Our dog, Lucy, does it every morning. She roams around trying to get a feel for whether anyone will be at home, and in which rooms. She tries out one spot – splayed on the hall landing, a watchful eye toward the front door – 
but soon abandons it for another. She jumps on an unmade bed and turns around three times, sinks down, curls into a ball. After a while she stretches out long, her belly as rounded and freckled as a cow’s.
I have my own version of this routine: a mug of hot coffee, a comfortable wingback chair – no, perhaps the old chaise in the sunroom window – a college-ruled notepad (faint blue lines on white paper, a firm pink margin), an old-fashioned micro-point Uniball pen. Circle three times, curl in a ball, settle in deep.
When you’re working on a novel, not writing is part of the writing process. At least that’s what I told myself today. It was a gorgeously mild and sunny day — Memorial Day; the park across the street from our house was filled with people biking, strolling, and listening to a military band that played for hours. (The music wafted across the pond: muted patriotism.) The kids were home from school, milling aimlessly around the house, and eventually I abandoned all thought of work and took them to a lake for the afternoon, where I sat in an Adirondack chair and read Anna Karenina.