Productivity Dive... :o(

I'd planned that today would be a great day, what with the new laptop being all set up and ready to go, but sadly I was laid low with a headache until well past lunch time.  The headaches I get are usually due to eye strain from computer screen use, so I didn't want to risk provoking it into returning by jumping straight back on the laptop once it had gone. 

Instead I decided to go through the not-insubstantial backlog of Writers' News and Writing Magazine that has been building up on my bedroom floor *ahem*.  I've subscribed to both for years, but I'm a bit of a lover of magazines all round and have a lot of other subscriptions too, so they often form something of a queue (well, more of a mob!). 

If you're a writer or poet and have never read either of these fine publications then I highly recommend that you have a look.  Not only do they provide great advice and stop you feeling quite as isolated, they also recommend writing-related books and this can save you money because there are a lot of those out there and not all of them are helpful.  My own collection of writing books is a modest size but all of them have proved interesting and inspiring - these are my favourites:

• On Writing - Stephen King
• Your Writing Coach - Jurgen Wolff
• Wannabe a Writer? - Jane Wenham-Jones
• The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes - Jack M. Bickham

Of course it's perilously easy to fall into just reading about writing and not actually doing any writing - much like I unintentionally did today.  But I guess it's the second best thing that I could be spending my Writing Days doing!