When you're a writer you have to get quickly used to one of the most annoying things on the planet. No, I'm not talking about leeches. The leeches are for the bloodletting and they make you healthier. The leeches are a good thing.

No I mean the fact that 99% of the population will assume that you aren't doing anything unless you are specifically sitting and typing. Because, you see, that's writing. Everything else? Fuck you, everything else is wasting time.

Except it isn't. When you see me walking down the street, listening to music? Chances are I am also working. When I'm sitting around staring out the nearest window? Working.

Easily 80% of the job is thinking. The typing part? That comes near the end. It's followed by the editing, the selling, the production and sales and whoring. But it all starts with the thinking.

"You know what would be cool?" It's one of those sentences that starts so many ideas that never end up as a story. There are, of course, far more dead ideas buried in shallow dirt clumps by the side of the road than ones that were ever birthed full. But that's how it starts. An idea. Something in my head flips, I see a connection and start making other ones and suddenly I have the bones of a story.

And then there's the thinking. The wandering and letting your eyes roam. you see things, things you didn't know to look for, and each of tem adds something to the story in progress. You go home and sit and think and add more. Music adds themes and resonances and suddenly you have a full formed plot brewing!

Mind you, so far you've sat around, taken a walk and played some music.

From the outside it looks so very different. I mean from the inside I'm just rocketing through work and putting every inch of brainpower into it. It's honest to god work and can leave you tired at the end of the day. From the outside? Not so much.

Then again, when I'm doing research, some people think I'm wasting time too, so what can I say? Granted the research was watching YouTube videos of children's beauty pageants (for a story, folks), but it was crucial to my work.

But from the outside, yeah I admit it all looks a bit dodgy. I don't really know what to say about that. You lot do things that look dodgy to me, too. I mean accountants? You use a fucking calculator and then charge me for it. I have a calculator! I can use it! why should I pay you?! Remember that next time you think a writer friend of yours is slacking off all the time and "anyone could do it".

No, really, go for it. If you can, great! Helps the rest of us to have someone else on board. If you can't? Get a calculator.

Anyway this one is short because I just soft sold a novella and might be turning it into a series of three novellas instead and well... I need to go think.