NON-WRITING: A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.

Is there an author in the house?
   Yes, and the author must do things that don't involve typing. Instead of typing, I was calling in the heating engineer to deal with the boiler. Summoning an electrician to check that faulty circuit.
   Industrial levels of shredding? I'm all over that action.
   Waiting in all day for the engineer isn't a problem if you are a writer. There'll be a knock at the door, so stay busy. Actually take time away from writing to, you know, tidy stuff.
   Now that is a writer problem. You let things stack up. Really stack up. I'll shred all this paper eventually. Hmm. That recycling bin is going to be lifted in a day or two.
   Decisions, decisions. Shred everything beforehand, and try to cram the confetti into your bin? Don't foolishly climb into your bin to squash the paper down.
   Never do that.
   I wouldn't recommend that. No. Not unless you have portable steps to assist you in your madness. And not even then. No. I can't advocate so insane a course of action.
   Okay, so I did that once...two or three times.
   The more digital our lives become, the more effing paper we seem to end up recycling.
   What was the alternative? Empty the bin and do the shredding later. Yes. Later. Writers know loads of words, and that is certainly one of them.
   Some gardening. I recommend all writers do some gardening. By this, I mean cover your garden in flagstones and spray the few persistent weeds with napalm every few weeks.
   Weeds pushed through the asphalt non-jungle, creating a jungle that pushed soil up across the concrete. More soil gave more space to more weeds.
   I had to take a shovel to the path. And further back, under the window, dirt blew in from elsewhere and gave roots a landing-ground.
   This once-in-a-blue-moon piece of soil maintenance was dealt with. My accumulated stock of earth grew a shovelful larger. The tenacity of the weed to perpetuate itself in a shallow environment is well-known.
   Life intrudes, and I stopped editing Melissa C. Water's book at the halfway-point to deal with other things. Just before I came here to write this blog post, I blitzed through a month of her diary.
   If you are reading this, Melissa, I'm sure you'll understand that I had to chop my way through plants just to reach the keyboard.