Recently I saw the following while scrolling though my news feed on Facebook: A tee shirt with the following words:
“Being a good writer is 5% talent and 95% not being distracted by the internet”
I thought about the saying for a while.
I pondered the thought the following day as I sat working on my current project; preparing a book of poetry to have published.
As I sat working through the process of coping, cutting and pasting my poems to for the proper format paper size, I became distracted. I heard ‘clicking’ type sounds, which meant new emails were going into my in-box. I stopped what I had been doing to read them. A few emails were from sites I subscribe and a few were personal emails which I decided I should reply to immediately. Finally after thirty minutes I got back to the formatting process for my book. Ten minutes later, I heard ‘click’ again and another email went into my in-box. This time It was about books available that day for me to download to my Kindle; naturally I was curious. I opened the email and began to click on each listed title to see if it was something I wanted to read; of course f found two of interest to me. Another fifteen minutes spent away from working on my project.
Upon returning back to the task at hand, I heard noises outside. I looked out the window and saw that two sand cranes landed across the street near the bocce ball area. I watched as they maneuvered around the court before making their way to the street to walk across to my drive way. Their trumpeting sounds so loud as if they were calling out to me. I got out of my chair and walked to the window to look out to get a better view of the creatures. They stopped at the end of my driveway then lumbered on their spindled legs towards my neighbor’s house and up the street. My eyes focused on them until they were out of my sight. Again I returned to my desk and the job on which I was working. Once more I began the process of copy, cut and paste each poem individually to the proper format. What should have taken an hour or so to complete took over two and a half hours. Finally I had my file complete to be uploaded for publication. I decided I’d let the document file sit for a day to reviewed it again before submitting.
I then began to work on a vignette for “Murphy Madness II” a series of life stories, another writing project. This time, I decided to log off the internet so I could work without being distracted. Unfortunately it did not happen. Outside noises again caught my attention causing me to look out the window. I watched as a group of adults deiced to play croquet across the street from me (the croquet area is next to where the bocce ball court is located). The players sounded like a bunch of little children as they yelled at one another and laughed. Since I found them so intriguing, I decided that my vignette would have to wait.
I have come to the conclusion, the ideal time to work on my projects is in the early evening when nothing outside would be a distraction. Also I would not be logging back on to the internet at that time of day. I have specific times I go on-line; they are in the early morning, mid-afternoon (around three) and evenings after ten. My plan is to write between five and eight in the evening; nothing on television of any interest at that time and the world outside my house is generally quiet.
Until next time, if you are a writer, don’t let the internet distract you. Well I have to stop typing now, just heard two ‘clicks’….I’ve got mail.
