Confessions From the Sports Club Terrace

On routine, the dreaded cigarettes, and why drafting still wins

Previously published May 3 2026, on my Substack Writer on the Edge. I’m posting the weekly newsletter twice daily, and I’m almost caught up.

I’m dictating this as usual, wandering around with a coffee in my hand. But it’s not my own terrace this time, it’s the one at the sports club. I’ve just had a wonderful, productive, hard workout, and now I’m pottering about, gathering my thoughts before the day properly begins.

Coffee, workout, and book confessions.

And, of course, I’m thinking about the book. I’m always thinking about the book. But I haven’t touched it. I’ll be honest with you, my bad, I haven’t done a thing on it for at least two weeks. Maybe a bit longer. I do feel bad about it, of course I do. But I’m trying very hard not to beat myself up over it.

The Book Confession

Here’s the thing. I think it’s just not its time yet. That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway, and I’m starting to believe it.

I’ve written before about resistance, that pesky little gremlin Steven Pressfield warned us all about, and yes, this might be a flavor of resistance. But I don’t think it’s the whole story. The truth is, I’ve come to understand that the way I work, my routine, is everything. I have to be ready. If I’m not ready, then there’s no point sitting down to it.

There’s no focus, it’s work, and that’s not the point of this. The whole point is that it’s supposed to be fun, a pleasure, a passion. So the last thing I want to do is kill that passion by forcing words onto a page when my head isn’t in the right place. I’ve seen too many writers grind their love for the craft into dust by sticking religiously to a schedule that doesn’t suit them. Not a road I’m willing to go down.

Routine Is Everything

That said, I do understand the difference between honoring my rhythm and giving in to laziness. The two can look identical from the outside. The trick, I think, is being honest with yourself about which one you’re dealing with on any given day.

For me, ready means coffee in hand, headspace clear, no nagging admin tasks pulling at the back of my mind. It also means a body that isn’t tired, which brings me, neatly enough, to the workout I just finished.

Fit and Active, Not Muscly

I’m slowly building up the weights, but I don’t want to push too far. At nearly 66, I’m not after an incredibly muscular body. That ship has sailed, and frankly, I never wanted to board it in the first place. I’m far more interested in being fit and active, in still being able to walk up a hill without my knees complaining, in having the energy to enjoy whatever comes next.

I took a quick look at the fitness app on my phone earlier, and my averages are pretty good. For my age, anyway. Actually, I think they’re pretty good for any age. Going to the club three times a week has turned out to be one of the smartest things I’ve done in years, even if my wife had to bully me into joining in the first place. I’ll never admit she was right (well, except in writing, apparently).

Of course, fitness only takes you so far when you’re undoing the work with the other hand.

The Dreaded Cigarettes

Now, the biggest negative in all of this is the dreaded cigarettes. I keep saying to myself, you have to give up. You have to give up. They’re getting very expensive now, which is even more motivation to stop. But it’s not easy. Or maybe I’m just looking for excuses. Probably the latter, if I’m being properly honest.

What am I waiting for? To be diagnosed with terminal cancer, and then I’ll stop? It would be a bit late then, wouldn’t it?

The thing that really should be motivating me, beyond cost and beyond the obvious health stuff, is my wife. The last thing I want to do is leave her on her own. She can’t handle that. It’s bad enough that her ex-husband is going through cancer at the moment. It’s not terminal, thankfully, but it’s disfiguring, and that’s responsibility enough for her to be carrying. I have no business adding to her plate.

But it’s easier said than done. Like I said, maybe I’m just fooling myself. Maybe I don’t want to yet. We’ll see. The annoying part is, health-wise, I’m pretty fit apart from this. So that, ironically, isn’t a positive because it makes it easier for me to come up with excuses not to stop. Stupid, short-sighted, and I know it. But there it is. I’m not going to pretend to be more virtuous than I am.

Editing Drains, Drafting Delights

I do get tired by the day job, even though it’s only three days a week. By the time I clock off, I’ve usually got very little left in the creative tank, and that’s not the kind of tiredness a quick coffee fixes.

Creatively, I get quite fatigued. But the curious thing is that fatigue only really applies to the editing and the rewriting. Drafting is something else entirely.

Drafting? Ah, that’s my biggest fun. I love drafting. The blank page, the discovery, the surprise of finding out what your characters are going to do next, even when you thought you knew. There’s a magic in it that hand editing with a red pen, much as I value the process, simply doesn’t have.

Maybe that’s where my motivation has to come from. Yes, fine, the editing has to be done for book one. The first book might even feed into the second series in ways I haven’t fully mapped out yet. But before I can start drafting the next book, I have to get this one to a good stage. So the carrot is dangling there, just out of reach: finish editing book one, and you get to play in the drafting sandbox again.

That’s probably my motivation, the double stick approach, as it were. The stick of “you can’t draft yet” being just as effective as the carrot of “but you will, soon, if you finish this.”

I guess we’ll see how that pans out over the next few weeks.

Final Thoughts

So, what’s the upshot of all this rambling from a sports club terrace? Not so much, if I’m being honest with myself. I’m not making much progress on the book. I’m still smoking. I haven’t solved any of life’s great mysteries between the lat pulldown and the leg press.

But here’s the thing: life’s good. I’m feeling positive. I’ve had a good workout, I’ve got a coffee, I’ve had a good think, and I’ve reminded myself, yet again, that this whole writing business is supposed to be a pleasure. The moment it stops being a pleasure is the moment I need to look at what I’m doing wrong, not double down on the grind.

One day, sooner or later, hopefully sooner, the book will be done and ready to rock and roll. The cigarettes will, I hope, eventually go the same way. And in the meantime, I’ll keep showing up here, week after week, even when I have nothing more profound to share than a few wandering thoughts.

Anyway, I’m signing off now. Got some chores to do, and the day’s not getting any younger. I’ll speak to you all next week. Take care.

Mike