How to finish a book (?)

 It's 9.24 on a tuesday morning. I've just got back from the school run, fed the cats and unloaded the dishwasher so i could make myself a coffee. And i'm acting on an idea i had while falling asleep last night.

Last spring i was lucky enough to be awarded a semester of research leave, by the Leverhulme Trust. It's to complete a book project that i began the spring before last, when my sabbatical was interrupted by you-know-what. The title is 'The Units of Life: Kinds of individuals in biology'. I managed to get two chapters and a proper book proposal finished in the car crash formerly known as 2020. On the one hand, this was cool, as it enabled me to get a contract with OUP and a Leverhulme Award to actually finish it. On the other hand, this leaves 6 chapters still to go, and now that people have paid me money i actually have to do it (whose idea was this?! why did i only ask for a semester of leave? why is the school holiday so long waaaaaaaaaaa etc.)

The kids went back to school last week, so i've finally got a suitable amount of bandwidth to get down to writing in earnest. and i'm pretty petrified 😬

I've also been thinking for ages that i want to try to get back to blogging a bit. It's not so much the done thing any more, compared to when i first started blogging in 2013. Most former bloggers have moved on to tiktok or become influencers by now, but i'm waaaaay too old and daggy for those. 

So i've hit upon the idea of using this platform as a sort of veruccas-n-all diary of what it's like to be a 40 year old academic with two young children, trying to complete a book manuscript in four months. At worst it will be a boring displacement activity. At best it will serve me as a commitment device and way to mull ideas over. It might even make someone chuckle, and maybe someone senior will even read it and spot some terrible error i'm making in time to save me from it!

So the plan is to log on every  few days to make a note of what i'm planning to do, what got in my way and what miserable level of sanity i'm currently operating at.

Good luck reader!