Exciting new ways of not writing a novel

I read that Damon Runyon, in New York in the 1930s, would get up at 1 p.m. for a breakfast of ‘fruit, broiled kidneys, toast and six cups of coffee’. Then he would read all the newspapers. Then he would bathe, shave, dress and go out for a long walk which would probably include some shopping — one of his favourite activities. (‘He wanted to buy prize fighters, and racehorses, and great houses, and stacks of clothes and jewellery for his lovely [second] wife.’) In the early evening he would return to his house to change into ‘an entirely different lounge suit’ before proceeding to a restaurant for dinner with friends, invariably an extended and noisy event, and then ducking into the cinema (‘perhaps to two different shows’), after which he would set up shop in another restaurant for ‘another long session’ and ‘hours of talk’. When he eventually went home, at two or three o’clock in the morning, he would read the early editions of the morning papers and after that — only then — would he sit down and write for four hours before bed.

Well, bully for him. It is 06.59 in Dorset and not much has been achieved so far this a.m. If he were my guest Damon Runyon would be disappointed, bored and probably hungry, unless spinach or marmalade, of which I have plenty, are his favourite foods. It is light, or lightish given the weather, and I can see outside my window an enormous pheasant pacing up and down on the grass. This one has spent the last two winters in my garden — avoiding the local shooters — but he is cheerless and unsociable, supercilious and disapproving, peevish even on the sunniest days and ridiculous in fancy dress. All the other birds laugh at him.