in the 1930s, the writing teacher Dorothea Brande wrote a persuasive argument for doing creative work in the mornings, when we’re in the midst of the “waking dream.” As Brande put it: “To have the full benefit of the richness of the unconscious”49 you must begin your creative work “when the unconscious is in the ascendant.” In the mornings, Brande advised, get up a half hour earlier than usual and—“without talking, without reading the morning’s paper”—begin to write. This advice can be extended beyond writing to any creative endeavor: Get up, go someplace quiet, and start thinking and
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