I had countless 8.30 and 9.00 am meetings, which really got in the way of getting deep work done (see my earlier blog on “Deep work”). There is robust evidence that some people are morning types and some evening, and if I were going to be prescriptive about anything, it would be to work out when you have most energy and feel best, and do your most creative work then. So of course there are many exceptions to this general pattern of writing first thing: some writers can only really get going at night after a few martinis. (Amazingly though Ernest Hemingway always started writing at six in the morning, even if he had been up late the night before with hard drinking, and worked until about noon.)
For me it ‘s good though to get the writing out of the way. I can never relax until I’ve completed my writing goal for the day. Another problem with starting late is that I never know how a writing task is going to take until I’ve done it. I’m writing a book on consciousness at the moment and I’ve set myself the target of a thousand words a day. It preys on my mind until the target bar in Scrivener (my currently preferred book writing software) reaches 100% for the day.
It is worth spending time on working out what is the perfect day for living the perfect life, in the sense of maximising quality time to get what we want to get done, done. It’s obvious that routine is important; routine crystallised to the point of ritual in many cases, as the title of Currey’s book suggests. Routine does bring its own problems for living – routine is the enemy of spontaneity, unless we schedule some hours in which to be spontaneous, which almost defies the purpose. But when on a creative burst, writing a book with a deadline, I need routine. A rigid routine or else I will not get it done. This routine means being tough on myself as well as other people. No exceptions.
I do wonder how some people manage to get so much more than me. I struggle at the moment with work, let alone writing. I try and free up as much quality time (for reading, writing, and thinking) as possible by outsourcing things like cleaning and mowing the lawn. I’m lucky that I can. How do people with children manage? But there are some days when I am so depressed that I just want to sit and cry and stare into space. Fortunately these days are much rarer when I’m writing; perhaps the sense of purpose writing provides helps us lift my mood. But one of the most depressing things about being depressed is how much time is lost to being ill. It is tragic.
What is the meaning of my life? 