Writing: In the Age of Distraction

Some great advice by Cory Doctorow on writing distractions discovered at Inkgirl's blog.

Two that might remain challenges, "don't research whilst writing" and "stop at a given point even if in the middle of a sentence."

Generally when writing for the newspaper I set up a separate file for all references and it is more helpful than harmful when deadline comes.

If I'm writing on line I do tend to get distracted by searching for references.

Now stopping in the middle of a sentence may present some getting accustomed to as I can't recall doing that unless I am interrupted by someone or something else.

I do think I was most successful at not just writing but accomplishing the goal of writing when I wrote each morning until I completed one thousand words. I didn't answer the phone or talk to anyone until I hit that magic number. Intimates knew not to call until noon; and live ins knew to make coffee and scram.

However, and this is a big caveat: I did not have Internet connections during that period of intensive writing. And whilst in Guilford, I had no Internet, no television, no radio, nothing but the Moose and me.

Nevertheless, it might not be so difficult to put into practice, me-thinks!