I’ve recently been trying to dedicate more time to Doing Proper Writing, but I've not had much success so far. I don't know about anyone else, but I find it incredibly difficult to write on a regular basis when I’m working full time, especially when it’s in combination with a demanding commute (currently involving two tubes and a train). But I do miss writing when I'm not doing it regularly. In an ideal world, I’d like to write something every day, but I don’t know if that’s ever going to happen, because most days, by the time I get home from work I feel pretty much exactly like a sloth.


I am in awe of the amazingly prolific people I come across: the ones who manage to turn out novels alongside busy lives, family obligations and full-time jobs, but I'd love to know their secret.

What are your strategies for motivating yourself to keep writing even in your sloth-like moments?

P.S. Check out my two new book reviews up at Bookmunch: poet Gee Williams’s first novel Salvage, and Aleksander Hemon’s new short story collection Love and Other Obstacles.

[sloth photo via zooillogix]

I love Saturdays.

Saturday mornings are for all the best things in life. Mornings which don’t start with the alarm clock ringing at 7 am. Long, lazy breakfasts, ideally involving something like blueberry pancakes or hot chocolate. Reading the Saturday papers (so much better than the Sunday papers) and doing the crosswords. Mooching to the shop and buying something frivolous like flowers or cake. Having more cups of tea than is strictly necessary. Listening to the radio while you float around the house, polishing things and thinking about stopping for a ginger biscuit or two, while you contemplate what you might do later on in the afternoon or in the evening - usually something cheering involving going somewhere and seeing friends. And there are the traces of the excited feeling of childhood Saturdays too - the Saturdays which involved things like riding round the village on my bike (a turquoise Raleigh Bianca), penny sweets in a paper bag, ballet classes and going to the bookstall on Chorley market and spending all my pocket money on paperbacks. Most of all, the lovely sense of possibility. After all, it’s still only Saturday morning. There’s still all of Saturday afternoon and evening, not to mention all of Sunday still to come.

Today I am recovering from a super-busy week I am catching up on domestic things (the War of the Green Taps continues), reading the paper, re-reading The Weather in the Streets by Rosamund Lehman, drinking cinnamon tea, knitting and resolutely ignoring the university work I am supposed to be doing. I am listening to a bit of Radio 4 or, when it annoys me (and/or Any Answers? is on) Radio 3. I am looking forward to going round to my friends’ house for dinner later on.

And in between all of that, I’m just doing absolutely nothing. Except maybe breathing. And sipping my tea. And watching the birds out of the window. It’s very, very good.

I was quite interested to read this article by Jon Henley in the Guardian the other day about Slow Blogging. Slow Bloggers, apparently, are those who "take the time to think, study and reflect before they post; who do not feel the need to slap the first thing that comes out of their head straight onto the web." The Slow Blogging movement has also recently attracted the attention of the NY Times where the practice is compared to that of meditation, whilst fast, news-driven blogging is "the equivalent of fast-food restaurants". In some ways though, I can't help thinking that Slow Blogging seems almost like anti-blogging: it is described as “a rejection of immediacy … an affirmation that not all things worth reading are written quickly”, an act of “speaking like it matters, like the pixels that give your words form are precious and rare”.

I don't think I would be very good at being a Slow Blogger. I think I am probably a Fast and Sloppy Blogger, but I can't help thinking that maybe that's half the fun.

Sometimes, though, I do think it is good to be slow. Right now, I am moving very slowly. I am being a cat cushion. I am knitting, one row at a time. I am having a cup of tea, and then maybe a bit later, another one. I am watching a blackbird eating orange berries off a bush in the garden, and noticing the clouds move slowly across the sky. I am meandering, dawdling.

I like this example of really, really slow blogging.

I feel like a sloth.

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I have a little something up on a handful of stones today. You can find it here.