It's a curse

So the friend slash co-author for one of my projects recently lent me his copy of Shakespeare: A Biography, which is the first Peter Ackroyd I've read and very, very good. So good, that while I'm reading it, I've been rendered incapable of writing the book I'm supposed to be working on.

Which turns out to be the same curse that afflicted my friend slash co-author while he was reading the book a couple of months ago.

Which made me think last week that I'd better finish reading the book stat, or I'm not going to finish writing the other one that's due, er, stat.

The effect is not quite the same as your garden variety writer's block. When we're thusly afflicted, we have our research, we have our chapter outlines, we know what we're going to say --- we just can't make the words happen.

So it was with grim determination that I finished reading Shakespeare: A Biography today. Now those writing juices better start flowing again ...

Or maybe I should henceforth refer to this as "the Ackroyd book" instead of by its title.

-----|||||-----
Technorati Tags: writing, Peter Ackroyd, Shakespeare, Shakespeare: A Biography