The Quicksand on Your Desk

by Janis Patterson

On my desk there is a dangerous sink of quicksand that can pull me down in a minute. I’ll bet there’s one of your desk, too.

It’s called the Internet.

Yes, the Internet is a great invention. It has made research a snap, giving writers access to information which would have been difficult if not impossible to obtain otherwise. It has created a community of writers from the heartland to the Antipodes, allowing a heretofore unparalleled exchange of information. (Much, I think, to the chagrin of the traditional publishers!) It has allowed writers to publish their own books and claim the well-deserved lion’s share of the income for their hard work. (Causing, I think, an ever-increasing malaise among the traditional publishers!) It makes it easier for readers to find, follow and befriend their favorite authors as well as discover authors they might not have found any other way.

But there is no rose without a thorn. While it has been intensely liberating for both writers and readers, the Internet is sort of like one of those carnivorous tropical plants – alluring but deadly.

Say it’s a bright new day, and I decide that this is the day I’ll finish that pesky midsection of my work in progress. There’s not that much to do, so it shouldn’t take too long… First I’ll just check my inbox. Three hundred and some-odd emails later, I’ve read a great deal, written a goodly number of replies, and a large chunk of the morning is gone without my having accomplished anything substantive.

Well, it’s not that late, so I’ll just take a minute to check out a few of my favorite blogs – after all, they’re writing blogs, so it’s not really taking time from work, it’s professional research.

How did it get to be lunchtime so quickly? Well, I’ll just have a quick sandwich here in front of the computer, and so I don’t waste time, I’ll research that little fact that’s been snagging my storyline to see what I can do about it.

I am startled to realize that lunchtime is long over, the plate of crumbs and curling crusts is balanced perilously on my printer and I’m reading something which has nothing to do with my work in progress, but where I’ve been lead by a tantalizing trail of links and curiosity.

Worse yet, suddenly it’s late afternoon and I haven’t done a lick of work.

See what I mean? Quicksand.

Now it’s not usually anywhere this bad – though this exact scenario has happened – but it is so easy to be seduced from work into Internet play. When faced with the siren allure of the Internet writers need concentration and discipline, two virtues which I most notably lack.

Unfortunately, unless we want to go back to the clumsy, time-consuming old days of handwritten letters and trips to the library, the Internet is now an integral part of our lives. We must make sure it doesn’t take over our lives.

Just be careful of the quicksand on your desk…

Writing As A Business

by Janis Patterson

Is there anyone out there who doesn’t know writing is a business and should be treated as such?

Unfortunately, our business has always attracted groupies and wannabes, which is both good and bad. Some do develop into good writers. Some don’t – ever, no matter how hard they try and study. Some just want to be known as having written a book, basking in the automatic profit and adulation which is inevitably due to any published writer. (You may snigger or cry here, or both.) Some just want to claim a published writer – preferably a famous one – as a dear friend – whether they actually are or not.

Along with groupies, there are others who populate our lives and must be considered – family, friends, co-workers, our children’s (or grandchildren’s) teachers and schoolmates, libraries, lecture groups – add your own categories in here. They are legion.

Unless they are a writer, though, most people don’t realize that this is a business, and not an easy one. People who wouldn’t dream of calling you to chat or expect you to go lunch/shopping/to a movie during the day if you were Assistant Supervisor of Fralumpkins at Blurpkinner Enterprises will happily interrupt your writing. After all, you’re just writing, and that’s easy, isn’t it? And everyone knows that if you work at home you aren’t really working, are you? You’re your own boss, so you can do what you want. Then they get offended when you say you can’t, interpreting it as you don’t want to be with them. The situation is even worse for those dedicated writers (of whom I stand in awe) who juggle a day job and children, squeezing their writing into those precious slivers of time between immutable obligations.

Writing is work, something that must be pursued and applied and sacrificed for. Writing well is all that and more, just harder. And it’s not just writing – there is publicity that must be done, street teams organized, interviews done, guest blogs… all kinds of things that must be done to get your name and your book, once it is finished and published, in front and hopefully in the hands of the buying public. If you’re self-publishing, the work load is doubled. You must deal with (and pay for!) editors and cover artists and, unless you are computerly gifted, conversion into the various electronic formats – to say nothing of the brave new world of paperback self-publication.

Plus, in the middle of all this you need to be writing the next book. One of the facts of success in the publishing world is having books for the reader to read. Perhaps literary authors can linger for years between books as their fans wait and salivate for their next offering, but popular fiction writers are expected to produce much and often or their career withers on the vine. Sigh.

So – lunch? A movie? Shopping? Forget it. You’ve got to work, whether or not the people who populate your life understand.

Unfortunately, this disregard for the hard work of writing is not a new thing. Charles Dickens once wrote :

“‘It is only half an hour’–’It is only an afternoon’–’It is only an evening,’ people say to me over and over again; but they don’t know that it is impossible to command one’s self sometimes to any stipulated and set disposal of five minutes–or that the mere consciousness of an engagement will sometime worry a whole day… Who ever is devoted to an art must be content to deliver himself wholly up to it, and to find his recompense in it. I am grieved if you suspect me of not wanting to see you, but I can’t help it; I must go in my way whether or no.”

As usual, he said it much better than I ever could. Way to go, Mr. Dickens!

Now – back to work.

Balance

by Kaye George

I had an attack of vertigo last week. These aren’t rare, for me, but it had been a few months since I’d had one and it took me by surprise.

It gave rise to some musings on balance. I do lose balance in other ways, too.

Sometimes I allow my computer time to take over my whole day. Notice, I didn’t say my writing. I can’t really write for a whole day, but I CAN spend all my waking hours on the dang ‘puter. Most of it is wasting time. Let’s not talk about my Solitaire addiction. Leaving that aside, there’s Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, news posts, links to interesting articles, blogs--wish I read more of those--I’m sure I miss some good ones.

I have a solution, but don’t always use it. My solution is to set my timer to 50 minutes. I have a clever one that remembers what setting I used last time. The 10 minutes is for my hourly break, but I’m flexible on that. The important thing is not to sit for 2 or 3 hours at a time, like I did yesterday.

Time to reflect and play what if...

Happy New Year.

What, wait, that was a month and a half ago?  Where has the time gone?  Reading the entries from my fellow MMM bloggers, others are feeling the crunch of time, especially time that we want to dedicate to our writing.  We've had conferences, and illnesses, and new babies, all encroaching on our writing time.

Which to say, we have lives.

At the end of the month, I'm presenting a time management workshop in Shreveport Louisiana at the North Louisiana Romance Writer's convention.  I have 45 minutes to say something meaningful.

Last month I gave my chapter a shortened version of my training.  30 minutes to list out Lynn's Top Ten ways to find more time for BICHOK (butt in chair-hands on keyboard) method of writing.  I was surprised when two of my critique group members mentioned using one or more of my tips to gain more writing time.  I wasn't surprised to find that the tips were successful for one, and not the other.

What works for me as a writer, especially one with a day job with a long commute but no kids at home, may not work for a young mom with babies or a dad with kids in competitive soccer.  But its a start.

As part of my session at NOLA, I'm starting the session with a goal setting or clarifying exercise. The entire exercise is a bit different than below, but let's play today.

What, if it doesn't get done before you go on to your choice of afterlife options, would you regret not doing?  (For me, this answer has changed over the years.)

What, if it didn't get done this year, would you regret?

What, if it didn't get done this month, would you regret?

And finally, what are you doing today (or this week) to reach for at least one of the items above?

Share your answers with us.

Lynn