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Living Like Jane Austen For a Day
My experience trying out a Regency era writing routine
Recently I watched the film Becoming Jane, starring Anne Hathaway as Jane Austen. While it’s not the most accurate depiction of Jane’s life — they played pretty fast and loose with the details of her love life for dramatic effect — it did give me an idea. What if I tried to follow her writing routine, or even her entire daily routine, as an experiment?
So I did a little research. Unsurprisingly, there isn’t lots of information about how she spent each hour of her day — after all, she wasn’t a 21st century influencer who posted every detail of her morning routine to TikTok. However, I did find a few articles on the subject from historians and devoted Austen fans (I’ve included links to these at the end for anyone interested).
I will admit that I adjusted the timings a bit, particularly the meal times. Apparently the Austens usually ate their dinner (or what we would now call lunch) closer to 3:30pm and their supper very late in the evening (8 or 9pm). I don’t know about you, but I would be absolutely starving if I did that! Plus I had to be mindful of when I needed to take my medications. So I did alter those to be earlier. I also cheated slightly by starting my morning off with a meditation and yoga session, as I didn’t want to skip a day. Other…
