I will check the internet for at least an hour every morning scanning worldwide news to do with child abuse. So if you're constantly putting yourself in an environment where you're checking up on social economics or homelessness problems if you keep yourself aware of it you don't really have a day off.

Writing a novel is one of those modern rites of passage I think that lead us from an innocent world of contentment drunkenness and good humor to a state of chronic edginess and the perpetual scanning of bank statements.