I've got a little list...

When I'm not writing clunky blog entries or procrastinating, I read. Since procrastination takes up most of my time, I read far less than I would like too and less than I should. The usual result of this is spectacular multibooking. This week I have been blending Edmund Crispin with Terry Pratchett, which is good for the vocabulary if nothing else. I haven't dared add any battlefield archaeology to the mix. One of the less mindboggling side effects of this habit is that I always have a mental list of Books I Really Must Read When I Have Time. Everyone has a list like this. It's driven entirely by guilt and peer pressure. Wolf Hall? Oh yes, but there were about three hundred people on the waiting list at the library last time I checked. All three volumes of Simon Schama's History of Britain? Gathering dust on the bookcase for the past six years or so. A Clockwork Orange? Read an extract in the paper this morning, thought "oh, that looks good, I'll have to reserve that". The complete works of Christopher Marlowe? Got to read them for work but I fear I'll struggle. (I don't buy the Marlowe-was-Shakespeare theory on the entirely unscientific grounds that Dr Faustus bored me and the Shakespeare I've read so far never has.) The Lost Symbol? No, no and thrice no. Even for a giggle. The worst aspect of this condition is that the list gets longer all the time. I'll be wading through a social history of the personal column thinking "I haven't read Jane Eyre in ages". (A sub-condition is the buying of books I've borrowed and enjoyed, the theory being that I liked them so much I'll re-read them later. They gather dust with all the others.) Why do I do it? Life is finite. There is only a fixed number of books I can read. Why must I try to cram in more than I can possibly get through in the allotted time? Denial complicates matters still further. I know I won't read six books during my week off work but I still bring them back from the library anyway. I've read one, which has brought a small glow of achievement. I'd planned to read part of another today but somehow ended up ironing instead and then realised I hadn't finished the paper. The simplest thing would be to admit that I don't have time and send the contents of my overstuffed bookcase to charity shops, relying instead purely on the charms of the local library service, but that would be a betrayal of the avid reader I used to be. There's nothing for it. I am going to have to work through all the books on my list. One at a time...

Not busy, just disorganised

As Cliff Richard almost sang: Procrastination breeds consternation. I've got so much to do but don't know where to start. (It does fit. Don't deny you've got a copy of Congratulations somewhere. Dig it out and sing along.) I used to read Keith Waterhouse's columns avidly as a teenager. I think that may be what's made me so militant about the correct use of apostrophes (although I shall doubtless bung one in the wrong place in the course of this post.) I was saddened to hear of his death, but cheered immensely by the extract they used on the news last night. Paraphrasing wildly, the gist was that he appeared busy by doing six things at once, but was actually working on one while avoiding the other five. While he was working on his column, he was avoiding working on his novel. While working on his novel he was avoiding working on a script. The loud twang you may have heard around twenty past six last night was my soul resonating in sympathy. Right now, as I write this I should be doing at least one of the following: looking for a job that doesn't lead to ossification of the soul, polishing my CV as a means to getting said job (hollow laughter), practising my driving in readiness for the commute this mythical job might entail, ironing the kinks out of the manuscript of my first novel prior to submitting it to another agent, going through the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook (apostrophes seem OK there) to find another agent to send it to, replying to all the wonderful Authonomists who spared the time to give me sound constructive criticism on said book, reading the work of said Authonomists and giving them almost sound constructive criticism, working on the plot of my second novel which has stalled slightly, getting a framework down on paper for the other two books I've got in mind, reading my library books before they go overdue, reading the magazine backlog so I can recycle them, watching the DVD backlog so I can put them away instead of piling them on the floor, tidying my room so I have somewhere to put the DVDs, listening to the two plays and a serial I taped from the radio last month or longer ago, taking the stuff I have cleared out to a charity shop and washing my hair. In no particular order. Now it could just be that I have appalling time management skills, but there is a lot to be said for simplifying life and cutting out much of the pointless activity that leads to headless chicken syndrome. I think the best plan would be to write everything down and assess the usefulness of each task, rank them accordingly, and work systematically. I'll add that to my list of things to do.