I haven’t been posting much recently but I have been writing. I recently wrote 4,000 words on the difference between gender identity and gender-as-behaviour, deleted half of it and didn’t post the rest (but kept it for possible future use). Then today I wrote nearly 800 words on the economic implications of the anti-pandemic measures that most governments are taking. It’s not finished yet but, when it is, I hope I’ll be able to resist the temptation to post it. I’m no expert, and more than enough has already been written about the pandemic by opinionated amateurs.

So, what’s the point of writing things that I’m (ideally) not going to post? For a start, it helps to crystallize my own thoughts, which is something I find useful. It’s also a way of getting these things out of my head. I intended to spend this morning working on Andrew Marvell but instead found myself writing about economics and the pandemic, as if I had to clear that out of the way to make room for Marvell. Or you could view it as a form of procrastination: perhaps I write one thing to put off preparation for writing something else.