Thomas Paine - Age of Reason

I realized that I needed a paragraph on civil religion in Paine's Age of Reason. So, I did exactly what I tell the undergraduates to do: I sat down with the book and a yellow pad, I read the book commonplacing the various points where he talked about civil religion - a line or two to summarize the point and the page number where I found it -- and then I went back and wrote the paragraph from my notes.

I was distracted by, well, not focusing well, so it took me almost 24 hours to write that paragraph, starting from "oh bother, I need to re-read Paine" and ending with writing the transition at the head of the next paragraph.

Not all paragraphs take quite that long, thank goodness.

Perhaps I should try writing more fiction - it can't go any slower, can it?