Have you noticed that when you've been spending a long time at the computer, whether working or playing (I outlawed solitaire games several years ago but you go ahead), or doing research or browsing or writing letters, that you are reluctant to leave? It's so easy, so beguiling, just to sit there and dabble. Advertisers count on this.

Have you noticed that they (you know who I mean) have devised sneaky ways of finding you? No matter what obscure thing, item or person you are looking up, a sidebar will blind-side you with a notice about whatever you've been buying lately, about a new product or a special offer or just a reminder. Oh, they are so devious.

I saved my blog to the end of my working day, to ease me out of my departure from the magic keyboard. Yesterday I re-read my first draft of my age book and aside from the fact that I should tear it up and start again, I've done a lot of work on it today, work that involved looking up dates and quotations and confirmations and - you know, all that tedious stuff that goes with writing a book without a secretary or a clone. Now I'm going to start playing cards.

The story goes that George Kaufman, the playwright, who was a zealous card player, used to write the scenes for a new play in progress onto scene cards. When he saw the narrative wasn't working, he shuffled the cards. Expertly, of course.

That's what I'm going to do. Although I know the method works with novels, I have't tried it on non-fiction before. However, I have written a new outline and the chapters of the old draft don't quite fit. So I'll put them onto cards (recipe file cards work perfectly) and shuffle them, see where they go, and then fill in the blanks. Does that sound simple? It's not.

Bye for now.