A Whole Lotta Nothin'

A week ago I bumped into a friend of my sister K's who said that she remembers when we were young how I would sit on the couch scribbling away in my diary, participate in my surrounds, then return to my pages.

This got me thinking about the objectivity a writer has to cultivate in order to remain detached, which is one of the reasons in my 20s I spent so much time in countries where I couldn't speak the language.

For me as a writer, living with other people can compromise my words, so I need to make a conscious prioritisation of my writing time, which PJ understands as he too writes and treasures the quiet.

Maybe it's that I am more of a dreamer than PJ but I tend to do a lot more procrastinating and need, what I heard the writer Cate Kennedy refer to as, Window Time – just staring, eyes glazed over, not looking at anything in particular. It feels like I'm doing nothing but really, this is part of my process, a part that gets sacrificed because if I have limited time to write, hanging out on the couch with my feet up just doesn't feel like the most productive thing I could be doing.

I should take heed of what Freud says in Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming; how an important outcome of daydreaming is to disconnect; not to be confused with escapism as it's the opposite of that.

I say: Here's to more dwelling! Here's to daydreaming! Here's to more thoughts that go nowhere, that don't want destinations, that don't need to be justified or qualified or directed.