I enjoyed this feature in the New York Times by Wil S. Hylton on author Laura Hillenbrand, who has written two great books, Seabiscuit and Unbroken. Hillenbrand suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome and is mostly homebound with intense episodes of vertigo. She cannot travel to do research or interview her subjects, but she’s turned what seem like obstacles into advantages.

This portion of the article is about Hillenbrand’s research for her book about World War II hero, Louie Zamperini:

“I thought it was actually an advantage to be unable to go to Louie,” she said. Because neither of them had to dress for the interviews and they were in their own homes, their long phone calls enjoyed a warmth and comfort that might otherwise be missing. She could pose the deeply personal questions that even her father had trouble answering. “I would ask a lot of questions about his emotional state,” she said. “ ’What did you feel right in this moment? Were you frightened?’ ” The distance also allowed Hillenbrand to visualize Zamperini in the time period of the book. “He became a 17-year-old runner for me, or a 26-year-old bombardier,” she said. “I wasn’t looking at an old man.”

She goes through periods where her vertigo makes it impossible to read, so she turned to audiobooks and found an advantage:

“It has taught me a lot more about the importance of the rhythm of language,” she said. “Good writing has a musical quality to it, a mathematical quality, a balance and a rhythm. You can feel that much better when it’s read aloud.”

She could easily have given up on trying audacious writing projects. She had a pretty solid excuse. But, instead, she used what should have been disadvantages to produce remarkable work.

And, then, there’s this from near the end of the piece:

“I feel so fully alive when I’m really into a story,” she said. “I feel like all my faculties are engaged, and this is where I’m meant to be. It’s probably what a racehorse feels like when it runs. This is what it’s meant to do, what its body is meant to do.” She paused. “This is what my mind is meant to do.”

To find work, or even a hobby, that produces this kind of flow should be everyone’s aim. When are you most “fully alive”, and what are the circumstances that make you feel like all your faculties are “engaged”? What is your mind meant to do?

I’ve often taken pride in a seat-of-the-pants approach. With Indiana Jones as a model – “I’m making this up as I go!” – winging it seemed a virtue.

With age, though, I’ve developed an appreciation for order and structure and routine. And I’m far from disciplined in actually applying order to my daily life.

We expect creativity to be mysterious and ecstatic, and we wait for it, hoping it will grab hold of us. We delay, waiting to be inspired.

But it’s been my experience that waiting for inspiration leads to a lot of doing nothing. What if it’s the other way around? What if routine and structure, showing up and taking action regardless of your emotional state, were what summoned the muse?

Here is William James as quoted in the excellent book, Daily Rituals, by Mason Curry:

“The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work. There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express volitional deliberation.”

Interestingly, at the time James wrote this he was struggling with the misery of indecision he describes.

As a new school year is beginning, it’s a great time to craft a fresh, new routine for your days. Create a structure of when to arise and exercise and work and eat and read and play and when to turn the lights out. Stick to the schedule. Automate easy decisions, taking them out of your brain and opening space there for more challenging, creative endeavors.

Routine can spark spontaneity. Make a plan, show up consistently, and see if inspiration notices your pattern and begins showing up, too.

I’m reading The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson now. (Thanks to my friend, Jesse, for the recommendation.) It’s an epic fantasy novel (1,000 pages in this first of a planned ten book series) and not my usual reading fare. But I’m immersed in it and marveling at the compelling narrative and level of detail the author has created. Years ago, before the movies ever came out, I read Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and felt a similar level of awe at the marvelous world an author can create.

Intrigued by this young author’s career, I found this interview with Sanderson and appreciated his approach:

I can only speak from my own experience, which may be abnormal, but I really feel that the times where I worried too much about the market were the times I wrote my worst fiction. And the times where I wrote: “this is what I want to read — this is what I’m passionate about,” I wrote my best fiction. And so that’s what I would advise.

That being said, I was very steeped in this genre. You can say what I wanted to read was very naturally an outgrowth of what a lot of what the fandom wanted to read because I was one of them. That’s why it worked for me. And I’m sure there are a number of people who are writing to their passion, and it just doesn’t end up catching on. I wrote 13 books before I got published, and at the end of the day I decided I would rather keep writing and never publish than give up writing or go do something else. And if I reached the end of my life and had 70 unpublished novels, I’d still consider myself a successful writer. That decision has driven me ever since and it’s worked out for me. -Brandon Sanderson

He’s writing what he wants to read and seems as if he would be content if he was never published.

That’s a good formula for work in general, not just writing. Make things that will delight you. Do your best, not for the chance for advancement or to impress bosses or to win some sales competition. Be awesome in all that you do whether anyone else notices or not. You will notice. And you will delight in the intrinsic rewards of work that shines regardless of any extrinsic rewards.

And that approach is more likely to produce quality work that does resonate and connect with others in a more meaningful way than trying to figure out what will sell.