write about anything ('the conversation took place via email')

from the 'backwards'  research guide for writers by sonya huber. 

this is the kind of slippage that is interesting.  

horsemouth is in that preparing to travel mode. he always finds this situation unsatisfying. plus he must 'pack' (and he has a horror of excess luggage). anyway (enough of the horrors of travel) he has his coffee. remind him to turn down the heating in his room before he goes but not to totally turn it off (he doesn't want to return to damp). 

there's a certain amount of stress - for example horsemouth wants to take care of some tax bollocks while away, there is communal endeavour stuff (that may have to be handled in a zoom meeting) etc.

a little spider has  just made it across the valance. horsemouth wants to time it so that he gets to the railway station with enough time to buy a ticket on the first train out (the first train he can travel on with the cheaper tickets). there is often some confusion as to which train this is with the ticket machines saying one thing ('saying') and the guards announcements on the train saying another. (like wtaf!). 

the book horsemouth has bought is not a nice write your own autobiography book but a a nasty generate your own research question book. it is rather too good at replicating that feeling of blankness and stuckedness that people feel when asked to write about anything.

he's still in doubt as whether to take it or not. you will remember that horsemouth had an ethics of life  writing book on the go for a while - that book was similarly dull (being written in the academic style) but horsemouth felt warmly towards it). .