I first published this image in a post titled Aides-Mémoire, which recounts a cross-disciplinary collaboration that I undertook years ago with a visual artist I’d never met. Every week, I would mail her a notebook containing a new hand-written poem, and she, in return, would send me a notebook containing a new drawing or a delicate paper sculpture unfurling from its pages:

I can still vividly remember the anticipation that I felt each week as I opened the mailbox to find Anne-Sophie’s latest envelope/artwork inside. I would tear the package open and flip through the notebook to find how she had responded to my last entry: subtly, obliquely, never in an obvious or literal way. I did my best to respond in kind, not just with poems but also with glued-in photos and cards and scraps of paper, items inspired rather than directly informed by Anne-Sophie’s enigmatic line drawings.

I must have carried a visceral memory of that playful, tactile, serendipity-affirming exchange when I decided last February to give away 50 handcrafted notebooks as part of a Special Event celebrating the fourth anniversary of my WriteSPACE community. This time, however, it was a one-way affair: all you had to do was register for the event, type your name and address into an online form, and voilà — a free notebook was yours for the asking, no strings attached.

Between the effort involved in designing, producing, and mailing out 50 unique notebooks and the agonisingly slow speed of snail-mail these days, many of my colorful creations have only recently arrived in their new homes. A few, it seems, have been lost in transit — although you never know, even migratory birds sometimes blow off course before finding their inner compass again! A number of recipients have not yet responded to my plea for news and a photo, but I trust that they will soon. 🥰

In the meantime, here are some of the many inspiring images I’ve received so far from writers around the world:

Notebooks at home: Collaboration (Kathy, USA); Compass Points (Karen, USA); Diving Deep (Lynne, UK); Freewriting (Kate, New Zealand); Ideas (Nicola, UK); Lines (Kirsi, Finland); Morning Pages (Bibi, Aruba); Notes (Katharina, Germany); Research (Soundarya, India); Structure (Catalina, UK)

A special shout-out to Heather S, a US-based historian on sabbatical at Oxford, who sent me this stylish blank book from Blackwell’s Bookshop, upcycled from the cover of a French novel:

What a treat it was to receive a package in the mail! In the words of author Lewis Hyde,“the gift must always move” — and these world-winging wordbirds aren’t just moving but flying high as they circle the globe.

Illustration by Selina Tusitala Marsh for Writing with Pleasure

Write more, right now! For exclusive access to live workshops, craft-focused coaching, and premium writing and editing tools, join me and writers from 30+ countries in the WriteSPACE, a vibrant international writing community and resource treasury. To try free for 30 days, click below and enter the discount code WRITEWELL at checkout.

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What can we learn from the daily rituals of famous writers, and how can “subtle maneuvers” in our writing habits help us “wriggle through” (in the words of Franz Kafka) to a more productive writing life of our own?

For this WriteSPACE Special Event in May 2025, I invited Mason Currey, the author of two books on the daily rituals of famous writers and artists, to tell us about his experiences, both as an expert on other people’s writing routines and as the architect of his own. Mason publishes the fabulous Substack newsletter Subtle Maneuvers and facilitates a weekday “Worm Zoom” for anyone craving a daily dose of accountability and camaraderie in support of their creative work.

In the first hour of this free event, Mason and I discussed examples of creative rituals employed by well-known writers — including Mason himself! — and explored the difference between rituals and routines. The second hour, for members of our paid writing communities, featured a hands-on workshop based on Mason’s “Worm School,” a collection of small but significant strategies to help you move forward with your writing even in the face of resistance. 

Here is WriteSPACE Event Manager Amy Lewis’ personal account of the live event.

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Mason Currey’s books are a compendium of 300 mini-biographies that read like portraits of creative weirdness. From Beethoven counting exactly 60 coffee beans for his morning brew to Tchaikovsky walking for precisely two hours a day to ward off bad luck, his book Daily Rituals is less a how-to manual and more a testament to the glorious chaos of the creative process.

You might pick up Mason’s books hoping to uncover the secret formula to creativity. Sadly, Mason says there isn't one. Each writer's ideal schedule is a delicate cocktail of personal quirks, energy cycles, and often, pure necessity. (And your cocktail might even include childcare, a day job, and/or a dog that needs walking). But one trend does emerge from Mason’s narratives: many creatives find they do their best work at a particular time of day, so that’s definitely a habit worth experimenting with.

A question that hovers over Mason’s vignettes: how could any of these people afford to be artists? The answers range from menial jobs to grand inheritances, dubious side hustles, and the occasional theft (perhaps not literally, but some schemes might raise eyebrows). This messy financial backdrop is the subject of Mason’s next book, Making Art and Making a Living, forthcoming in 2026.

It was deeply affirming to hear that even some of the greatest writers struggled to get their work done. Writing is hard! And it should be hard. If it feels too easy, Mason warned, you might not be doing your best work. (Cue a collective sigh of relief from everyone who's ever stared into the void of an empty Word doc. Side note: if that’s you right now, you may appreciate Inger Mewburn’s post ‘The Valley of Shit’ from her Thesis Whisperer blog).

Mason’s philosophy of "wriggling through" stems from a Kafka quote: "Time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy... one must try to wriggle through by subtle maneuvers." It’s this very spirit that fuels his excellent newsletter and his Worm School, an offering for paid subscribers. When facing creative paralysis, Mason doesn’t prescribe vague mantras such as "Trust the process." He prefers wildly specific, delightfully zany hacks, such as these gems offered courtesy of an ADHD coach crowdsourcing on social media:

• Make things messier so you have to tidy them up (which could apply to your kitchen or your intro paragraph).

• Create an alter-ego who always gets things done.

• Tell your family you finished a task... and then race to actually finish it before they get home.

Helen and Mason also discussed where the line lies between routines (often we see this as the ideal version of our day) and rituals (small, meaningful habits that actually happen). The psychology research backs up the need for rituals: sensory cues and consistent behaviors can nudge your brain into productivity mode.

Habits work when you make them for yourself. That said, a route that works for one book may not work for another. Mason told us that during an interview, novelist Nicholson Baker confessed that he invented a new ritual for every book—including recording pretend lectures on camera and transcribing them in order to find the character’s voice. As Mason put it: "It’s about sticking to things, and also knowing when not to stick to things."

The second hour of the event was a hands-on workshop run by Helen and Mason, which included fun prompts such as:

1. Identify your creative objective.

2. Think of the most obvious/logical/straightforward ways to accomplish that objective.

3. Now you’re not allowed to do those ways. Brainstorm as many other ways as possible.

Some of the standout responses:

• Barricade yourself in a hotel room.

• Set an alarm every two hours, day and night. Stay up until the draft is done or delirium sets in.

• Get a burner laptop with no distractions.

• Plagiarise. (Just kidding!)

• Don’t clean your house, exercise, or do any of the other tasks you need to do, just finish the chapter.

• Don’t do the research. Just cut the section that needs it.

• Hire a butler to smack you with a spoon every time you procrastinate.

Everyone left the session laughing, energised, and oddly inspired. If Kafka could wriggle through the horror of his office job, surely we can wriggle through our inboxes, frustration, and existential writing dread toward a more satisfying writing practice?

A warm thank you to Helen and Mason for their insights, and to all the writers who joined us.

Now go forth. Be routine-ish. Ritual-adjacent. Wriggle with flair!

WriteSPACE and WS Studio members can find the full recording of the two-hour Special Event in their Video library.  

Not a member? Register to receive an email with a link to the video of the first hour.

Better yet! Join the WriteSPACE with a free 30 day trial, and access our full Library of videos and other writing resources as part of your membership plan.

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