William Wordsworth disciplined himself to sit down every day and write. His voluminous body of cherished and anthologized work stands as a testimony to that commitment. Dana Gioia, renowned American poet and current head of the National Endowment for the Arts, worked as vice president of General Foods for many years before he began to win awards for his poetry. He would come home each night exhausted, and, after the family was in bed, force himself to rewrite whatever last paragraph he had written the previous evening. This usually served to engender a second wind. He wrote this way for years, and eventually he won the American Book Award in 2001. His coworkers didn’t even know he was a writer. In her poetry guide, Mary Oliver, also emphasizes the importance of disciplined consistency in the artist’s life. She makes the point that the muse can, contrary to popular contention, be trained to show up more consistently, if the artist disciplines himself to make the same commitment.

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