Steampunk Vacuum Cleaner by SteampunkGrue BY-NC-SA
Writing is a lonely business. Even if you listen to this podcast and even if you have lots of friends or collaborators and even if you have a writing group and an agent and an editor, it’s still best for 99% of you to write alone, in a quiet area, with no distractions.
Last week I took a Twitter break. I dunno if it’s my current mood of, “Oh please January will you stop sucking now?” but it seems like someone on Twitter manages to anger me every hour or so. So I figured I didn’t need actual voluntary angst, so I decided to cut it out. And wow. I can think clearly now.
The problem with being online and blogging and tweeting and podcasting and spending time with this awesome community is that it does affect how I look at my work. I can’t put it more concisely than that, I’m afraid. But I think removing some of the noise is helping my concentration. There’s also the distraction of research, Wikipedia, asking a friend a question and ending up talking for 20 minutes, and more.
And of course, now that I say it out loud (or in blog form) it seems to be so obvious… but next time you sit down to write, really do turn off Twitter and IM and all those distractions. Don’t write with a buddy. Don’t even write in public where things could distract you. (Although there may be more distractions at home, your mileage may vary.) See what happens when it’s just you and the story.
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4 Responses to Working in a vacuum
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What my office has: a door that locks from the inside.
What my office doesn’t have: a computer with Internet access. There’s an eMac in there with Scrivener on it, and a nice big table for spreading out longhand work, but no link to the Great Distraction.
Amazing how much work you can get done when you sit down for an hour in there to write, and don’t spend forty-five minutes of that hour compulsively refreshing Twitter or going off on a Wikiwander.
I know there are some writers with iron self-control, but I think doing your work on a computer with an Internet connection is poison for productivity. It’s just too tempting to pause work and “check XYZ really quick” when the words stop coming for a bit.
I can’t write with people around very well… It distracts me. I can sometimes write with my boyfriend around when he’s busy doing something else, or if the urge to write is too great.
The more there is around, the less I write. Like these blogs… they are distracting me right now. But not for long. I have to give myself a time limit and go back to writing afterwards :p
I can’t write and talk to people at the same time. I know that, and I act accordingly. When I write, I write alone. I don’t talk, I turn off the TV, I don’t listen to music. I focus completely on what I’m writing. So for me, that part of your advice makes sense.
However…I do question one part of it. There have, after all, been a number of collaborative teams of writers over the years. Saying unilaterally not to collaborate with someone doesn’t strike me as right.
Moreover, I don’t think it’s right to tell people not to talk to anyone when you’re writing. Some people work better and get better ideas if they have someone to bounce ideas off of. Others…well, I’m not big on talking about my own writing while it’s being done, but I do know that I need the presence of others online–an emotional lifeline, if you will. I have no family and am a virtual shut-in. The internet is my connection to the world. Without contact with others, I’d be in very bad shape indeed. Friends are important–both to me as a person and to me as a writer.
So I think you should qualify that piece of advice. Concentrating on your writing…yes, that’s good. Cutting yourself off from friends and colleagues–I question the value of that. Friends and colleagues are no less vital to writing than concentration. And they may be even more important to the person doing the writing.
Tracey, I don’t think you read the whole post. I didn’t say that every time, from this day forward, you will write in a total vacuum without deviating.
I said next time, give it a try and see what happens. Sometimes we need it. Sometimes we don’t.