In the past two weeks, I have tried a number of techniques to improve productivity and increase focus while writing. I have learned one important lesson. By far the most effective technique is the simplest.
When I write now, I power up a laptop without inserting the wireless networking card. All writing happens on this one laptop. This combination allows me to work in anywhere, free of wires, and far from the call of the Internet. Ah, so elementary, yet so powerful.
Sure web research starts harmlessly enough. Perhaps a quick peek at websters.com for the online thesaurus or dictionary. Maybe pop over to cnn.com or foxnews.com for the latest headline. Current events matter, after all. And I want my howstuffworks.com, because the writers need intimate knowledge of engineering concepts. But all too often, what is a brief diversion snowballs into a twenty minute distraction.
And Internet borne distractions are more intrusive than life distractions. If the phone rings, I can pick it up and chat for a few minutes and return to a project in about the same place. If Buddhapuss jumps on on my lap, I pat him. But if I’m writing and start surfing, it breaks the spell that keeps the words flowing out of me and onto the screen. Double plus ungood.
Maybe someday I’ll have more discipline to manage my Internet intake. But for now, I’m working it Koontz style.
I know your pain. And I wish I had a laptop myself to deal with myriad distractions offered by the internet. I have a number of research sites bookmarked, and I can’t seem to keep from leapfroging from one to the next after I’ve found what I was looking for.
I’m actually much better than I used to be. Cutting out message boards certainly helped — especially when I have my gf reminding me that every word I type to some stranger I don’t even know is one more I could be putting into a short story or a novel.
As usual, she’s right.
Skipping the Internet while writing has really made a difference. I’m getting 2x-4x as much done as before. I still surf aplenty, just not when working on manuscripts. Really thought Dean Koontz was being pretentious and insulated when he turned his back on the Internet during business hours. But the man does crank them pages out.
As for Kat’s advice on message boards…
There was a saying in our grandfather’s era, behind every great man is a great woman. Nowadays, it’s more like behind every great woman is a man struggling to keep pace.
Personally, I’m not sure what good comes of web boards unless they are technical in nature. The fucktard to guru ratio is too high. If only someone would tell Poppy and Anne Rice.
Yeah, no kidding. I don’t see why they bother, or how they can let a bunch of geeks get them so upset. I think both ladies give their fans way too much ammunition by being so available to them. If I were successful, I’d be focusing more on maintaining that success rather than duking it out online with a bunch of strangers (whose opinions are probably not going to change no matter how strongly I might put forth my case).
Arguing implies that something can be gained by one or both parties as a result of the exchange, and that both sides think they are correct.
I don’t care about being right. I want to write.
While I could be wrong, I think neither Poppy nor Anne like the idea that someone could have an opinion that conflicts with theirs and receive equal time and billing. Because on a message board no one person’s statement ends a conversation, no one member is the “last word”. If someone is moved to comment, they will. Even if the moderators delete their comments or lock the thread, then the ex-poster will simply go somewhere else and badmouth whomever on a new board.
The more a writer fights the Internet the more it hurts them.
Agreed. There seems to exist on every message board a cabal of trolls and flamers whose sole purpose is to keep me from posting on any of them every again. To them I say thank you. I might actually get that novel finished now.
Ye shall finish when you allow yourself the time to finish.
I must admit, sometimes I’d like to push trolls and flamers down a very long flight of stairs.