What do you do when you’re not writing?
This is a question that made me sit down and think. What the hell do I do when I’m not writing?
I suppose I do some lecturing (as well as classroom prep and marking) but I’m not so sure that counts. Because I teach creative writing and language-related subjects, there is obviously a lot of written content.
I occasionally write academic articles (the most recent one is an article that solves the old dichotomy about whether or not Die Hard is a Christmas movie) but I understand that writing an academic article also falls under the rubric of writing.
Naturally, I read a lot. But I know someone people who group reading under the umbrella of writing as it’s all part of what Covey calls ‘sharpening the saw’ – we read to help improve our writing skills.
My time was just a hair’s breadth under an hour.
I sometimes walk the dogs. On an evening I chillax in front of Netflix. But I think my favourite thing to do when I’m not writing is to visit the gym. It goes without saying that I’ve not been able to do that much this year because of Covid restrictions. It doesn’t help that I’m an old person and the high-impact of jogging can screw my knees pretty badly if I overdo that. Because of this, halfway through the most recent lockdown, I treated myself to a cross-trainer which is helping me get back to managing my 10K+ steps each day.
However, whilst I’m at the gym, or on my cross-trainer, I usually have a pair of earplugs stuffed in and I go through an audiobook, which seems to suggest, even when I’m not writing: I’m usually engaged in some form of writing.
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