If being a writer requires such discipline, then thankfully, we can look to esteemed writers’ routines that they steadily adopted, over time.

Creative people don’t all wear paint-splattered clothes or carry notebooks. In fact, some of the most original thinkers rely on routines that look strange or even counterproductive.

In 2023, the poet Peter Gizzi happened to walk into a recording session of the Massachusetts band Sunburned Hand of the Band. As a band member recounted on Instagram, Gizzi was “clenching the ...