BN39- 4th July 2026

Today, instead of doomscrolling I:

  1. Returned to my morning pages.

  2. Indulged in some train dreaming, and watched the world drift past my window.  I let my thoughts unspool and made a few notes.

  3. People watched on the Elizabeth Line. It’s forty minutes from central London to Heathrow Airport, and if you spend that much time with massed humanity on the move to other continents, you hear and see a lot. Further notes were made.

  4. Enjoyed the anonymous comfort of an airport hotel and did a new draft of a short story. I didn’t hate it, which I will mark as progress.

BN38 - 3rd July 2026

Today, instead of doomscrolling I:

  1. Skipped Morning Pages and switched to free writing to challenge my thinking on a personal challenge. With the right prompt to frame the exercise, I find it a very useful practice to break through mental blocks.

  2. Went for a short bike ride.

  3. Read three chapters of The Gilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon - Daniel Farson. A great book that shares the author’s experience of the mercurial personality of an artist who lived without boundaries. A faded bookmark fell from the pages as I was reading, a notecard from the Cumberland Hotel in Bournemouth, an art deco masterpiece. My departed friend had left it in place when she returned the book to her shelf. It’s a reminder of her abiding love of art, artists and architecture.