When I was in junior high school, I enrolled in a journalism class; and by virtue of being in this class, my teacher assigned me to write an article on something mundane. The rising costs of gasoline? Carpooling? And so I sat at my typewriter, punching keys, watching their metal legs extend and retract. This was how writing was done.
I often think of those days while writing.
We live in a completely different time. Floppy disks are no longer floppy (if ever used at all!). USB flash drives have gone from 1.0 to 2.0 to 3.0. And to trump that, it seems like everyone utilizes cloud services of some kind. And yet, I can’t help feeling that something has been lost. In the past, a writer might have experienced procrastination as illustrated in the following YouTube clip:
Ha! But now, on top of procrastinating, writers today face new complications spurred by increases in technology.
At any given time, I can be writing for my novel, or writing for this blog, and I can receive a friendly ring from Apple Mail, or an alternate chime from LINE. Instantly, my mind stampedes. Who wrote me? What did they say? If I divert my concentration from my writing for one second, it’s game over. And most of the time, it is. So I can’t emphasize enough, in this day and age, when we need to be writing, we need to close our email and turn off our notifications!
Recently, I’ve started writing immediately after just waking from sleep. Before I ever speak to anyone, using my logical mind, I try my best to carry my dream state directly to my writing. (This is also more easily achieved late at night.)
And I use a netbook. This is important. I use it strictly for word processing. For me, my MSI Wind u100 is only psychologically associated with writing.
After I’ve finished my writing for the day, I eat breakfast and hop on my desktop computer to receive my regular email and notifications. And then, and only then, do I begin the rest of my day. I figure nothing is so important that it can’t wait for me to finish my word count for the day.
I’ve found this strategy to be really effective for me. I hope sharing it with you will help increase your productivity, too!
Do you have any tricks up your sleeve that you’d like to share? If so, please post a comment below. 😀
And, as always, write your heart out!
Photo credit: Sergey Galyonkin / Foter.com / CC BY-NC
June 5, 2013
I thought this was a really helpful post. It reminds me that writing takes a lot of discipline, and that clarity of mind is hard to achieve in the midst of our busy days. Thanks for sharing these tips!
June 5, 2013
Thank you for reading and commenting! 🙂