For your Stray Attention this weekend…

A very distracted list + subscriber thread

Hello,

I think it’s fair to say that my attention is fairly scattered at the moment. The jet lag is brutal and endless (how do people manage when they do this for work? I am barely competent to fry an egg), and I’ve been trying to meet an interim deadline for my next book, which has led to all manner of fussing on my part. 

You would think by now that I would just sit down and write something, but no. There has to be angst, or it doesn’t feel like writing. I spend a lot of time thinking about those writers who seem to merrily bang out a book a year - and this is, in itself, procrastination. Maybe their secret is that they don’t worry about what other people are doing? Now there’s a thought. 

One of my worst distractive habits is plotting a multitude of other books rather than dealing with the one in hand. Imaginary projects are always just so much more appealing than real ones, I find. Over the past few weeks, I’ve devised a novel that springs entirely from that weird photo of Ivanka Trump holding up a can of beans; a choose-your-own-adventure meditation book with an accompanying live ‘experience’; and a set of short stories in which the central character is God. I am not joking about a single one of these things. I have extensive notes. Send help.