Get going, you tell yourself, the morning is disappearing fast and you’ve got stuff to do – Get on with it, make a move, any move, but then you sit there distracting yourself with one thing after another under the pretense that you’re thinking, only of course what you are really doing is delaying.

Writers can delay awfully well.

Then there’s the coffee routine – can’t get going without a cuppa – only there’s something wrong with the first one, so you’d better try again. Or it’s good, perfect even, so nice in fact, you want another. Either way, you get into your second cup and maybe a third, followed up by the inevitable trip to the bathroom – it’s more distraction.

You play with words in your head, only the words roam off and become other things completely. You start working main-character to main-character dialogue and end up wondering if today’s the day you’re supposed to put the rubbish out, or if a slice of mudcake would go really well with that new cup of coffee you’ve just made.

It doesn’t work, folks, and pinging elastic bands across the room is not an option. You’re not even pretending to work with that one.

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