The Danger of Shiny

by Janis Patterson

Let’s be honest - there’s no such thing as a life without distraction. However you do things, however you plan for a good long stretch of uninterrupted time to write, something happens.

You go on a quiet vacation to a remote spot where you think it will be free from distractions and interruptions. Maybe it is, but suddenly your own mind becomes the interruption, putting something new and enticingly shiny in front of you such as plotting another book, sending you down the rabbit hole of intense research, or just daydreaming and de-pressurizing from your everyday life.

If you still have to work at a regular job, it gets harder. Even during your theoretical down time, there are still chores to do, family to be with, and you can bet your employer will call with an emergency just about the time you sit down in front of your computer.

We’ve just gotta face the fact that life gets in the way, sometimes deliberately and gleefully.

My life used to be simple - get up in the morning, feed the dog, make The Husband’s lunch and - once he was on his way - get to work. I could mix household chores in between my writing spurts and since we are supposed to get up and move around every so often during the day, that was perfect.

Then The Husband retired. I do love him and in many ways it’s great having him home all the time. Other ways... as the old joke goes, I married him for better or for worse, but not for lunch!

He is learning to be respectful of my working time; he has even fixed a couple of lunches for us and, after seeing how hard I work at my writing (it is a full-time job, after all!) he takes me out to eat more often. He has even started learning how to do my advertising.

If that were the only distraction! No, there’s always something... The laundry. The dinner. The dishes. Vacuuming. Something breaks and the repairman must be summoned and dealt with. Shopping. Cooking. A million little things. The Husband will learn to deal with such, but not totally and not right now. I’ve had decades to learn the various protocols and minutiae of running our home efficiently; it will take him a while to get into the swing of it.

There are other distractions, too. The siren lure of a new story whispering in your ear while you’re struggling with the uncooperative middle of the one that has to be finished now. The ever-enticing rabbit hole of research; you start up by searching for a relatively mundane fact, such as does a Glock 9mm have a manual safety or not, and two hours later you’re happily submerged in the history of smelting. Or the invention of buttercream icing. Or why calico was so named. Research is a labyrinthine seduction where you never know where you’ll end up. 

So is there an answer? I hope there isn’t. All writing and no play (or life) makes Jane not only a dull writer but a dull (and tired!) person. Perhaps the best answer is both balance and discipline - the balance of life and work, and the discipline to know how much and how far to indulge both in writing and in non-writing. It doesn’t sound easy, because it isn’t. But it has to be done. It really has to be done. I hope someday I master it.

Writerus Interruptus

by Janis Patterson

I envy and am astonished at those people who can write with small children around – or big children, for that matter. How do they concentrate?

I am fortunate enough to be able to work at home in my own office, but always accompanied by our furbabies – one demanding cat and one prissy diva of a little dog. They are both rescues from horrific situations (curses be forever on the heads of those who abuse animals!) and though both our furbabies have been with us for several years they still bear the psychic scars.

In the everlasting attempt to be able to concentrate uninterrupted on my writing, I tried locking them in their rooms. (Yes, they each have their own, generally better furnished than The Husband’s and mine.) Ours is a reasonably large house, but totally insufficient to block the chorus of demanding barks, aggrieved howls and pathetic whimpers engendered by such obviously unjust incarceration. I doubt if Blenheim Palace would be large enough.

Failing that, I let them into my office, which though they enjoy it is not the best thing for me. Chloe the cat will sleep for hours, then demand to be taken into my lap just when I am trying to concentrate on a particularly difficult scene. ‘Demand’ is not a word I use lightly; a large cat, she stands on her hind legs and paws at my lap. (She was declawed when she came to us, but her little ‘fingers’ are incredibly strong. If she were not declawed I would be positively anemic from bloodloss…) If I don’t stop and take her up, she starts to sing the aggrieved song of her people at ear-splitting decibels. On the rare times that doesn’t work, she becomes more direct and simply bites me on the leg. Seldom hard enough to draw blood, but definitely hard enough to get my attention. Once ensconced on my lap, she takes offense if I go on typing; she wants all the attention.

Now Mindy Moo the dog will sleep though all this, until I pick up the cat; then suddenly the cat is trespassing on Her Mommy, and she makes her displeasure known. I have to divide Lap Time equally between them, which can be vexing, as I can only hold one of them at a time. As Mindy Moo is a terrier (I say she is half terrier mix and half pure diva) she is most decided about her wants. Any attempts to train her have gone unfulfilled by the wayside – with two exceptions. She does use her pee-pads. We don’t dare let her out, as we have both coyotes and red-tailed hawks in our neighborhood and at ten pounds she would be a tasty morsel for either. She also has made a fine art of obeying to ‘sit’ and ‘ask’ and getting a treat for doing so. Anything else – hah!

What is most alarming for me – as a writer of mystery and occasionally horror – is that she will sleep quietly for hours, only to explode into frenzied barking and snarling without warning – usually when I am deep into an unnerving and/or frightening scene. Perhaps she just wants to make sure my heart is working properly. It hasn’t exploded yet, though sometimes I wonder why. Despite the dark places in my mind, though, it is useful to know that neither postman nor UPS man nor marauding moth can approach the front door without Mindy’s noisy alert. I really don’t know if she thinks she is protecting the house or if she regards the postman and UPS man as a sophisticated, self-ambulatory version of meals-on-wheels for dogs. The moths are probably just for fun.

However – I love them (most of the time) and the three of us can rub along together tolerably well. Again, most of the time. But I still am in awe of those who can write with children around. My hat is off to all of you!

(By the way, A KILLING AT EL KAB, a Janis Patterson mystery, and CURSE OF THE EXILE, a Janis Susan May Scottish Victorian Gothic Romance, are on sale for only $1.99 each at most major ebook outlets through 18 February)