Daily Routines tells us about the typical schedule for Simone de Beauvoir. For more on Beauvoir, see The Beauvoir Series and other books from UIP.

INTERVIEWER
Do your writer friends have the same habits as you?

DE BEAUVOIR
No, it’s quite a personal matter. Genet, for example, works quite differently. He puts in about twelve hours a day for six months when he’s working on something and when he has finished he can let six months go by without doing anything. As I said, I work every day except for two or three months of vacation when I travel and generally don’t work at all. I read very little during the year, and when I go away I take a big valise full of books, books that I don’t have time to read. But if the trip lasts a month or six weeks, I do feel uncomfortable, particularly if I’m between two books. I get bored if I don’t work.