Feeling distracted, thoughts fractured and half thought and racing away with and from me. Wanting to write and focus and also to think all of the things and explore all of the avenues and rabbit holes and luxuriate in that.

Hot weather and maybe my mind is playing along, feeding off it. It doesn’t feel like the weather for rigorous discipline and deep, thoughtful work. Any time not lounging in a comfortable chair in the shade with a long tall glass of something delicious feels like an absolute triumph. Surely I should be carried through the streets, people showering me with flowers and kudos, writing epic tales to be passed down.

Jumping from one thing to another, exacerbated by screen attention grabbing which persuades me into frittering away time after time on things the better angels of my nature know to not be what I want to actually be putting my time into.

We are creatures of the weather, only able to live and work and be in a very narrow set of temperatures. It isn’t at all surprising that in those circumstances I, we, would be less able to function. When my brain is boiling, eyes feeling like they could melt at any moment, skin red and sweaty at though the blood within is melting – can I really be surprised that work feels hard. No wonder the recent polling suggests less enthusiasm for heatwaves as they become increasingly common. Having that discomfort on a frequent basis when it’s not a break, a chance to discover new ways of being, have the ordinary be transformed – even if not into something good, at least into something unexpected.

Not sustainable to give myself days and weeks and months off whilst the weather is like this. Another reason to not write. And that’s it really. That I’m pushing myself into doing things I’m not sure about, think I can’t do or I’m not good at. So of course it all feels more discomforting. My brain is in the business of finding things to show me that it’s ok and healthy not to write. To try and do what it thinks is looking after myself when actually I want to see what happens if I just keep trying, day after day.

And this is all nonsense, nothing of any interest or use, apart from to me. Seeing the excuse in the hot hot heat. Finding the inspiration to keep working and trying and figuring things out – a reminder of why the work I want to do is needed, even as the changes I’m trying to address make it ever harder to so…