Francine Prose has found me out:
“{Solitaire} is the ideal writer’s game. It even feels a little like writing, only more relaxing. You’re sitting at the same desk, working with the same keyboard and monitor. You don’t even have to get up. Like writing, it’s entirely private, the exertion is purely cerebral; you’re playing against yourself, against your previous best, against the law of averages and the forces of chance. You’re taking random elements and trying to put them together in a pleasing way, to make order out of chaos.
No wonder so many writers (including myself) play more solitaire than we should. All I have to do is complete a decent paragraph to feel I’ve earned the right to take a break and play a few games. Like many sports, it’s right on the border between addiction and pastime. That’s why teaching someone to play computer solitaire can feel like the equivalent of a giving a junkie that first shot, though the toll it takes isn’t in money or health, but in time, the writer’s most precious gift.”
excerpted from Solitaire: Me vs. Me
Potpourri with Rosemarie 