Distractions

[Copied and pasted from my external blog. Please do take a look. I'm trying to update regularly, every few days or so]

The amount of writing I’ve been able to do lately has been distressingly negligible. I think it shows from the fact that it’s been over a week since I’ve updated this blog.

It all comes down to distraction really. This time of year is always busy academically, but in the final year of a law degree it reaches the point of truly mental, I’ve discovered. I don’t make things easy on myself, I know. I have a tendency to procrastinate, and to bite of much more than I can swallow.

The last few weeks I’ve had to knuckle down though. I’ve had 7,000 words worth of work to submit, as well as a presentation to do. To date I’ve done 3,500 words, and no presentation. Added to that, I’m hard at work researching and writing my dissertation (on the contemporary relevance of the Law of Treason, in case anyone’s interested), ever more deeply involved in Labour, and the Labour society at uni, and of course trying to keep up my writing. All under the shadow of “What am I going to do come June when I graduate?”


Perhaps if I was snowed in, I'd have more time to devote to writing...
I am still writing though, even if it is more slowly. I’ve recently finished the first drafts of a longish sci-fi short about dimensional rifts and military recruitment, and a short story about unicorns. No, I’m not joking. I’ve also been listening to a lot of fiction podcasts. There are so many great ones out there, but in particular I have to recommend Cast Macabre. It’s a relative newcomer, but has some very good little horror stories, and is lovingly produced by Barry Northern to a top quality standard. You should really take a look.

So there’s a snapshot of my life at present. Plenty of distractions, little in the way of tangible productivity. I’ll be fighting with uni work until term finishes for Christmas (and then probably over Christmas too), but I have a few itching projects just waiting for a time window. Windows I intend to make over the Christmas.

Of course, it could massively snow (again), and I could end up housebound in Brighton, with nothing but time to write. And thinking on it I’m not sure that would be a bad thing.