They're everywhere. Everywhere you look, everywhere you turn, there are distractions laying in wait for you, ready at a moment's notice to keep you from doing what you set out to do that day. They come in every shape and form and are so stealthy, so sneaky, that we don't even realize they're upon us until it is much too late. And then, of course, we must deal with the distractions before we can get back to the plan for our day.
For me, being a mother and an avid reader and knitter, those distractions can be wide and varied. I could be distracted by receiving a new book in the mail, finding a new pattern book in the store - isn't there always at least one pattern in there that I have to try RIGHT NOW? - or by any number of things my children might need at any moment. Fortunately, my older daughter is delightfully self-sufficient, but my younger one still needs her mom to help her with things. Or we might need to go to one of her several appointments or meet with a counselor or just run to the store because she needs a certain thing to make her feel better when she's sick. All of these things, added together, are distractions that keep me from the thing I love to do the most - write.
So the question then remains: How do you deal with the distractions? How do you make sure that they don't keep you from doing what you want to do or getting back to what you want to do? For me, that is the hard part. Getting back in the groove if I have to leave my writing for a moment. Especially if I've been in a groove and that groove is interrupted by a distraction. It is so hard, once I get up from the desk, to sit back down again and get back in the groove.
So tell me, what do you do? Do you have any suggestions for me, any secrets to getting back into that place where I can write once again - until the next distraction, that is. I would love to get your input.
Alas, as I sit here writing this, I am trying hard not to be diverted by yet another distraction - my two cats chasing each other through the house!
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4 Moonbeams (comments):
If there would be a drug or herb to help deal with distractions, the inventor would make a fortune! I get distracted SO easily unless I"m in so deep a writing groove that I can't see out the sides!
Dana, that is so true! Don't you wish you could be the one to invent it?
Margay
I like Dana's idea! That'd be the distraction cure all miracle.
Margay, I don't have any advice for you. E-mail can be a distraction for me. I've learned to sign out so I don't get those little yahoo messages that drag me away from my writing.
Also, like you my children can be a major distraction. My boys are younger than your girls, 12 and 8, so while they're self-sufficient in a lot of ways, there are still a lot of things they need their mother for. OR they just want to chat with me. How can you say no to that even if you are knee-deep or brain-deep into a riveting scene. It's hard for me to get back into the scene once I'm taken out. So, this sometimes can be the distraction death.
I like to stay up late and write, but you see it's late now and instead of writing, I'm catching up on reading blogs and leaving comments. :D
There is always a distraction! I think distractions stalk me! lol *hugs ya*
So, yeah, I got no advice cause I'm in the same boat with you!
Gracen, I forgot about email and the internet! I think I'm going to have to either wait to go on until I've written x-amount of pages or I'm going to have to sign off the internet after I check things in the morning. Between email, research, Facebook and Twitter, I'm an internet captive!
And I remember those days when the girls were young. When my older daughter went to kindergarten, I went to college, so most of my writing was papers for class! Still, I managed somehow. Now the major distraction seems to be health concerns, mine of my family's. There's always something!
Margay
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