I’m back writing. Regularly. Thanks to a promise to myself at the start of the year to write a minimum of 500 words whenever my ass is in the writing seat. By mid January, I’d added an addendum – to park my ass in that writing seat as often as possible, and by and large it’s worked. The WIP is growing in word count and I’m pleased with the outcome. Pleased, but not thrilled. I could do more. The sisters of mercy warned me during my formative years - telling me that looking out the window would get me no-where. Well, they were right and they were wrong. Right when they wrote ‘could do better’ on my school reports and wrong about looking out the window. I was in fact focussing, just not on anything they said...
Nowadays, it’s the direction of my focus that I still struggle with. A busy personal life means that my ass ain’t in the writing seat as often as it should be, so when it is, I’m having to train myself not to ‘look out the window’. I’ve practised the avoidance of blogs, twitter, podcasts, facebook etc, having told myself that they are a distraction from the job in hand.
BUT, I’ve also had to face that I have the concentration span of a gnat. I get bored quickly, even with writing and I need a little distraction every now and then to keep the momentum going.
The problem is my drug of choice i.e. the internet, is just TOO distracting and time consuming, so I came up with a cunning plan. I would surround myself with impressive and inspirational writerly distractions. The theory behind this was so genius in it’s simplicity that if it worked, I could write a book on it. Watch this space.
The problem is my drug of choice i.e. the internet, is just TOO distracting and time consuming, so I came up with a cunning plan. I would surround myself with impressive and inspirational writerly distractions. The theory behind this was so genius in it’s simplicity that if it worked, I could write a book on it. Watch this space.
So today, I had an hour and a half to write and here’s a list of the writerly distractions that I allowed on my desk.
1. A newspaper
2. A dictionary
3. A Thesaurus
1. A newspaper
2. A dictionary
3. A Thesaurus
Yes, yes, I know they’re all on my laptop but you’re missing the point!
4. The book I’m reading – Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand
5. A photograph
6. My notebook
7. My iphone – in case of an emergency
8. A red pen
I did get my 500 words done, quite quickly in fact, so I told myself to press on – try and aim for a thousand today. I almost made it when somehow, I found myself doodling on a stray piece of paper with the red pen. I drew trees and hearts and boxes with lids (anyone know what doodles mean?!) The I found an app on the phone that cost me 59p called Writing Tips and it’s brilliant and for only 59p? It had to be done. Then I stood up and put on a dark wash and sorted a white one for later. Had a cup of tea. Doodled some more (squiggly lines this time) followed by a brainwave about my main character and I wrote loads of notes in my notebook.
5. A photograph
6. My notebook
7. My iphone – in case of an emergency
8. A red pen
I did get my 500 words done, quite quickly in fact, so I told myself to press on – try and aim for a thousand today. I almost made it when somehow, I found myself doodling on a stray piece of paper with the red pen. I drew trees and hearts and boxes with lids (anyone know what doodles mean?!) The I found an app on the phone that cost me 59p called Writing Tips and it’s brilliant and for only 59p? It had to be done. Then I stood up and put on a dark wash and sorted a white one for later. Had a cup of tea. Doodled some more (squiggly lines this time) followed by a brainwave about my main character and I wrote loads of notes in my notebook.
All in all, a successful session I feel. Focus, have a look out the window, re-focus, have another little look. Concentrate. Write. Doodle. Finish writing.
Easy...
Anyone know what a red heart in a box with an arrow going through it and a puddle underneath it means? Looks a bit scary. But you know, the more I look at it... there’s a story in there somewhere.
