Writers block - irregular reflections episode 2

I've learned to identify my thinking modes. The most intrusive has caught up with me and I've spent a lot of spare time yesterday and today half-watching a complete season of a TV series. Obviously, I need to think. I know it's thinking rather than watching TV, because look, I'm multitasking. I'm still paying attention to the television, but my mind is in six other places as well. Since the series has only 2 episodes to go, I must be near writing time. This is good, because tomorrow is a writing day.

I don't have writers' block. I have the need to think, somewhere, deep in the recesses of my brain. I have the luxury to do this, so I am, and my writing will be the better for it. When I don't have the luxury, I deal. I note to myself that I need to revisit it later if the piece is a draft and there will be time later, because it's not going to be properly developed. Or I write and just accept that it won't have that connected feeling that properly considered writing has.

Now you know. Not only do you know that not all things we think of as blocking our writing are actually doing so: some of them are actually helping us with us, but now you know why my writing can be a little patchy. Sometimes it's tolerable and sometimes it's really, really good. Imbibing TV the way some people imbibe alcohol is just one of my tricks for getting that thinking done, safely. It's the one I'm doing today. This means that whatever I write tomorrow is going to me so much better than otherwise. If I'm really lucky, my mind is processing both the story adn the monograph and I have gained hours of work from apparent time out.