Distractions

Everybody has to deal with them.  In fact, the more focused you are on a particular subject, the more the distractions seem to crop up.  Now, I'm not going to tell you how you should be dealing with distractions, this is just how I handle them.

It's a matter of priorities.  In my case, writing is not my highest priority.  There are other things that come first but it is in the top five so it's important to me that I set aside a couple hours a day to be writing stories.  (In case you're wondering, while you have to write to blog, blogging is not part of those writing hours.  This is something that I'm doing on the side.)

Many distractions come from other things that I want to do.  I want to play video games but I haven't touched my Playstation in months because I know that the fun I'll have on those RPG's and shoot-em-ups just won't compare to the sense of accomplishment I get when I finish even one chapter in a novel.

TV shows and going out to the movies have gotten rarer for the same reasoning.  I'd rather write than catch up on the latest episode of House (although those shows The Voice and Alcatraz have been sucking me in something terrible.)

So I need to recreate but it hits lower list.  How about social life?

This one is tougher and it goes case by case.  My friend who I hadn't seen in a month and a half came in out of the blue and I know that I wouldn't get a chance to see him for another six weeks, if even then.  He occupied my entire day and I didn't get a chance to write.  On this one, I wish I would have known that he was coming because I would have been sure to wake up earlier and write before he came by instead of waiting until my usual time on the keyboard.  The next day, I deliberately left the house to be sure I had time on my book before coming back and spending the day with him.  So with social life, this is why I have a planner.

Indeed, a lot of people hate planners and I'm not fond of them myself, but they work.  As long as you're responsible enough to update them everyday and prioritize what's most important for you to accomplish, you never have to feel like crap when you go to bed.  Even if I haven't accomplished everything on my to-do list, I know that without the list, I wouldn't have accomplished the stuff that I did.

Maybe I'll do another post on how I deal with things that are more important to me than writing and how I still manage to get my manuscript written.  I figure that will take another post as long as this, though, so we'll save that for another day.