Don't research and write at the same time

Writing often begins with research: a relaxed period marked by supine stints of reading. Research is generally followed by the misery known as writing: self-flagellation at a desk.

Research is a process of collecting. It’s not always formal. You are always collecting. Most thoughts are simply other people’s ideas in the form of borrowed facsimiles, furtive installs, or outright theft. Everything you read passes through filters of identity and commingles with the bromine of your bias to become your thoughts.

Most of your thoughts are limp and worthless (sorry), but a shiny few will propel you to your desk. Remember to transition properly.

Declare research closed before opening the floor to prose. Put down the shovel before you pick up the pen. Just as you cannot inhale and exhale at the same time (unless you are playing the digeridoo), you must not research and write at the same time.

It is tempting to loiter in velvet parlour of research instead of the sawdust workshop of writing. But if you keep researching you’ll never write. Every book you’ve ever picked up was written by someone forced to put their own books down, to start writing.