John Updike’s Writing Routine

“Even though you have a busy life, try to reserve an hour a day to write. Some very good things have been written on an hour a day.”

John Updike always knew he wanted to be an artist. As a boy in small-town Pennsylvania, he thought he might become a cartoonist. He filled sketchbooks with drawings, studied painting, and dreamed of working for Walt Disney. But it was language that ultimately won him over—first through poetry, then essays, then fiction.