Distractions: Irritants to Writers
You need to write; you are eager to write; you sit down to
write. The phone rings; your neighbor comes to your door with
her personal problems; your children fight. These types of
distractions happen to all the writers, even when they plan
their writing session according to the times when they are least
likely to be distracted. Still, no matter how much they
complain, most writers deal with distractions successfully and
continue with their writing.
If writers are flexible and recognize distractions as part of
the process, they can devise ways to deal with that dilemma. In
my home, although I have a separate room to work in, I set my
regular writing space in the corner of the living area, so I can
be in control of the goings on. In two or three strides, I can
reach to my kitchen to handle the cooking; I can keep the family
members company, since they can't manage their lives without
talking to me; and when they are watching television with the
sound too loud, I can still concentrate because I keep a box of
ear plugs on my desk.
Maintaining an organized work space and scheduling the work also
helps. Plus, just in case, I hide a can of bug spray under the
desk since I live in Florida where, due to Sauna-like
conditions, an explosion of insect forms can invade my
whereabouts without any warning.
Most of the time, outside distractions like these are easy
enough to handle. The worst distractions, however, are the ones
that come from inside a writer. When some writers sit down to
write, they find they want to do something else or they
procrastinate. They check the e-mail; surf the web; fool around
with the graphics or the music inside their computers, etc.
These things happen because a writer may feel panicky when
facing the blank page or the computer screen. The cure is to
write anything, just anything, or to start from where he left
off yesterday, even if it means he'll delete what he is writing
at the moment.
Some of the distractions writers' minds come up with might
result from some kind of an inner rebellion. Writers pride
themselves as being free and do not adjust to authority figures
well. When a deadline, a work under contract, an editing job, or
a rewrite shows up, the mind arranges a full-blown mutiny and
the fickle muse starts playing around in other fields. At this
time, the assault of ideas from everywhere, minus the ideas for
the task at hand, afflicts the writer.
When writers are bombarded with ideas that seem fantastic at the
moment, they want to go after them. In this case, the best
approach is to jot down the ideas either in a notebook or a
notepad file. I have a notepad file minimized while I type,
because alien ideas attack even when I am in the middle of an
earthbound manuscript.
Possessing an unpredictable mind is the writer's destiny and all
writers have to deal with its burden. Yet, every so often, a
distraction may save the work in the form of a word or phrase
the writer didn't think of before or an additional idea or an
inspiration that may add to the well-being of the piece he is
busy writing.
Ultimately, if the work at hand is important to the writer,
cajoling his concentration and fixing his attention on the
subject may prove beneficial. After writing a few pages, he may
find himself truly absorbed in the project until he carries it
to the end. That is when the writer's knack to focus his
attention will generate productivity.