I’d been treating as a bad habit, but it’s not a bad habit, it’s a good habit—my habit of wandering through the library stacks to look at whatever titles catch my eye. I love doing this, and I’ve found a surprising number of good books this way. I’d always considered it an inefficient use of time, but actually it was a perfect distraction. The fact is, I can’t write for three hours straight, or for even forty-five minutes. I need a lot of breaks. It’s a Secret of Adulthood: To keep going, I sometimes need to allow myself to stop.
