7.5 hours thinking about writing/editing versus 3 hours actually getting on with it

28. Monday 2 February 2026

If someone told me they spent all day from 7.30am either thinking about starting writing or reading (unrelated) or doing blue sky thinking (AKA attempting to sleep/hide/avoid) or doing chores and didn’t actually start writing until gone 3pm, I’d be appalled at their lack of focus. On the plus side, say that person were me, a productivity burst between 3 and 6 makes up for that … right?

                I don’t know why I couldn’t get started today. Maybe because I’m now convinced that I’ll finish the first draft of version 3 by the end of this week rather than my 14 February deadline and have started tentatively contacting friends about meeting up in London and Kent next week. Extra pressure. Maybe it’s because most of the remaining ten-ish chapters need a complete rewrite, which seems significantly more daunting than either a partial rewrite or a copy-paste-edit. Maybe I am just a bit shit about focussing and getting on with things. Made worse by it being a Monday? I don’t know, but that’s how it sometimes is, and today wasn’t an unheard of schedule for one of my writing days. I did, however, write another chapter yesterday, a rewrite of an important chapter. On that basis though, I can’t blame my sluggish start today on having not connected with my book for the weekend. I wrote on both days (yay me for that at least).

                I maybe should feel pleased with myself for having eventually squeezed out two chapters (one needs finishing off), but I’m clearly still in a bit of a despondent phase.

There pretty much is no other news today. I didn’t even do anything sourdough related, shock, other than eating it and congratulating myself on how good it is. I couldn’t even think what instructions to give AI for an illustration, so here is a photo of my work station from this afternoon when I was doing “useful” things that weren’t getting on with my writing.