Friday, February 13, 2009

Warm-up

The inability to get writing done is one of the easiest things to make excuses for. Can't focus for a variety of reasons--must be your environment: the wrong seat, the wrong music, haven't eaten, cat's distracting.  The mythical beast of "writers' block" (if you can put words--any words--on paper, you don't have "writers' block; as Neil Gaiman has said before, you're just stuck).

I have had an impossible time trying to get anything accomplished on my paper at my apartment.  So I decided that if I was going to blame my surroundings for my inability to focus, I'd better believe my own half-truth (instead of a simple lack of will power) and find a place that allows me to focus better.  So here I am, for the third week in a row, at the Te House of Te, lunching and drinking tea, and thinking about getting down to work.

So why am I blogging, instead of turning off my wireless and working on what I'm supposed to be working on?  Last week, I wrote a response to a friend's blog post and then got right into writing my own stuff; I think writing something  got me going...in the groove, if you will.  An d that's not completely surprising, since the most common advice to writers is to just always be writing.  It doesn't have to be good or long or evern worth rereading, but you need to keep yourself in the habit.  Cory Doctorow wrote an article recently on getting writing done in the digital age, and I like his suggestions a lot; unfortunately, my work (job work) has been so exhausting lately that it feels masochistic to make myself sit and work when I get home (also, remember the no will power thing).  It's more fun to cook or look at pictures of other people's weird weddings or annoying the cat.

Long post short, wish me luck on my work!  I'm going to grab another pot of tea.

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