This Modern Writer: Things I Do That I Think Are Writerly And Therefore An Acceptable Use of Time, But Are Really Just Procrastination

Play Bejewelled while listening to podcasts about writing.

Make lists: To Do lists, lists of stories to finish, lists of things I want to write essays about, lists of books I want to review, lists of words that inspire me, lists of character names, lists of titles.

Make a list of all the different lists I have made.

Request books from the online library catalogue ten at a time, more than I have time to read, especially as I already have approximately 200 books I haven’t read, then never bother to actually go and pick them up, and avoid all voicemails and postcards informing me that my book has arrived, then wait for the books to be sent back, only to go and reserve them again with no intention of picking them up.

Read my Amazon Recommended For You list and carefully tick ‘not interested’ or ‘I already own this’ in order to make the suggestions ever more accurate. Then request the ones I want to read from the online library catalogue ten at a time… and so on.

Add books to my Amazon wishlist until it contains more books than I could ever read in a lifetime even if I didn’t sleep or eat or write or go to work or speak to anyone.

Move books from my bookshelves to the pile beside the bed called Books I Am Currently Reading. Flip through the first few pages. Read the author bio. Put the book on my knees when I’m lying in bed wondering what to read. Then put the book back down, where it stays until it’s obscured by the next book I take off the shelf, only to be shelved again when I do my monthly clean-up of books I have left beside the bed.

Take an hour-long bus ride to the other side of town to return a book to the university library, walk up a steep hill, post the book through the book-return slot, then stand stupidly for a moment in front of the building. Consider going for a coffee, not because I want one but because I feel stupid travelling a two hour round-trip just to post a book in a slot. Walk back down the hill and take an hour-long bus ride back home. (I kid myself that this is writerly because I always feel very inspired by listening to music and watching the city pass by the bus windows; I rarely remember to take a pen and notebook and have a terrible memory, so the inspiration is ultimately fruitless).

Write long and rambling lists of my favourite procrastination methods and post them on the PANK blog.