First Wednesday of the month and, of course, Insecure Writers' Support Group day. This month the optional question is How do you deal with distractions when you are writing? Do they derail you?
Distractions? Derail me?… sorry, five minutes later… what was that? I should be writing… I wonder if I've had any emails in the last few minutes. Yes, I really should be… er… now what was it I was supposed to be writing about?… I think I'm going to make a cup of tea.
I do struggle to focus. I find it difficult to write when someone's in the room. They do distracting things like getting up and sitting down and walking about. I can't bear anybody standing behind my screen when I'm writing. A few years ago I bought a big desktop computer which had to be set up in my daughter's bedroom at the far end of the house. (She left home a long time ago, by the way, is married with children and a home of her own.) I thought I'd get some peace – but no! Family members know exactly where I am so they just come upstairs and say what they were going to say if I'd been sitting in front of them. In fact, I'm amazed that the stair and landing carpet hasn't worn out. But at least I'm spared the television. Why is it television-watchers assume it's quite okay to put on the television whenever they want to and never ask other people in the room? (I'm about to suffer the BBC News at ten o'clock now.)
Then there are the computer distractions. Have I received emails? WhatsApp messages? I don't read them, just see that they're there. I'm not into social media, which I suppose is fortunate. Oh, and the other one: setting up autocorrects and wondering if there's a quicker and more efficient way of doing something.
So, I'm a hopeless case, yet, a friend and I have taken to meeting each month to write in a cafe and, even when several other customers had a loud argument, it didn't bother us.
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