Tag: distraction

Clocking in

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I was thinking the other day about how I sometimes have a problem with getting started and/or staying with my writing sessions. Quite often I’d blame distractions like the internets or my music library, or having a case of the Don’t Wannas. But after several years of trying to work through all that and getting nowhere, I realized that perhaps I’m looking at it from the wrong angle. So I started thinking: what was it that I did back in the Belfry days in the late 90s/early 00s that made my writing sessions so successful?

Sure, I had the same distractions then as now, but I still managed to work through them. It’s not the drive, then. It’s something else.

And then it occurred to me: I treated my writing sessions like ‘going into the office’ back then. That was the One Simple Trick that helped me approach the sessions with more seriousness. No matter what I did during the day, the session would start at seven pm sharp and often end around nine. A few minutes spent deciding what to listen to, maybe a game or two of FreeCell, but then it was Time To Work. Clock in and do the job until it was time to clock out. Once I established that habit and stuck to it, it worked perfectly for almost four years with almost no issues.

I realized that perhaps the problem these days isn’t so much the drive but the focus. So starting this week, I’ve been trying my hand at reviving that mindset: come 7pm, it’s time to clock in here in Spare Oom. Throw on some music, and get the session started. I’ll allow certain minimal distractions (like visiting cats, for example) but my main focus should always be on the primary writing project. Think of it once more as ‘going into the office’ instead of just the back room.

I’m allowing myself not to be perfect about it, of course. Changes in work schedule, other real life stuff going on, whatever. I’ll even accept that I might be having an off day. As long as I make this process consistent in the long run!

Distraction, or just too busy?

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I seem to be running out of time to write lately, and it’s bothersome.

To be honest, it’s not as if I’m overly distracted or simply just procrastinating these days. I’ll still deal with the Don’t Wannas every now and again, but for the most part I’ve been doing good. Just…not giving myself enough time.

Part of it lately is that I’ve been working a few odd hours at the Day Job that get me out around 4pm instead of 2pm, which leaves me with a few hours to hang with A and the cats until after dinner, by which time I end up scrunching multiple things into about an hour and a half of time. And to be honest, that ain’t working.

One thing I should probably do is prep multiple blog entries on the same day like I used to — that can easily be done if I give myself time to think about what I want to write about. And though I truly enjoy using the 750Words site, I think I’m at a point where I don’t need to work there right now. At this point writing there is more about getting those words done than using it for various projects. I’m not abandoning it, of course…I’m merely putting it aside.

The other thing I need to do is lay some ground rules, specifically one: what project(s) needs the most focus right now? In this case, I have two I want to focus on: finishing Theadia and starting the remaster of A Division of Souls. I already have schedule plans for each, so that shouldn’t be a problem. And when I’m done with Theadia then I can finally shift the bulk of my focus on writing MU4.

So yeah, I don’t think it’s distraction, at least not right now. Just needing to rethink my schedule a bit.

Year End Review – Where I Am, Where I’m Not

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This past year has been a bit different than the past few on multiple levels. I went through a wave of not reading much of anything at all besides manga, graphic novels, and my own works in progress. I put considerable distance between myself and social media. I put a lot of projects aside to let myself focus on the one that needed the most attention. And of course I put my blogs on temporary hiatus.

Not that any of this was particularly a bad thing. In fact they were good things. I needed a mental and emotional vacation to put myself on stable ground once more. I wanted to give myself some time to relax without several looming deadlines, while simultaneously balancing them with the Day Job and its stable yet occasionally fluctuating schedule. I wanted to readjust my life and take it day to day instead of several events and things at once. And most of all, I wanted to get rid of all those distractions so I could remember what I needed to do to focus on said works in progress. Both Theadia and Queen Ophelia’s War are all but done rough-draftwise (they’re missing their endings but I know what to put there), so I disconnected from nearly everything else to focus solely on their revisions.

On a more personal level, I suppose I’d been needing to do a disconnect for some time, considering how many distractions I’d been dealing with. A lot of them were of my own making, whether they were of the ooh shiny or the don’t wanna variety, and given how easily I can fall into both, it was a matter of returning to the old mantra that has yet to prove me wrong: just shut the f*ck up and DO it already. It’s not the dislike of the project or the action, it’s the avoidance of getting started. Once I do start, it’s smooth sailing, simple as that. [Okay, maybe not that smooth and simple, but you get my drift.]

So to answer the entry’s title: where I am, (and) where I’m not?

I am writing and/or revising daily these days, and the output fluctuates. Sometimes it’s a full chapter and other times it’s a few paragraphs, and either one is just fine by me. I’ve been doing some personal writing on the 750Words site to help push me in the right direction. I am about a quarter of the way through revising Queen Ophelia’s War, which is not bad for about a month’s consistent work. I am planning on picking up Theadia once this one is done, or close to done. I am thinking of doing a bit of social media culling and reimagining in the new year. And I am happy where I am in my personal life and writing career!

I am not trying to push myself by doing too many things at once, which can sometimes lead to the return of the don’t wannas. I am not forcing myself to write on demand like I may have in the past, though I am also not sitting here doing nothing while waiting for inspiration to strike, either. I am not letting the Day Job interfere with my writing time, and I am quite proud of that fact. And I am not giving up writing any time soon.

There are other more personal things I am and am not doing, but that’s for another entry!

Keeping an eye on things

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A funny thing happens when Jules sees a bird outside Spare Oom’s window. I have my two acoustic guitars in front of it, so when she gets excited her tail will start wagging furiously between them, and every now and again I’ll hear a twaaang twaaang twaaang behind me. She’s might not be the quickest cat (unless she has the zoomies) and she’s a calm kitty when it comes to new experiences and enrichment moments, but birds will excite her like nothing else.

What does this have to do with writing? Well, nothing all that much, but I really love this picture of her shooting daggers at two crows back in late June and wanted to share it, but if you really want to stretch a metaphor, I suppose it would be that I’ve been looking at my writing in a similar way. I’ve been making considerable efforts to turn away from distractions, which has always been one of my worst habits. And in doing this, it’s helped me become more focused on what I should be focused on. I’ve been doing my best getting work done on Queen Ophelia’s War, even despite the the day job shifts.

Other than that? Yeah, I’ll totally admit I’ve been distracted by Jules and Cali, but they’re distractions I’m willing to accept.

Making that connection

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The hardest thing about writing MU4 so far has been making a personal connection with my characters. I know what I want from them, and I think I know how I want them to evolve, but getting to those points has been fraught with missing by inches.

I also know, this time for a fact, that I’m not trying hard enough. I’m still suffering through waves of the Don’t Wannas with an equal serving of Easily Distracted. I want to write this novel, damn it all, I’m just avoiding working on it, and I’m starting to piss myself off because of it.

If this means I have to take desperate measures, I’ll do it. I’ve already uninstalled or removed several apps from my phone to minimize distraction during Day Job breaks I should be spending less passively. But though I’ve been doing all my actual writing work at home and I do close my web browsers come writing time, I still have too many distractions. If this means unpinning nearly every shortcut from the Task Bar, so be it. Making it harder to open distraction apps usually works for me simply by utilizing the Out of Sight Out of Mind method, and I’d rather not use one of those ‘won’t/can’t open until forty-five minutes pass’ apps if I can help it.

Still — the issue remains that when I am writing, I’m still not quite making that connection. I’m not connecting on that emotional level I’m aiming for. They still feel too distant. And again, that’s a personal issue I have to work through: I have to let myself establish that level, allow myself to take that deep dive. I know I can do it and I’ve done it before.

Eventually I’ll make that connection I’m longing for. I just need to keep trying.

More on Distraction

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Yes, Cali and Jules (see above) are definitely distracting, in a good way. Especially when they get all cute and cuddly and want our attention. But that’s not the distraction I’m talking about.

I’ve fallen behind on my work on MU4 partly because this past week I’d worked mid-shifts at the Day Job for three of the five days, Tuesday through Thursday, followed by two early mornings starting at 5:30am. My brain’s been a little loopy because of it and the most spoons I had was to maybe do a bit of reading of what I had so far.

I still have the same distractions I’ve had since we moved out to the west coast, of course — fiddling with the music library, refreshing the social media timelines, cleaning out the email inboxes, things like that — but I’d like to think I’ve gotten better over the last couple of years, especially now that my Day Job isn’t a high-stress brain melter and that I’ve cleaned out the detritus up there. I’d say my worst distraction right now is simple avoidance: purposely finding other things to focus on to avoid doing the actual work. The good thing is that’s an easy thing to combat, simply by shutting down those browsers and starting the work whether I’m ready for it or not.

I find that’s the most common start to a writing session when I’m distracted. Most of the time I am ready for it and the output isn’t all that bad (and when it is bad, I try not to dwell on it for long and remind myself to fix it next session). I’m simply just delaying because I’m trying to get the session mood just right. [Hey, remember during the Belfry days when I used to waste a half hour deciding what cds to listen to? Some things never change, do they?] My workaround has been the same thing since I came up with it in the mid-90s: just shut the f*** up and DO it already.

And that still works to this day.

Hopefully this coming week will be better! My schedule is mostly mornings with a day off midweek, so I should be able to work through the lingering Don’t Wanna’s and make some progress. There probably won’t be any new words, but I can at least revise and improve this newly reinserted chapter and work out how to go from there.

In Need of Distance…?

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I’m at the point in Theadia where I think I’m hyperfocusing too much. I do this at least once with every project I’ve ever worked on: I’ll eventually arrive at a point where I’m not sure if I’m making it better or making it worse. Sometimes it’s because I’ve been working on the same chapter or scene for far too many days and I need to let it go and move on (and fix it properly at a later time). Sometimes it’s because I’m working on a scene that’s full of tension that I’ve become so familiar with that I don’t feel said tension anymore.

There’s also the fact that I’ve been a bit distracted by Real Life Stuff lately, and I just don’t have the spoons to connect with it on an emotional level at the moment.

Either way, this is where I need to make a decision: power through until the issues go away, or step away and work on something else for a little bit. Powering through essentially means getting rid of those Don’t Wanna/Oh Hey A Distraction urges, which works really well for me. Stepping away works too, but I usually reserve that for when I’m truly frustrated or physically/mentally exhausted and need the break.

So yeah, looks like I’ll have to soldier through!

Working When It’s Noisy

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Enjoying the show from Spare Oom

It’s Fleet Week here in San Francisco, which means that the Blue Angels have been flying overhead for a few hours over the last couple of days. I’m pretty much used to it by now, having always had a perfect viewing platform away from the public (read: one of our rooms!), so it’s just a few hours’ worth of loud each day. [Back during the Former Day Job, there were plenty of moments when I had to pause a conversation during a client call and say “Sorry about that, the Blue Angels just flew over. As you were saying?”]

Does this sort of thing bother me when I’m writing? Not at all. I spent most of my childhood and adult life in a busy house and I currently live in a major US city, so I’m quite used to it. In fact, it’s part of why I’m constantly listening to music; the tunes give me something to focus on so the erratic white noise of planes and whatnot don’t register all that much. I will let myself occasionally be distracted by the air show, especially when they’re flying close by, because why not? It’s fun and it’s only once a year!

Now, hearing the impossibly loud Recology garbage trucks idling and crunching and compacting and clonking outside our building at six in the morning, on the other hand…

Last Minute

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Image courtesy of Nichijou

I’m writing this on a Sunday night at 7:30pm and I’m reminded of my school years, when I was absolutely terrible at getting my weekend homework started. I hated having to take all the time doing it when all my friends were outside doing stuff without me, so like everyone else I knew, I’d do it on Sundays.

The downside to that is that I’d wait until after dinner, so I’d be starting it around 6pm. Which, you know, if it was doing math problems or fill in the blank exercises, I could get those done toot sweet. If they were essays or long-term class projects or studying for Monday tests, however…yeah. I was awful at all that. I’d be up well past my bedtime cramming and make the biggest damn hash of it ever. Added to the fact that I couldn’t do a damn thing without music playing. Which, you know, always the distraction. [It took me years to figure out that it wasn’t laziness that caused this. But that’s another post entirely.]

I do in fact have a decent excuse for writing this entry this late this time; we had a busy weekend filled with a movie (Venom: There Will Be Carnage, which was all kinds of ridiculous fun), walking (ALL THE WALKING), shopping, PC maintenance and quite a bit of house cleaning. The weekend is when A and I do a lot of things together, whether it be major events or just walking around the neighborhood and going out for brunch. And I’m totally fine with not getting any writing work done then. I’m not getting graded on it (or receiving a lower grade due to lateness), and it gives me some brain downtime so I can start in on the writing work week with a fresh start.

So yeah. I don’t miss those days of last-minute homework, not at all. Writing these entries might sometimes feel like it, especially when I get too stressed and overthink it, but the high school stress is long gone out of my life.

Of course, tomorrow I’ll have to figure out how to squeeze writing my Walk in Silence entry in between my multiple novel sessions and grocery shopping…

Distraction (again) and Avoiding It

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Well, I’m sure I could say I have a legitimate reason for being somewhat distracted, given this week’s news, but…

I really need to start closing the browsers more often. I mean, it’s not as if I get into an hours-long doomscroll…it’s more the serotonin rush of being plugged in, I think, added with a lack of focus. And I need to stop it. Again.

I mean, I know when distraction sets in, because it’s so reliably predictable. I could be scooting along at top speed on whatever I’m working on, and as soon as I slow down to grasp at a word or phrase that isn’t coming to me just yet, my brain says oh hey, let’s go on Twitter and see what’s going on! and next thing I know, it’s twenty minutes later. That’s been the top culprit for a while now.

[In a way, I’m glad it’s no longer my delaying any work at all by poring over my music library for a half hour, trying to decide what to listen to. I was terrible at that during the Belfry days.]

Whatever’s going on in the world really shouldn’t be a distraction, at least not unless it’s literally outside my window. It’s okay to be late to the party now and again. I didn’t even know about the events at the Capitol building until almost a full hour later because I’d closed everything to finish up some long-delayed revision work. It took me a bit of time to unreel myself from all that after lunchtime when I had more work to do, but I was able to do it eventually.

I seem to hit Heavily Distracted levels maybe every five days or so. I don’t know if it’s a brain thing an emotional one, but it’s something I have to deal with in one way or another. Sometimes it’s easy, closing those browsers, putting on an album, and immersing myself in work. Other times it’s not so easy, and those are when I don’t have a clear plan. Either way, I work through it somehow, eventually. Sometimes I’ll back away and do something off the PC, like a bit of art or music practice. Or maybe even a word search! [Those are surprisingly calming for me, I find.]

Anyway — life finds a way, as they say. I know I get distracted, and it’s up to me to find ways to avoid that when I can.