The Morning Post

The cost of keeping options open

I spent most of September refusing to decide anything. Three drafts of the same chapter, two of them abandoned at the halfway mark, none of them wrong exactly. Keeping every door open felt responsible at the time.

It was not. A decision made badly on Tuesday beats a decision deferred until November, because the bad one teaches you something by Thursday.

Three things worth the time

• Reading the same short book twice in one week instead of two books once.
• Writing the difficult message first thing, before the day builds excuses.
• Walking the long way home when there is nothing waiting at the other end.

None of this is advice. It is just what held up when the weeks got crowded.

On keeping a slow archive

Everything I write gets filed by month, never by topic. Topics shift and the folders stop making sense within a year. Months do not move.

Four years in, the archive is useless for searching and perfect for remembering, which turned out to be what I wanted from it.