On Being Arrested

The word "arresting" has a number of meanings, including, on the one hand, "engaging or riveting" and, on the other, "putting the kibosh on progress". I've spent the last five minutes looking out of my window, watching a family of newly-fledged Great Tits being taught to feed by a very patient parent. I've been utterly absorbed by the scene. It's an enriching experience (teaching me things, honing my powers of observation) but it's also a distraction, a marvellous excuse not to craft my next novel. But wait: if a writer doesn't take time out to observe the world, to see it with fresh eyes, he or she will have nothing new to say. So when does a distraction become a rich learning experience? As with everything in life, it's about balance, but it's also about focussing your leisure time on the new and the interesting, so that resting time is "arresting" time in the positive, rather than the negative sense of that word.