The demands of producing six daily strips and a Sunday page required a regular schedule, and Schulz fulfilled his duties in a businesslike manner, devoting seven hours a day, five days a week, to Peanuts. On weekdays he rose at daybreak, took a shower, shaved, and woke his children for breakfast (usually pancakes, prepared by his wife). At 8:20, Schulz drove the kids to school in the family station wagon, stopping to pick up the neighbor’s children on the way. Then it was time to sit down at the drawing board, in the private studio beside his house. He would begin by doodling in pencil while he let his mind wander; his usual method was to “just sit there and think about the past, kind of dredge up ugly memories and things like that.” Once he had a good idea, however, he would work quickly and with intense concentration to get it onto paper before the inspiration dried up. Schulz stayed in his studio for lunch—almost always a ham sandwich and a glass of milk—and continued work- ing until around 4:00, when the kids returned home from school. The regularity of the work suited his temperament and helped him cope with the chronic anxiety he suffered throughout his life. “I would feel just terrible if I couldn’t draw comic strips,” Schulz once said. “I would feel very empty if I were not allowed to do this sort of thing.”

 Throughout his life, Picasso went to bed late and got up late. At the boulevard de Clichy, he would shut himself in the studio by 2:00 p.m. and work there until at least dusk. Meanwhile, his girlfriend of seven years, Fernande, was left alone to her own devices, hanging around the apartment, waiting for Picasso to finish his work and join her for dinner. When he finally emerged from his studio, however, he was hardly good company. “He rarely spoke during meals; sometimes he would not utter a word from beginning to end,” Fernande recalled. “He seemed to be bored, when he was in fact absorbed.” She blamed his chronic bad mood on diet—the hypochondriacal Picasso had recently resolved to drink nothing but mineral water or milk and eat only vegetables, fish, rice pudding, and grapes.