The Words That Fill Up A Day

I've been banging on about the great content in Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop newsletters for a while now, and another good one arrived yesterday. And the idea of being "spent" got me thinking about how much information passes me by in a single day of working, reading and generally being on this earth. So I've decided to keep a rough track today of all the things I've done. It's a running commentary that's sort of inspired by Twitter, only with more context:

1. Start the day off by reading Book2Book, a UK trade newsletter, on the blackberry. Am drawn to this article that then sends me off to the Colin Robinson diary that I read yesterday afternoon. Ponder this for a second again over breakfast:

This privileging of the writer at the expense of the reader is borne out by statistics showing the annual output of new titles in the US soaring towards half a million. At the same time a recent survey revealed that one in four Americans didn’t read a single book last year. Books have become detached from meaningful readerships. Writing itself is the victim in this shift. If anyone can publish, and the number of critical readers is diminishing, is it any wonder that non-writers – pop stars, chefs, sports personalities – are increasingly dominating the bestseller lists?

Read a little bit of Gabor Mate's When the Body Says No and start The Master and the Margarita on the way in to work.

2. Read a bit of the Quill and Quire as computer boots up. Glance at Daily Candy, Sweetspot.ca and Shelf Awareness newsletters on the handheld. Simply delete Haro. Shelf Awareness links me to an article on Variety about Pride and Predator. Consistently stunned about this news no matter where it's reported.

3. Work email. Actual work. Check web stats. Check MSN.

4. Learn about the upcoming Updike bio from Mediabistro. (Briefly considered started Rabbit, Run last night in honour of Updike's passing but realized how much I hated it when I tried to read it three years ago.)

5. Read an article as it's posted up on MSN. Put in a missing period.

6. More work email. Meeting about data. More work email. Reading data reports. More work email. Login to both my Twitter accounts. Read the Amazon top 100.

7. Read the daily review over at the new Globe Books section. Am reminding of the best math teacher in the world from high school who actually got me to understand and excel at the subject. And then promptly almost failed in Grade 12 when I got a different teacher who was terrible. Have decided I have severe "arithmophobia." Browse Media in Canada.

8. This is a question I often ask myself.

9. Reading @stephenfry. It's work, honest, we have a book coming out by him this summer.

10. Willa Cather's 100 Year Old Minimalism takes me to Fifty-Two Stories. Am kind of enamoured by the idea of leaving deliberate blank spaces.

11. PW on Fifty-Two Stories.

12. Everywomansvoice via newsletter. Work email. More work email. More more work email.

And that's only until lunch.