Being on my own is weird. Many of the things that I tend to do when Kim is at home turn out to be less attractive when I’m on my own for a longer period. For example, TV: I’ve watched almost nothing this week, which is unusual for someone who grew up nursemaided by the television.
(This is true. My mother used to say that before I could sit up on my own, she would prop me up with cushions so I could watch television, as it kept me quiet.)
I had a trip into London on Tuesday to see my old colleague Maria, who now works about five minutes walk from where I used to work – we had been that close to each other for months and not realised. It was great to catch up and – as it typical for when we meet up - what was meant to be a quick coffee ended up as nearly two hours of hilarity.
Despite my enthusiasm for Readwise Reader I have been tempted this week to dump it in favour of something more simple. However, I have a feeling that’s because I have a huge backlog of unprocessed reading in it and when I have that backlog in any system my instinct is to dump it and use another tool, starting from scratch. It’s a bad habit, so I’m making myself spend time going through and triaging what I still want to read.
And a reminder today that caffeine addiction is a fearsome thing. Since I stopped working my coffee intake has done up. Although I don’t drink any after 5pm it’s rare that I have less than six cups through the day, which is a lot. Enough, in fact, to make the symptoms of caffeine withdrawal bad. If you have never had a caffeine withdrawal it’s a reminder that it’s a physically addictive drug: for me, it manifests as a headache which nothing will shift, plus nausea. There’s nothing you can do except ride it out by lying down in a darkened room. Not nice
So of course I went out and got coffee. It still took a couple of hours to shift. By god I love coffee.
The three things which caught my attention
- Notes on being a single person Mastodon server is a good introduction to the pros and cons of running your own instance. It’s one of those things which falls into the category of “because you can, doesn’t mean you should”.
- Another thing in the same category: how Michael Moorcock wrote a novel in three days. No really, don’t do this, unless you are Michael Moorcock.
- This unpublished (till now) piece by Harry McCracken reminded me of how much work goes into journalism before you put any words on the screen. 90% of journalism happens away from your desk – or it used to. I used to say “journalism happens when you pick up the phone” and while the method of communication might have changed, the fundamental principle hasn’t.
Things I have been writing
I wrote an ending to a story and then junked it. So much for that.
Things I have been reading
The Agony and the Ego, edited by Clare Boylan, is out of print but I was lucky enough to find a copy in the University of Kent Library. It includes a wonderful essay by Hilary Mantel on her writing method, which appears pretty close to mine: it involves the steady accretion of phrases, characters and situations until something takes shape, rather than a pre-planned, heavily plotted form. Annoyingly this appears to be the only time this essay has been published – and Boylan’s book is now out of print. Copies go for about £20 secondhand.
