Good distractions ignored or stored safely, bad ones binned

Article

23 Jul

If your novel is in production, you want to spend as much of your valuable time on it as you possibly can. Distractions must be dealt with swiftly, and binned. As you write, you will find scenes and characters and plots trying to persuade you to include them in your action. They want to become embedded in your current writing. Recognize when they have a rightful claim and when they should be placed on hold for a future work.

If not tackled head on, time will waste as they push to make their presence felt, ever louder and bossier. The more they are allowed to hog space in the free flow of your writing, the more of a nuisance they grow to be. The way to set disturbances aside is to stop what you are doing and deal with them or your thinking will be confounded, and the noise they create will dull your acuity. Acuity of thought will be needed to assemble all the complexities in your plotting and map the way for all characters to find the final full stop and for readers to willingly walk, run, sail, cry, laugh alongside them.

If the commotion is loud enough, loud enough to be demanding a strong presence in the current novel or ideas for the next work are blooming bold and bright, type a brief description of any plotlines that are jumping out and how these interact with characters and settings. Maybe you find there is work to be done laying out some of the intrigue that will twist and stretch readers minds. Whatever you do, you must clear the clutter. This calms your mind by showing it such valuable thoughts are not going to waste away, nor are they going to be permitted to intervene in the current process and reminds them to be patient in the queue. Far more important is the work at hand and developing it through to the finish line.

***Always ready to record that fleeting flash of an idea***

What is so impressive about doing this is that if you are deep into sorting out a plot line and need time to untangle a particularly elaborate interplay, you have another project waiting for you. One you prepared earlier. As you step away and busy yourself elsewhere, you can let your mind tick away in the background while it plans the next project’s blocks of action and ways to maneuver your followers. The “next project” can be within the same novel or the setting and development of a completely new one. Given space and time to ponder, your thoughts have a way of untangling a mess and coming up with solutions and will happily let you know when they have found one for your consideration.

Tinker with this newer word mass and begin to flesh it out. Let its characters ask for scenery that suits, partners, allies and antagonists. Oh, yes, they will quickly tell you what they need.

These are good distractions. They still must be controlled. Remain focused on finishing a project. Don’t forget, others are already under way. Tell yourself that.

The bad are more plentiful, and often harder to set aside. You will readily create a lengthy list of your own worst distractors. Do that right now. Stop reading, grab something to write with and write down the things that waste your time and that muddle your thinking, preventing it from flowing freely from character to character, place to place, emotion to emotion, mystery to outcome. Figure out how you will bin most and lower the impact of others. Recognizing them is a good opening move. Then to work on others. Try to bin them, but at least to set them aside.

This is about knowing what you let take over your time and about controlling what happens with your time. Some of the big time-takers are

Research. Write down what you want to find out. How many examples do you want? How long will you spend looking? Be strong here. The internet will let you search for years if you let it. Be convinced, then stop and go back to the real work.
Your resources. Create somewhere to store your information. It may be useful in later projects. My suggestion is to keep a OneNote notebook for your resources. I’ll discuss this in a future post. But whatever you do, keep it simple and easy to find.
Timing. If you have a lot of energy to burn, set yourself blocks of time in which you work flat out and then take say 15 minutes to burn off some of that energy. But be strict about the difference between the need to burn off energy and losing focus on your work.
If you find yourself feeling sluggish, again give yourself a break. Set a time to get back to work (yes, “work”), even if it is the next day. Approach your writing positively, with a view to accomplishing that publication target.
Friends and family. Pets too. All these need your attention and time. Work your focus time around them. They will appreciate it. They will be an important part of your support team.
Food and drink. Keep snacks within reach, for occasional snacking or set times for it.

You can probably think of many more. As you think of those time-wasters, think of ways to lessen their impact. I won’t even mention mobile phones. Oh, I already did. Put it down.