Okay, I admit. Getting cable for the World Cup isn’t doing my writing any favours. With three games a day and only an hour between games, I’m not getting much done during the day. But I have been making up the time by writing in the evening, so I’m rediscovering the peace that night time writing can bring. I’ve also discovered how productive a 60 minute burst of concentration can be.

Right now, I’m fleshing out an outline for a new graphic novel for Orca books (I’ll say more about it as the work progresses), so it’s a lot of generating ideas and broad stroke writing. This works well with my one-hour blasts of activity between games.

When one game ends, I go to the computer and get to work. Knowing that I’ve only got 60 minutes really focuses the brain. It’s like that old egg-timer trick that some writers use. I tell myself that I only have to sit in my chair and work for another hour, then I’m back in World Cup heaven.

This, of course, is the ideal and often that 60 minutes is spent answering email, surfing the web or, um, writing blog posts. But when I do manage to focus for that 60 minutes, I get a fair bit done. Honest.

And there’s the ref’s whistle now. Got to go. See you after the game.