Today’s post is written by regular contributor Sarah Baughman.
Unless you’re Emily Dickinson, dressed in white, hanging out alone in your room writing hundreds of heart-stopping poems, you probably find your writing life studded with distractions. I know I do.
For the purposes of this article, anything that’s not writing counts as a “distraction.” That means many distractions are actually very important ones. Working at your job, for example. Raising your kids. Calling your friends. Paying your bills. You wouldn’t want to give up many of your distractions even if you could.
Then, of course, there are the arguably less worthy ones. Television. YouTube. Even…though I’ve learned to love it…Twitter (I did say arguably).
I believe in trying to eliminate distractions while we write. Constant toggling between a Safari window and a Word document can sound the death knell for any work-in-progress.
But nothing can take distraction out of life. We’re all pulled in competing directions. Have you ever met somebody who claims to have a lot of free time? Me neither.
Yet people write anyway, usually in moments that, whether scheduled or spontaneous, are also stolen from a day clogged with other distractions. How can all this distraction be conducive to writing, a task that requires intense focus and inner reflection?
I’ve been thinking a lot about this question lately because my own life is such an odd example of how more distraction and less free time can result in better writing.
I’ve always loved to write, but I can’t point to a whole lot of work from the earlier years. I dilly-dallied along with an essay or story here, a poem there. It wasn’t until my first child was born and I started losing sleep and scrambling for even an hour to myself that I really started to get serious about writing. By the time my daughter came along not too long afterward, I was really ready to buckle down. I now write bleary-eyed late at night, for 10 minutes here or there in the morning, during naptime if I’ve actually managed to finish the breakfast dishes. Yet I’ve written more in the past two years than I did in the previous ten.
What gives? Can the large and small distractions of daily life, the assorted obligations that fracture focus, aid writing?
What’s Great About Distraction
It keeps you grounded.
Living in the world is hard work, but it’s the only real way to fuel writing. William Carlos Williams, the famous poet who also worked throughout his life as a family physician, emphasized the importance of engaging with the world.
“Writing is not a searching about in the daily experience for apt similes and pretty thoughts and images…” he writes in his book Spring And All. “The writer of imagination would find himself released from observing things for the purpose of writing them down later. He would be there to enjoy, to taste, to engage the free world, not a world which he carries like a bag of food, always fearful lest he drop something or someone get more than he.”
Williams also famously coined the much-discussed phrase “no ideas but in things.” Perhaps the messy task of living in a physical world is the very thing we must undertake in order to write authentically.
It keeps your perspective fresh.
Working with different people, facing challenges, wrestling with new concepts—these interactions keep our brains in recalibration mode, continually stretching to make sense of our environment. What better exercise for writers than to work amid diverse perspectives, conflicts, and ideas?
“I’m constantly learning,” writes author Erika Dreifus in a blog post about the benefits her 9-5 job lends to her writing life. “I’m surrounded by people, and I hear their stories. I carry out a variety of research projects. All of this is good experience for any writer.”
It imposes restrictions, which can actually breed creativity.
I have no idea what I did with all that time, back when I had it. But I do know that having less time to write has made me more serious about writing. When it’s actually time to write, I gratefully plunge in.
A musician friend once told me about challenging himself to compose tunes that didn’t include certain notes on the piano. Rooted in restriction, the resulting music felt particularly adventurous and unique. It was great creative practice, he said.
Maybe less writing time can function like a crippled piano—there’s music lurking inside that you’d never have found if you actually had all the keys.
Not writing doesn’t mean you’re not writing.
Have you ever found yourself working through your daily tasks only to feel the urge to write something down? Even mundane tasks spark inspiration.
Writer Susan Bearman reminds us in her post Finding Extraordinary Writing in an Ordinary Life to “remember that even when we’re not writing, we are. Our brains keep working when we do the laundry or watch our kids play soccer or take a shower.”
The life you live provides more than enough material to write about.
Making Distraction Work for You
- Prioritize your distractions. Going to work might be a necessity, but can you let the laundry wait one more day so you can write? Are you volunteering on a committee that you don’t really want to serve? All distractions are not created equal. Pick a select few you can’t live without, and let a few others go.
- Schedule writing time, but don’t over-schedule it. Commit to a certain amount of writing per day, or a certain number of writing tasks accomplished each week, but if picking a specific time of day to write feels difficult, don’t worry. Sometimes having flexible rules makes us more likely to follow them.
- Use distractions as inspiration. Consider how characters, conflicts, and plot-lines could grow from your experiences. How can your life enrich your writing?
- Make the time you have count. When it’s time to write, just write. Consider disabling your internet connection, writing in full-screen mode, or setting a timer to manage breaks.
It’s easy to envy Emily Dickinson, and certainly we deserve to give our writer selves a little TLC via the occasional writer’s conference, class or vacation. Yet we can also challenge ourselves to move beyond feeling slighted by daily busy-ness (“I’d write more if I could!”) and start to make those distractions work for us.
Have your “distractions” from writing been surprisingly helpful? What strategies have you developed to deal with distractions?
Honestly, I still deal with a lot of distractions. Twitter, catching up on the 80+ blogs that I follow, reading, and school. Okay, so school is not a distraction. Lol. I was just hoping that someone would tell me to quit.
Anyways, I do know that there are snatches of conversations I stumble across in Twitter that strike me as great dialogue. Or when I’m reading, I am struck with an idea that I could totally work into my novel. And school is a great place to hear stories. College kids love to gossip. I hear it all the time.
Great post, Suzannah. 🙂 I will definitely be prioritizing my distractions.
Thanks, Ashley. It’s true that so many of these “distractions” work themselves into our writing, providing inspiration we wouldn’t otherwise find. A college campus would be especially perfect for stories and dialogue!
Hi Sarah,
I never really looked at distractions from that perspective before but now I will. I know that when I am online or writing for long periods of time I need to get up and do something physical to keep me grounded.
Great point, Justin– the mix of physical and mental activity is really important. I’m sure we write better when we’re well “grounded” in the world.
What you say is so true.
My kids inspired a character who took on a much more important role when I revised my WIP. He’s even gotten his own fan club among my Beta-readers. :}
Most of the time my Kids are a distraction, but they say awesome things like “Don’t use the Milk the Cows are posioning and it will kill you!” That’s GOT to get into a novel somehow. *giggles*
:} Cathryn / Elorithryn
I love kid quotes, Cathryn! They offer the freshest, most interesting perspective…perfect for writing.
I found this article in my inbox and had to leave a reply.
My writing took off when my first child was born. I think being away from the distraction of work made me rediscover the other things that I wanted to acheive.
My children are the most beautiful of ‘distractions’ when it comes to my writing. Sometimes however, there are so many disctractions that I find that I go days without writing and that makes me feel very irritable. So much so that I have lost count of the times that I have threatened to give it up. But it’s true. the more distractions that get in the way, the more determind you become to sneak opportunities to write. For example, my children are currently napping and so here I am! I found that some of my better work has been the result of taking a shower or cooking the evening meal…
I think it just goes to show that it’s how we make our time (and distractions!) count.
Thanks for the post and tips!
I can relate to every bit of this comment, C., from rediscovering other desires for achievement after a child’s birth to finding kids a beautiful distraction to becoming irritable when too much time passes between writing sessions. Time management is everything!
Nice post. I like the idea of getting our ideas out of “living”. We don’t have to take a plane to the innermost forests in the Amazon in order to flesh out an idea for our writing. Just by simply getting out of our reclusive space and into the world around us can give us lots of inspiration for writing books.
Thank you.
Patti
Thanks, Patti– it is so easy to think we need to experience the exotic and that our everyday busy lives aren’t enough. Yet really, they’re all we need.
Thanks for a great article. I had a major distraction in 2010 when I had a stroke. Luckily my brain was not affected, but I was stuck in hospital and physically unable to write. But I had lots of time to think – about writing and about ways round my predicament. I wrote poetry on my mobile phone and taught myself to write left-handed. And by the time I came home to my computer, I had totally revised the local history book I was working on – in my head.
The result is that my book (Alina, The White Lady of Oystermouth) is being published at Easter and my collection of poems is being sold locally in aid of charity. Never give up!
Wow Ann Marie, congratulations! What a fantastic story. This potentially very debilitating, life-changing event really fueled your work. It sounds like you found new freedom in the initial restrictions of your illness. Thanks for this dose of inspiration and perspective.
Using distractions as inspiration works wonderfully well for me! I get really nifty slants on ideas I am already working with–and often brand new concepts! Also, scheduling distractions and refraining from over-scheduling writing time is beginning to work for me, as well! I can be my own worst task-master, I am reluctantly admitting!
Rose, it is definitely challenging to be the right kind of “task-master!” I’m glad that distractions inspire you too, though.
Distractions are a huge problem for me and I’d assume most writers. If only life were as simple as hanging around and writing. Unfortunately, bills need paid, babies need fed, dishes need done, etc. It seems that life is very fast these days; we’re always running here and there. The best thing I’ve come up with to deal with this issue is to try to schedule a time when I work on my writing. That’s not to say that if I have spare time and feel the flow I’m not going to go write then as well but it’s always helpful for me know know that a certain block of time in my day is for writing and nothing else. Great post!
Agreed, Kevin. Just knowing that you have a set time to write during the day makes it easier to welcome “distractions” at other points.
Sarah, the distractions and missed moments are the ones that can turn into gems later. That annoying couple in the supermarket, the constant ebb of noise from the kids and their friends. It all visits us at another time and become amalgums of people and places. You know the quote (I paraphrase) … “Be careful what you say in front of a writer or it will end up in one of their books.”
Also, that old cliche of you lose it if you don’t use it, does not apply to our work. Whatever takes you away, for however how long, remains like computer chips, to be retrieved later. Like latent knowledge, you never know when you’ll get a flash back you can put into a story 🙂
Nicely put, Florence! I love the bit about distractions turning into gems later. It’s interesting how many experiences that took place long ago turn up in writing years later. Sometimes everything just needs to “simmer” awhile before we get the perspective we need to use it.
I must admit I’ve always resented my distractions; I found them to just be in the way! Now I’m actually in the middle of two weeks off, becuase my GP signed me off for bed rest. But the most perculiar thing about it is that I’m not writing nearly as much as I thought I would be without the major distraction of work keeping me away from my PC.
Its really bizzare!
I’m also finding that what I write isn’t nearly so good as when I know I only have an hour or two hours to do what I need to do.
Its a very perculiar feeling, but I think it just goes to show how right you are; having that pressure or knowledge that my time is limited only improves what I write and when. Otherwise I end up squandering a lot of the day on Twitter, which I’ve never really had time for previously.
It is definately time to rethink how important my distractions are and, in fact, be grateful for them.
Thanks for the great article. ^_^
Isn’t it odd, Ileandra? Whenever I find myself craving the time I used to have, I try to remember how much more I write now. Thanks for your response.
It’s a tricky balance for me. Limitations and outside activities can be great for my creativity, but having too much going on can wreck my momentum and put me in a major writing slump. I guess I’ve never really thought about it this way, but I need that middle ground!
Balance is definitely hard to achieve, Donna. There have certainly been times when I’ve simply had TOO much going on, and that hurts the creative process too. At those times I’ve been forced to re-evaluate everything that’s keeping me busy. Thanks for the comment.