One of my fave newsletters is David Moldawer’s The Maven Game. Moldawer is an editor, specialising in nonfiction, but pretty much everything he sends out is worth a look. I really enjoyed this week’s short piece about Eminem’s work routine, because it’s close to my own.
People wrongly assume that creatives do their work on a day bed in a fog of hashish smoke, which is true as far as it goes, but you still gotta turn up to the daybed on a regular schedule.
For Eminem, it's a 9-to-5 job.
Assuming the recording work would begin in the evening—as it usually does in the music industry—the singer Akon arrived at the studio around six p.m. to begin his first collaboration session with Eminem.
"Em just left," the studio guys told him. Akon called the rapper to find out where he'd gone. As it turned out, Eminem had gone home. It was the end of his workday.
"You coming back?" Akon said. "I just got here."
"Yeah," Eminem replied, "I'll be back there at nine a.m."
The next day, Akon and Eminem both arrived at the studio at nine a.m. and got to work. At one o'clock, Eminem went to lunch for an hour. At five, the rapper took off his headphones mid-verse.
"He's halfway in, he's like, alright bro, I'll see you tomorrow," Akon recalled.
Work on the track proceeded along these lines. Eventually, it culminated in a hit track, "Smack That."
Producer and Def Jam co-founder Rick Rubin recently talked about working with Eminem, too.
"He's always writing in a book," Rubin said. When he wasn't rapping, Eminem would fill one notebook after another. "Are these rhymes to use?" Rubin asked him.
"99 percent of what I write I'll never use," Eminem replied. "It's just to stay engaged in the process of writing and finding new ways to write so that, when I need it, it just comes."
This last bit makes me feel better about those phrases in my notepad that I can never use because I don’t remember if I wrote them or just copied them down.
"This last bit makes me feel better about those phrases in my notepad that I can never use because I don’t remember if I wrote them or just copied them down" don't let that stop you remember the great American Physicist Tom Lehrer song Lobachevsky
It’s amazing that when you see creative genius ... athletes, writers , musicians , standup comics.....they make it look effortless. The truth is of course that you find out they all work and practice their ssses off. The ability to create is a talent. Doesn’t amount to shit without the work
Finishing up at 5pm, no matter what, I kinda get but kinda don't. There's the point that working late just to be seen to be a workaholic is obviously an exercise in diminishing returns- the quality just won't be there. But on the other hand, there is working late because you know that the end is close, that just a little bit more effort will be worth it.
And that's just my own wage-slave existence. What's it like for self-employed creative types?
“I only write when inspiration strikes. Fortunately, it strikes at nine every morning.” William Faulkner
"This last bit makes me feel better about those phrases in my notepad that I can never use because I don’t remember if I wrote them or just copied them down" don't let that stop you remember the great American Physicist Tom Lehrer song Lobachevsky
"Plagiarize,
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize...
Only be sure always to call it please, "research"
It’s amazing that when you see creative genius ... athletes, writers , musicians , standup comics.....they make it look effortless. The truth is of course that you find out they all work and practice their ssses off. The ability to create is a talent. Doesn’t amount to shit without the work
Finishing up at 5pm, no matter what, I kinda get but kinda don't. There's the point that working late just to be seen to be a workaholic is obviously an exercise in diminishing returns- the quality just won't be there. But on the other hand, there is working late because you know that the end is close, that just a little bit more effort will be worth it.
And that's just my own wage-slave existence. What's it like for self-employed creative types?
I think I read that deep-focus productivity nerd Cal Newport has a similar 9-5 office hours approach.