Shutting Out the Distractions

 By Thomas Kies

I live on the coast of North Carolina.  I’ve been here for nearly twenty years and in all that time, I might have seen snow twice and then it was just a dusting. Here one moment, melted into oblivion the next.  But this past week, we got seven inches of the white stuff, and the temps have been below freezing so it hasn’t gone anywhere.

I grew up in Upstate New York, so I know snow.  I even miss it from time to time.  When it started coming down this week, it was late evening and I went for a walk along our quiet lane, watching it fall, feeling it on my face and hands.  I literally luxuriated in it.

Bu then, as I recalled from my youth, the next day it turns to ice.  Driving and even walking become treacherous.  The longer it sticks around, the grayer and dirtier it gets.

What did I write while the snow was outside my window? How much of my next novel did I complete?  Nothing.  Nada.  I was distracted. 

That coupled with the political climate and ensuing chaos….well, any attempt at fiction was a bust this week.

How do you overcome distractions?  Here are a few suggestions. 

Have a place of your own that is conducive to creativity.  It’s your space to write.  It might be your office, a corner of your kitchen, or a table at the coffee shop.  For me, I have a man cave over the garage.  My desk is here, the lighting is good, and it’s quiet.  

Do you have a writing routine?  It helps to set aside a certain time of day….or night…that you can take the time to write.  I know some writers who get up early to write before they go off to their day job.  I know some writers who stay up late and hit their laptops until the wee hours of the morning.  For me, mid-afternoon is the sweet spot.

The biggest distraction?  The internet.  Notifications that chime when they come across my phone.  Emails that can’t wait, social media posts, or headlines from the multitude of websites demanding my attention---all of it sucking time. IGNORE IT!!!  Click bait is just that.  It’s created to attract eyeballs and eat your time.  

Writing a novel is daunting.  It’s huge.  Break that sucker down into manageable pieces.  For me, I think about the book in scenes or chapters.  I try not to view it as a big project but a lot of smaller projects. 

Need to take a break?  Get some exercise.  Take a walk, lift some weights, take a cruise on your bike.  Not only is it good for you, but it pumps that blood into your brain where you need it the most. 

There are so many distractions that can take you away from your writing.  Putting your words on paper is hard.  Finishing an article or column or…a book…is really difficult.  You have to have your own strategy to put you into that mindset and push out the rest of the world.  It might be meditation.  It might be a few minutes petting the dog while you have a cup of coffee.  It might be taking a stroll around the block.  Whatever it takes, do it. Writing is like being an athlete.  The more you practice, the better you are at your sport.  The more you write, the better you are at your craft. 

The rest of the world is working hard to get your attention.  You have to work even harder to keep you focus. 

What do YOU do to shut the rest of the world out and focus on your writing?

Thoughts about Process

 Frankie here. Charlotte's post last Friday about tenacity and her writing process made me think once again about "getting to finish" with my various works in progress.

My puppy Fergus has been at home from  doggie daycare all week as he finishes a course of antibiotics for a virus. Although I sometimes wonder if it is extravagant to spend money to send him to daycare, the past week has convinced me once again that it is worth it. Daycare is important to his socialization, and -- as important -- having him out of the house allows me to get work done. If all goes well, I'll at least earn enough to keep dog and cat in kibble and treats for a year or two.

While preparing for a Sisters in Crime National webinar I did on Wednesday, I had an opportunity to think about what always works for me. The one aspect of my process that I can always rely on is -- wait for it! -- research. Doing research gets me started, helps me push on through the muddled middle, and gets me across the finish line. 

Sometimes what I call research is no more than reading a newspaper and looking for articles that jump out at me. I keep a notebook at hand to jot down ideas inspired by the articles. When I'm stuck I flip though my notebook. I also keep a digital file. 

Today I was in my digital file and came across this note I made to myself about my 6th Lizzie Stuart novel. I'm still in the early stages of writing the first draft, but I've been keeping plot notes for months. This note is from an early synopsis. I wrote it when my working title was Nothing As Planned.  

It’s a month after the events in “In Her Fashion”. Lizzie has been reading about expatriates and that has brought her to Albert Einstein. She is reading a book about his struggle to complete his theory of relativity. She is fascinated by his effort to break through his block and his discovery of the solution while reading patent applications and then his boldness in challenging Newton’s theory.

"In Her Fashion" is a Lizzie short story that was published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.  

 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/eqmm/episodes/2014-06-27T06_59_34-07_00

The story was complete in itself, but a month later, Lizzie is still thinking about the people who were involved. The thing is I have no idea why I thought Einstein would be relevant to what happens in the novel. Lizzie is driving home when she sees a woman trying to change her flat tire. She stops to make sure she is okay. Later, she learns the woman is missing. The current working title of the book is A Rainy Night in Gallagher. 

But -- whatever I was reading -- I found something that I thought would be useful about Albert Einstein and his patent application. With luck it was a brilliant idea that I forgot. I'm going to have to find that article again. 

Meanwhile, Fergus is playing with his stuffed lamb. There is a hole in its belly, and Fergus has strewed white cotton from kitchen to dining room to living room. But, at least, it's something I can sweep up. I'm ignoring and trying to get a little more done before I call it a day.

 

Writing Distractions and Building Tension

I have a confession to make.  Other than this blog, I haven’t written a word in three days.

I’m easily distracted and the last few days have kept me from being creative.  First of all, the obvious distraction is the pandemic…and the upcoming election.  The Democratic Convention was this past week and that kept me glued to the television. 

Well, that and the new Perry Mason reboot on HBO.  I highly recommend it.

Then, on an upside, I received an email from a former student who told me I’d inspired her to finish her novel. She told me that after finishing the class, she went back and completely rewrote her first chapters.  Then she asked what her next step should be.

I gave her my phone number and told her to call me.  I advised her to get a beta reader to take a look and then, if she can afford it, a professional editor to help find typos and punctuation mistakes.  Then I told her how I found an agent.  I also told her to keep in touch. 

That was a nice distraction.

Then on Thursday, I got up at 4:30 to take my wife to a surgical center for a minor procedure.  They said it would take about three hours and they wanted me close by so the instructions were that I should stay in the parking lot.  I brought a Harlan Coben mystery to pass the time. 

About a half hour into my vigil, sitting in the North Carolina heat and humidity, I went to start my car, a hybrid, and discovered that my battery had died.  Calling my mechanic, he told me that the soonest he could get a battery for my car would be a week from then.

I was feeling the tension.

I called an Uber, went home, and got my wife’s car.  An hour later, I was driving her home.  The rest of the day, I forgot about my car and looked after her recovery.

The next day, I called Triple A, gave them my information, and they told me to call them again when I was in the same place as my car.  I drove across our high-rise bridge to the mainland and back to the surgical center to find that the road was blocked off with police officers and ambulances everywhere.  I could see that my car was the only one in the parking lot, because the center had been evacuated.  Police barriers prevented me getting anywhere near my car with a tow truck.

A police officer told me to come back in an hour. 

More tension. And a plot twist.

An hour later, they had extended the lockdown area and now there was a SWAT team onsite.  When I again asked an officer about my car, he told me it wouldn’t be before tomorrow.

Even more tension.

But out of adversity comes opportunity.  I have a work in progress and I’ve been a little dissatisfied with it. 

That’s when it came to me. It needs more tension!

And I need fewer distractions.

So, on Saturday, I had my car towed, the mechanic told me I might get my battery much earlier than he had predicted, my wife is recovering well, and I’m writing again.  And the SWAT team thing?  The press release was maddeningly vague.  Someone had threatened themselves with harm.

And they lockdown four city blocks? And have a SWAT team onsite?  That individual must have threatened to harm themselves with a nuclear weapon.

Just kidding.  It all ended peacefully.  Happy ending. 

Working Intuitively

Rick's post earlier this week came at a time when I, too, was wondering how I was going to get everything done. I'm still wondering that, but I stumbled on something this week. I could be wrong, so I'm not offering this as a strategy. I'm just saying that I happened to do this and it worked well enough for me to experiment.

I have been focusing for the past week on a project that I need to get done. My co-editor on the project has finished his part and now I need to wrap up mine by next week. So I've been doing nothing else -- other than what is necessary to teach my two classes. I have been keeping up with obligations like guest posts, but other than that I have put my marketing plan for What the Fly Saw on hold until after next week. I've also not finished making some tweaks to my nonfiction book proposal that I intended to do quickly and send back to my agent. I've been focusing and getting work done. But in the back of mind all my undone tasks have been nagging away and stressing me out.

Then something unexpected happened. I was working on the project that I need to finish, and suddenly the solution to the problem I had been having with the nonfiction book proposal popped into my head. Normally, I would have stopped what I was doing and rushed to the proposal to catch the idea before it was gone. But this time, I had established a rhythm for what I was doing. I was "in flow" and I had made a bet with myself that I could finish the section that I was working on before I stopped.

Today I had planned to plunge right into the next section of the project. Except the day didn't go as I had intended. I had an appointment with a consultant about a cooling system for my house. And then I went to pick up prescription cat food from the vet, stopped at the supermarket -- been trying to get there for three days -- filled my nearly empty gas tank, dropped cat food and groceries at home, and went in to work. By the time I'd finishing sending a librarian the handout I needed copied and my power point for an author's talk on Saturday and checked in with a curator about media for a local history talk next week, it was almost three o'clock.

I was feeling guilty about not working on the project all day. But I found myself opening the file for my book proposal. I started writing and it was effortless. I zipped through several pages of the proposal, revising based on the idea that I thought was only half-formed. I even started revising one of the sample chapters. I was on a major roll. I stopped when I began to slow down. It was getting late anyway.

I drove home, put a frozen lasagna into the oven (takes 50 minutes that way but leaves more writing time than a microwave) and pulled out my project. But my head still wasn't there yet. So, with all the work I had to do, I watched today's episode of "The Young and the Restless". And then I played "bird" with my cat because he needed the exercise. Finally, at around 9:30, I settled down with the project again.

Technically, I had lost most of the day's work on the project. But I'm not feeling as stressed out as I would expect. In fact, I think that I might do better if I work intuitively. That would mean going with what is flowing at the moment. That would mean not allowing myself to be drawn away to something else because I've had an idea. Instead, give that idea time to germinate, assume that I need a break away from that (whatever it is) and that my subconscious will be working away until I get back to it.

Whether this is true or not, I'm going to let myself believe it for the next week. At least, I'll go to bed and get some sleep. I know that five hours or less of sleep a night is not making me more efficient. So to bed, to sleep, and wake up tomorrow and see if I zip through the next section of my big project.

Anyone else tried working intuitively? I'll report back on my own experiment. And I think I'll pick up this book. According to the blurb, the author has some thoughts about intuition and creativity.