The Big Distraction

During Nano I always have this incredible focus.  I'm not sure what, exactly, about that month that allows me to just lose myself in my writing.  I've theorized in the past that it's the competition.  Anyone who knows me is aware of just how much that drives me through the month.  Watching my word count rise, and comparing it to that of the counts around me.  I find that incredibly motivating.

I've also wondered if it's just because there are so many people around doing the same thing as me.  Having the ability to go on the chat and know that every person there is struggling to get out the words they need to meet those goals is highly motivating.  It tells me that I'm not alone.  That we're in it together.

Whatever it is, though, it's certainly not present right now.

I've challenged myself to do NaNoEdMo.  Basically I have to edit for 50 hours this month. I haven't done too bad so far.  I've actually finished the book I was editing, and I've moved on to another project.  This one is getting completely rewritten, and it requires a lot of planning on my part so that I don't end up with the same issues that I had with it in the first place.

I'm counting it all as editing, because this isn't a first draft.  Well, technically it is.  There was so much wrong with that original draft, I can't even really call it an outline at this point.  But, to me, all of those hours that I put into that original draft weren't wasted.  It helped me to get to the point with my writing where I feel like I have the ability to write the story that it originally deserved to be, so I'm counting it as a rewrite and therefore editing.

I'm also going to count it as writing next month, but that's completely besides the point.

The point is that I've edited for seventeen and a half hours so far this month.  I'm supposed to be at twenty-two hours.

Why am I behind?  That's simple: distraction.  I'm not blaming the distractions themselves.  Is it Deception's fault that when I watched the first episode I couldn't stop watching it until I finished?  No!  Is it my friends fault that I would rather hang out in my email and wait to see what they say next rather than opening my scrivener project and getting to work?  No!  Is it my cat's fault that I walked away from my computer to go cuddle with her for twenty minutes so she would stop meowing outside my door?  Okay...that one might be on the cat.  But she didn't know that she was distracting me!

I can't concentrate.  I don't know why.  I tell myself that I'll do something, and then I just don't.  I need to figure out how to capture the feeling of NaNo in a bottle so that I can take a swig anytime I need a kick in the butt.

Until then, though, I suppose I'll just have to rely on twitter and my friends there to keep me going.  I need to have, at the very least, the planning for this book done before next month.  No more procrastinating.  No more telling myself that I can catch up on my next day off.  I need to focus.

Now to just tell my motivation that.

How do you keep your motivation in check?  Do you ever find your attention wandering, even when you really want to be working?

How Soon We Forget

With Nano ending only a couple of months ago, I've been hard at work editing.  In December I finished Pandora, and this month I've been working on Stolen Magick, and it's been going quite well.  I've gotten through the chapters at record speed for me.  The manuscript is reading more like a second draft than a first, and it's been making me feel pretty good about myself.  Especially since I've been finding myself with some actual free time because everything is getting done, and it's getting done early.

So what can possibly happen that would knock me back a few steps?

A short story.  Simple as that.  I had to write a short story for critique group, and I had it scheduled for Monday.  So I sat down to work on it at 11:30 in the morning.  I didn't expect for it to take too long.  I guessed about an hour.  Two tops.

Then I stared at the blank screen in front of me, not quite sure where to start.  I had an idea, but I just didn't know how to start it.

And then, when I finally got the words put down on the page, they weren't right.  Nothing was right.  I stopped after about three sentences, and immediately erased everything.

Next I started to do some research.

I just want to stop and point out here that I don't like research.  Actually I hate it.  With a passion.  I don't even like to do it for my novels.  And yet I found about six tabs open, all of them with different bits of information that I needed to write the short story.

When I had finally managed to get everything that I needed to know, I pulled up that blank page again.

It still didn't go well.  I needed names.  And then there was a million other things I needed to look up in the process of writing.

By the time the story was done it had been five hours.  FIVE!

It hasn't taken me that long to finish anything since...well...since Nano!

That's when I remembered.  Drafting doesn't always go as smoothly as I want it to.  In fact, it never does.  If I'm not struggling to force the words out, then new things that I didn't plan are appearing, and I find myself getting annoyed, and more often than not, frustrated.

I'm not saying that I hate drafting.  Far from it, it's one of my favourite part of the writing process.  I'm just glad that I remembered that before I started working on the first draft of Malice next month.  I can't wait to do it, and I'm glad that I didn't remember just how long it can take when I was getting started on a novel I have to work on for a month.

Now I just need to finish Stolen Magick so that I can move onto Malice without getting distracted.

Do you ever forget about parts of the writing process?  How do you get yourself into the story so you can write it??

Stop and Smell the Roses

Today I heard a phrase I'm sure I've heard a thousand time in my life.  Stop and Smell the roses.  I don't think that anyone has specifically said it to me, but I've always known what people have meant by it.  That you can't rush through life.  Sometimes you have to take a break and make sure to enjoy the little things in life.

So when I heard the phrase today, I couldn't help but really stop and think about it.  Mostly because, at the time, I was actually watching a show and procrastinating on my writing.  (Well, rewriting.  I do have an editing goal I need to try and keep as I have beta readers waiting for it.)

I've never really been the one to be busy all the time.  However, in the last year I've found myself doing more and more things, and therefor finding my schedule getting more and more full.  There are weeks when I almost never go home after work.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining.  I love going out with my friends.  I love my critique group and all the different things I've been doing since starting writing.

So now, for the first time in my life, I find myself actually able to appreciate the saying.  I understand what it's like to get so caught up in everything that's been going on with my life that I forget to stop and see or appreciate all those little things.  I've done it, where all I can think about is the stress of getting a book written, or edited and forget that I love this.  I love creating a story, and there's nothing I want more than to share those stories with everyone else.

Of course, getting stressed means I start to feel overwhelmed.  When that happens I tend to stop working on whatever it is I need to get done.  Unfortunately that means I start smelling the roses a little too much.  I just stop.  I'll do pretty much anything to not work on the writing or editing that I have to do.  Today that happened in the form of watching the first season of Dead Like Me.

I know how to stop and smell the roses.  I do it all the time, even when I really shouldn't be.  That doesn't mean that I disagree with the message of it.  It doesn't matter what's going on in your life.  How stressful everything is, or how much you  have to do, every once in a while, you need to stop and take a deep breath.  Look around and realize that life isn't always about that to do list.  Sometimes it's about taking those thirty minutes you don't think you can spare to have a meal in the park while listening to the birds sing.  Sometimes it's finding the time in a week to watch that show you absolutely adore, because it inspires you, or even just entertains you.

Sometimes it's not about doing something.  Sometimes it's about not doing something.

Unfortunately for me, right now it has to be about doing something.  The roses will be there when I'm done, though, and I'm looking forward to smelling them again.

What We Need

I recently started thinking about all the little things I (and so many other writers) do in order to get through our projects.  (For the record I am, in fact, writing a blog post to avoid rewriting a chapter.  I know.  Shocker)  So, I thought I would share with you everything that I do.

Let's start right from the beginning.  My planning.  Just like everything else, I find I'm not able to do this just sitting in silence.  I've come to the conclusion that I just like to be surrounded by things that other people have created.  Shows that actors have acted in.  Songs sung by singers.  Anything that proves I'm not the only on in the world trying to be creative.  Or maybe just trying to get some of their creativity to seep into me.

For the brainstorming portion of my planning, I tend to throw on some show.  Whatever I'm trying to catch up on.  This may sound distracting to you.  I assure you, it is.  However, I am also taking in all the twists and turns that writers who have made it are throwing into the shows.  It give me ideas.  Sometimes it tells me exactly what I don't want to do, but that's usually better than what I had.  Occasionally this means that I get to watch that show twice because I got so caught up in my planning I literally lost track of what was going on in the show.  More often than not, though, I do tend to find myself dismayed by how little I got done.  Still, it works for me (usually) and I do come out with a much better story than I started with.

Actually plotting is completely different from brainstorming.  At this point I have to completely immerse myself in the story line.  Which means that watching other shows only distracts me from the plot I need to put together.  I get the two confused, or just completely ignore my own plot because, let's face it, I suffer from a severe case of theywritesomuchbetterthanido-itis.  This also means that I turn to another form of creativity.  Songs.  I have a playlist on my itunes.  (It's actually a work in progress.  I currently have 264 songs in the playlist, but that number is constantly changing.  Either I buy something new, or I delete something that just isn't working when I'm writing.)  While I'm plotting I usually throw on some music in the background and get that plot done.

Writing is a lot like plotting for me.  I need to fall into the story.  Be so surrounded by it that I'm never quite sure if this world is real, or if the story I'm writing is.  Of course, writing requires more of my attention because I have to actually pay attention to things like spelling and grammar (though I quite often fail on those even when I am paying attention).  When I'm writing I turn the music up a bit louder and throw the headphones in.  That way I'm not distracted by anything around me.  I barely hear people knocking on my door.  It keeps me focused, and helps me to make it through the writing.

Editing, my least favourite part of the writing game, is different than all the rest.  I have what I like to affectionately call my 'editing movie'.  Currently it's Star Trek.  I know that some people think that I'm productive while it's on because some consider it to be not a good movie, but the truth is actually the opposite.  I actually love the movie.  I've seen it so many times I can practically quote the entire thing (and I may have even done so on occasion before.  Don't judge me.)  That's how I can put it on and pretty much tune it out.  I can read the story or make the changes, because I'm not afraid of missing part of the story line.  I know it well enough that I can glance up for a second and know exactly what's happening.  Having a movie playing in the background seems to engage my mind just enough that I can get over the annoyed feeling of having to just sit and do one thing at a time.  I'm hoping that I'll get some more editing movies in the future, but right now I don't have enough time to watch a movie enough to get to that point.

I would say that most writers have their little routines.  Maybe not quite as strange as mine, but I know for a fact that I'm not the only one that listens to music as I write.  Some, of course, can't fathom listening to music.  I've had more than one person ask me if it distracts me.  Honestly, I don't really hear the music I'm listening to when I'm writing.  I use it to drown out the other distractions.  But every writer is different.