Q: What distracts you?
A: Oh, pretty much everything. I have to be very disciplined with myself to get anything done. At the moment I’m looking out the window of my study and noticing that the ginger needs cutting back and the front bed needs weeding. Or I’ll be in the dreaded middles of my current story is and I’ll get a New Shiny Idea and I’ll quickly jot down some notes and then find I’ve written several pages of draft. Or I’ll walk past the bookshelf and something will catch my eye and half an hour later I’ll have moved on to cleaning out the cupboards and will have completely forgotten what I’m supposed to be doing. What works best for me is an empty room and a locked door, and an endless supply of good tea.
Meryl Stenhouse’s story “Gathering Dust” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 29 April 2016. Subscribe to our e-mail updates so you’ll know when new stories go live.
