Katherine Rundell: preference

Transcript context

…What is your most unusual writing habit? I no longer really have one. When I was younger, I used to have many in a bid to make myself meet deadlines that were broadly my own imagining. I would, when writing my PhD, have a pact with a friend that if we didn’t do the requisite number of words — usually a thousand words a day of our doctoral theses — we had to give £100 to a donkey sanctuary. It was chosen on the grounds that it wasn’t harmful to give that money to a donkey sanctuary, but it also wasn’t particularly beneficial because we picked the richest donkey sanctuary in England, where they’re bathing in ass’s milk and covered in diamonds. You couldn’t tell yourself that it was a good, but it wouldn’t do harm if we screwed up. We wouldn’t, for instance, give money to the British National Party or something like that. And it really does work. I didn’t want the donkeys to have my money. I only failed once. So you’ve stopped doing it because you don’t need to do it, not that you think it’s a terrible idea.…

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