Writing Is Sedentary. What Can You Do?

I spend much of my life sitting at a laptop. That is hardly surprising for a writer, but I am probably more conscious of the physical consequences than I once was. Cancer left me disabled, surgery cost me ribs, and there are now fairly definite limits to what my body will tolerate.

Accepting those limits has been difficult. Earlier in my life I was intensely competitive in sport. Exercise meant pushing harder, going faster or trying to beat somebody, including myself. That instinct did not conveniently disappear when my circumstances changed, and I still find it hard to accept that what counts as a good session now would once have seemed barely a warm-up.

I have no useful argument to make with my body about this, although that has not always stopped me from having one.

These days I walk, use light weights and spend some time on an indoor exercise bike. What I can manage varies, and I have gradually become better at recognising when enough really is enough.

The biggest adjustment has been learning exercise needn’t be competitive. Sometimes I turn the exercise bike into a race against an imaginary rival, and suffer for it, but mostly I enjoy being active and the quiet satisfaction afterwards.

There are obvious benefits to general health, particularly when so much of my day is spent sitting. The effect on my state of mind is less obvious but probably just as important.

Spend long enough working on a difficult passage, and it can begin to assume an importance it does not deserve. I can change a sentence, read it again and eventually lose any clear sense of whether I am improving it or merely interfering with it and going outside interrupts that. My attention gradually moves elsewhere, and what seemed urgent half an hour earlier usually looks rather more ordinary when I see it again.

No revelation is required. Sometimes a little distance is enough.

Some days, exercise isn't really an option. My body can make that decision before I do, and experience has taught me that ignoring it is rarely worthwhile. Fortunately, physical activity is not the only way I can change the direction of a day.

I have played the piano for most of my life. If I do not feel capable of much physically, I can sit down and play instead. The concentration is different, but the change of focus can be just as effective. Ten minutes sometimes becomes much longer without my noticing, especially if I find a piece I want to keep going with.

This is something I value because it doesn't have to achieve anything. I spent enough years studying and working with music for playing to have had plenty of purposes in the past. It doesn’t always need one now.

There is also some reassurance in having parts of the day that feel worthwhile without being judged by how much I have produced. After cancer, that matters to me. A day does not have to justify itself through pages written or anything else that can be counted.

I do not regard any of this as a formula for other writers. Everyone has their own way of finding some space in the day. What they choose to do with it is entirely their affair.

For me, this is how things have developed. Some days I manage more than I expected. On others, the bike remains where it is, and I may play the piano instead or do neither.

There are still occasions where I push too hard. I still get irritated by what I can no longer do, and I doubt that the competitive part of me has entirely accepted the arrangement.

 Perhaps it never will. 

An Interview with Julia Hones

 

In June, before The Luck Illusion was published, I contacted Julia Hones with a casual enquiry about a possible review. Julia offered me the chance of an interview later in the year. It has now appeared on her blog, My Writing Life.

Julia has gathered a wealth of book reviews, author interviews and other writing across many genres. I felt privileged that she was willing to include my serious nonfiction book among them, and to give its ideas room for more than a brief description.

The interview explores why I began questioning what we mean when we call someone lucky or unlucky. I explain how teaching children from very different backgrounds shaped my thinking, and how living in Bulgaria brought me closer to people whose prospects were shaped by circumstances beyond their control. Running a smallholding and later dealing with cancer gave me further reasons to examine the part played by effort, timing and events we cannot foresee.

There is more personal ground, too. I talk about why I chose to tell Walsdos’s story within a nonfiction book, how I came to enjoy writing after years of finding it a chore, and the rather unsuccessful warning my father gave me about becoming a dustbin man if I did not read. The interview also touches on the books and writers that have influenced me and on what I am writing now.

Thank you, Julia, for the invitation and for making space for The Luck Illusion on My Writing Life. You can read the full interview here.

Scepticism and the Freedom to Think

The older I get, the more sceptical I become. I want to think there is some wisdom involved, although much of what I have learnt has come through making mistakes, sometimes with consequences that could have prevented me from getting any older at all.

Almost drowning while trying to save a friend’s life, receiving an electric shock through my own ignorance of DIY and getting through depression have given me plenty to reflect upon. At the time, you are occupied with what is happening to you. The thinking comes afterwards, when you begin to understand how close you came and how little you understood beforehand. Having survived enough of my own mistakes, I am cautious about claiming wisdom and can only hope that I have learnt something along the way.

One consequence has been a gradual loss of trust. There are only a couple of people in this world whom I trust completely, which is perhaps a sad thing to admit. This distrust has developed over the years, almost without my noticing, as experience has given me reasons to question what people say and the confidence with which they say it. These days, information passed on without any apparent questioning often meets with more contempt from me than it probably deserves.

Writing has added to this. When you spend time considering the words you use, you become more aware of what you can do with them. An account can be perfectly readable and persuasive while leaving out something that would change your understanding. I find myself questioning what I read, wondering how the writer knows and whether the certainty on the page is justified. This can make reading a rather uncomfortable occupation.

Most of my reading has been to find information and understand subjects that interest me. My starting point as a writer is usually something I have witnessed or experienced, or a thought that has grown out of ordinary life and refused to leave me alone. I then look further into it, because my experience will only have shown me part of what there is to understand.

Having spent less time absorbed in other writers’ work, I would like to think that my ideas have had some room to develop in their own way. How original they are is difficult to judge, especially when I consider how much I will have absorbed through everyday life. I generally begin with a question of my own and follow it as far as I can. Whether the result feels fresh is ultimately for the reader to decide.

My scepticism is less comfortable in conversation. I tend to ask where somebody obtained their information, and the answer is often that another person told them, or that they heard it on television. I am then left wondering about the source, while the person I am speaking to may feel that I have questioned their ability to judge what they hear.

I can see how this rubs people up the wrong way. Nobody enjoys feeling that an ordinary conversation has become an examination, and I am sure there are occasions when I could put my questions more gently. Agreeing to keep everybody comfortable is difficult for me, especially when an opinion is presented as fact.

The news is a constant source of this unease. It is blared out day and night, with the same stories and interpretations repeated until they become familiar enough to pass into everyday conversation. I wonder how often we mistake that familiarity for understanding, or how much we could explain about the basis of a story we have heard so many times.

My misgivings about the news concern the political interests behind it and the opportunities it gives those who want control and power. Even an accurate report involves decisions about what to include and how to present it. I find it difficult to believe that those decisions can always be separated from the interests of the people involved. What we are encouraged to be angry about deserves examination, as does what barely receives a mention.

It is a shame more people do not question this, although I include myself when I say that an account that suits our existing views can escape the scrutiny we would give one we dislike. The same questions about honesty apply to any alternative source we turn to. If I am going to ask where information comes from, I have to ask even when I am pleased by what I hear.

I value the freedom of thought that scepticism allows. Being able to consider something for myself gives me room to write about the things that trouble or interest me, including those which other people appear to have settled to their own satisfaction.

There are difficulties in living with doubt so habitual that trust has little chance of surviving. I can miss something worth hearing because I have already become suspicious of the person saying it. People can tire of having their opinions questioned and come away feeling that I have dismissed them. I need to consider how often my wish to think independently has that effect, and how sound my own judgement is on those occasions.

For all its difficulties, I would be reluctant to lose my scepticism—the prospect of having my thoughts directed by people whose interests I do not share troubles me deeply. Whenever I accuse others of following like sheep, I ought to consider how willingly I might follow a direction I already approve of.

I want to keep asking where the information came from and what grounds there are for believing it. I also need to listen properly to the answer. After all these years of questioning other people, I hope I can remain willing to give my own thinking the same attention.

 

'The Shadow Biography' Moves a Step Closer

My new book, The Shadow Biography, is now undergoing professional proofreading and receiving its final formatting polish. I am very excited about the prospect of getting it published, although some work remains before it reaches that stage.

MiblArt will be designing the cover. They did such a good job with The Luck Illusion that I am looking forward to seeing what they create for this rather different book. The book cover pictured above is just an experimental temporary show. I am not sure how the real cover will turn out, all a bit like shaking the box, not knowing what is inside then having to wait to open a present.

I must admit that paginating the manuscript has been driving me crazy for weeks. A book like this has certain rules about where page numbers should appear, where they should be hidden, and how to treat the preliminary pages. I understood what was required, but persuading Microsoft Word to do it was another matter. Each apparent solution seemed to create a fresh problem somewhere else in the document.

Eventually, I decided that my remaining sanity was worth protecting and handed the task to a professional editor and formatter. Yes, it costs money, but part of that cost is clearly for the preservation of my mental health.

I will write more about The Shadow Biography and the ideas behind it in due course. For now, it feels good to know that the book is being checked and prepared by somebody who knows exactly what they are doing.

Meanwhile, The Luck Illusion remains open for reviews. Although its publication date is now well behind us, free review copies of the complete book are still available. If you would like to read it, leave a message in the comments or email me, and let me know whether you would prefer an EPUB or PDF copy.

Believe it or not, this enforced lull, while other people work on my behalf, has already left my thoughts wandering towards a third book. Apparently, finishing one manuscript does not persuade the mind to take a holiday.

Home Brewed Beers and Stouts: The Book I Still Return To

Some books survive repeated clear-outs of the bookshelf. They become too familiar to discard, partly because of what they contain and partly because of the years they represent. Home Brewed Beers and Stouts by C. J. J. Berry is one of mine.

Yes, I write books, but in my spare time I am a keen craft beer brewer, and I have also had over 20 years' experience making traditional rakia (both plum and grape brandy) here in Bulgaria. 

I have had my copy of this beer-making book since the 1980s. It has followed me through many years of brewing, and I still take it down when I want a little inspiration or simply fancy trying another beer recipe.

Berry's book belongs to an earlier age of home brewing. Much of the equipment was simpler, temperature control was less precise, and the brewer was expected to do rather more for himself. That is part of its appeal. The book takes the reader through the principles of making beer before moving into the practical business of producing it. It includes history, advice on equipment and ingredients, and more than seventy recipes covering beers ranging from light ales to lagers and stouts.

It was enormously successful, reportedly selling around 700,000 copies, and it is not difficult to understand why. Berry made brewing seem possible without pretending nothing could go wrong.

I can confirm that things occasionally did.

Over the years I have worked my way through a considerable number of the recipes. I cannot remember making a beer from the book that was not at least perfectly acceptable, although I inevitably preferred some to others. A few bottles also exploded along the way. Anyone who brewed beer using the older methods will probably understand that particular experience. A little too much remaining fermentation, an enthusiastic amount of priming sugar and a tightly sealed glass bottle could produce something rather more dramatic than the quiet conditioning process you had expected.

My brewing has become considerably more high-tech since then. I now have equipment that gives me much greater control over temperature and the different stages of the process. Measurements are easier, consistency is better, and some of the uncertainty has disappeared.

The basic principles have not.

That is why Berry's book still deserves its place on my shelf. Modern equipment can make brewing easier and more predictable, but it does not replace an understanding of what is happening inside the fermenter. Malt, hops, yeast, water, temperature, cleanliness and patience remain the foundations. The equipment has changed far more than the beer has.

There is also something enjoyable about returning to an old recipe when so much of modern brewing encourages us to search continually for something new. Home brewers now have access to ingredients, yeasts, and equipment that once were difficult to obtain, and there is nothing wrong with taking advantage of them. Yet an older book can remind us that good beer does not have to begin with complexity.

Sometimes I open Home Brewed Beers and Stouts without having decided what I am going to make. A recipe catches my attention, I remember brewing something similar years ago, and before long another batch is being planned. A few practical books remain useful for that long.

If you make your own beer, or are thinking of starting, this book is worth owning. Read it for the recipes, certainly, but also for the brewing knowledge behind them. Use modern equipment if you have it, adapt where necessary, and savour the contents.

My own battered copy has earned its place on the bookshelf many times over.

Mr Berry, thank you.

Is Writing Good For Your Health?

I am writing this at five o’clock in the morning because I cannot sleep from thinking about it.

At present, my current book takes up most of the space. A paragraph needs changing, two sections may repeat each other, or something I thought finished returns with another problem. Previous publications bring their own questions, usually about what I might have done differently. Future projects then join in, even though they have no immediate claim on my attention.

I can walk away from my laptop, but my mind cannot.

This continues while I eat, go for walks, and do many other unrelated things. At night, when little else interrupts it, things get worse; I wake up each morning exhausted. Being mentally knackered all the time has started to feel normal.

Writing is supposed to be good for me. It gives purpose to my days and requires concentration, memory, imagination and continued learning. These are valuable in later life.

The trouble is that the brain cannot rest.

The NHS description of stress includes feeling overwhelmed, constantly worrying, losing concentration and sleeping too much or too little.[1] Writing may be the subject occupying my thoughts, but the resulting exhaustion is much the same.

Perhaps the simplest diagnosis is that writing has escaped its working hours. It has moved into the time needed for recovery.

Poor sleep affects concentration, memory, mood and judgement. If it continues, it is also associated with depression and physical conditions including high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes. Among older people, sleep deficiency may increase the risk of falls and injury.[2] This does not mean that a book causes heart disease, although it does mean that repeatedly losing sleep over one should not be dismissed as harmless dedication.

Some boundaries are clearly needed. At the end of each writing session, I could record where I have stopped, what needs doing next and any problem still unresolved. I could write down an idea that arrives later without examining it immediately.

The idea does not have to be resolved at once.

The final hour before bed also needs to be free from manuscripts, reviews, and plans for books that have not yet been written. Time away from writing must involve something that draws my attention elsewhere, perhaps music, conversation, sitting outside or an ordinary practical task. Moving from the manuscript to aimless browsing is unlikely to give the mind much rest.

If the sleeplessness continues for months or begins to make everyday life difficult, a conversation with a doctor may be in order. Writing may be causing the pressure, adding to another problem or merely giving it somewhere to appear.

Countless other authors will empathise with the narcotic nature of writing. It can provide purpose and satisfaction, then ask for another hour and keep going after the work is finished. I doubt I am the only writer awake at five in the morning because a book has taken possession of the mind.

Perhaps we should take that more seriously.

Is this a mental health issue?

References

1. NHS. “Stress.” Last reviewed 6 March 2026.

2. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. “Sleep Deprivation and Deficiency.” National Institutes of Health, updated 24 March 2022.

The Paranoia of Sounding Like AI

For most of my life, I judged a sentence by whether it said what I meant and belonged with those around it. I considered the words, the rhythm, and how much explanation the reader might need. Recently, another question has begun to interfere with all of these: could somebody decide that the sentence was written by artificial intelligence?

This is not an imaginary concern. A passage placed into one detection program may be declared human, while another identifies supposed signs of AI. Neither program knows who wrote it or watched the paragraph taking shape. It can only examine the finished language and compare its patterns with those it has learnt to recognise.

The writer knows rather more about what happened. I can remember struggling with a sentence, returning to it the next morning and eventually finding the wording I wanted. None of this appears in the completed manuscript. If a detection program produces a confident percentage, the number may seem more reliable to somebody else than my account of having written the passage.

Knowing this has altered the way I work. I sometimes change sentences that I would previously have left alone, although the revision does not always improve them. I try to remove anything that might be mistaken for evidence.

The effect became particularly noticeable with groups of three. I used this construction long before generative AI appeared. Like many writers, I learnt that three related words or phrases could give a sentence a natural shape. The first introduces the movement, the second carries it forward, and the third completes it. I did not deliberately count out each part whenever I wrote. After enough years, the pattern had become one of how I organised a thought.

Groups of three are now regularly included among the signs said to reveal AI writing. Once I became aware of this, I began noticing them throughout my manuscript. A sentence that had previously seemed natural started to look dangerous. I might remove one element, separate the thought or replace the whole construction with something less likely to attract attention.

The sentence remained acceptable, but it was no longer quite the sentence I would have written.

Dashes have caused a similar problem. I never used them constantly. They appeared occasionally when a pause seemed helpful or when a qualification belonged within the sentence without requiring a separate one. There were times when a comma felt too slight and a full stop interrupted the thought too heavily. The dash occupied the space between them—which was precisely why I used it.

I now use dashes so rarely that I sometimes notice their complete absence from several pages. I replace them with other punctuation before anybody has the opportunity to question them. The meaning usually survives, although the pace of the sentence may have changed.

Writers can manage without one group of three or find an alternative to a dash, but these decisions begin to accumulate. Eventually, they reduce the number of choices and begin to interfere with the style developed through years of reading and writing.

Other features of prose have also become suspect. A sentence may appear too balanced, an explanation too orderly, or a conclusion too carefully connected with what came before it. Particular words are circulated online as evidence of AI, even though many were in ordinary use before language models began producing them. Writers who encounter these warnings may start avoiding the words, even if they are the most accurate ones.

Some concern about generated writing is understandable. AI frequently produces prose with repeated structures and explanations that continue after the point has already been made. The same can be true of human writing, which is why a familiar pattern cannot establish who produced a passage. At most, it provides a reason to look more carefully.

The problem will likely become harder because AI did not invent most of the features it imitates. It learnt them from human language. Groups of three, parallel clauses and occasional dashes entered its writing because they were already present in ours. As language models become more capable, they will reproduce a wider range of human styles, including some that currently appear individual.

If every successfully copied feature then becomes another warning sign, writers will be expected to abandon more of what they once used naturally. Avoiding a few overworked phrases may be easy, but there is no clear point at which the process must stop. Almost any recognisable habit might eventually be reproduced often enough to become suspicious.

There is something particularly strange about deliberately making prose less fluent to prove that a human being wrote it. An awkward sentence may satisfy a detection program, though awkwardness tells us nothing about authorship. The writer is left performing what a machine has decided human imperfection should look like.

For an independent author, an accusation can be difficult to answer. Drafts, notes and earlier versions may exist, but few readers will ever examine them. A doubtful remark can be made in a moment, while any attempt to explain how the work was written risks sounding defensive. The safest course may be to remove whatever might arouse suspicion before the question is asked.

The developments of recent years, or perhaps I should call them a revolution, have made me increasingly nervous about my own writing. I find myself waiting on tenterhooks for reviews and comments, wondering whether somebody will accuse me of using AI. Nothing may have been said, yet the possibility is already present while I work. I have become defensive in advance of an accusation that may never come.

Even individual words are now marked as AI-recognisable and treated with suspicion, regardless of being used as part of ordinary written English for generations. I find the exact word needed for a particular sentence, then hesitate because its appearance could be misinterpreted. Leaving it in place can feel like taking an unnecessary risk.

This begins to resemble paranoia, and it has affected much of my creative work. I doubt that I am alone. Other writers must also be looking back over sentences they once considered entirely natural and wondering how those sentences might now be judged by a program or a reader alert for certain patterns. Attention that once belonged to the argument, the language and the reader is diverted towards avoiding evidence of something that may not have happened.

That safety carries a cost. A writing style develops slowly, often without the writer noticing every part of it. Certain sentence lengths become comfortable, particular forms of punctuation suit the way a thought develops, and familiar structures help a difficult idea reach the page. They are among the tools of the trade, and a writer works with fewer tools each time one is set aside through fear.

I prefer to judge a sentence by asking whether it is clear, whether it is accurate and whether it sounds like me. Even writing those three questions now makes me hesitate. Should one be removed simply because three once provided the form that came naturally?

What I fear most is that this interference with established writing practices has only begun. AI will keep learning from human prose, including the habits that distinguish one writer from another. If each successfully imitated feature is then treated as evidence against us, the accepted forms of writing will be invaded still further. More words will become suspect, more structures will be avoided, and more writers will begin altering their work in anticipation of an accusation.

I do not know where this will end. Groups of three have already become something I watch for, and the dash has almost disappeared from my writing. Other familiar practices will probably attract the same suspicion, and I may remove those as well, although each removal leaves me with fewer ways to express what I intended.

Eventually, the argument may still be mine while rather less of the writer remains on the page.