When the time is available, just putįingers to keyboard and write.
WRITEROOM MODE AUTO WRAP FREE
You can only write in a perfect world, you compound the problem ofįinding 20 free minutes with the problem of finding the rightĮnvironment at the same time. Physical needs met before you write, but if you convince yourself that Forget candles, music, silence, a good chair, aĬigarette, or putting the kids to sleep. And yourĮditor and copyeditor will recognize it if you miss it and bring it toįorget advice about finding the right atmosphere to coax your muse You whether you have any fact-checking to do afterwards. "Atkins") so a quick search through your document for "TK" will tell "TK" appears in very few English words (the one I get tripped up on is Journalists do: type "TK" where your fact should go, as in "Theīrooklyn bridge, all TK feet of it, sailed into the air like a kite." That way liesĭistraction - an endless click-trance that will turn your 20 minutes ofĬomposing into a half-day's idyll through the web. Population of Rhode Island, or the distance to the Sun. When you come to a factual matter that you could google in a matter of seconds, don't.ĭon't give in and look up the length of the Brooklyn Bridge, the Researching isn't writing and vice-versa. Wet clay before they wrap it in plastic for the night - it's hard to Next day - they call it the "hint." Potters leave a rough edge on the Sticking out of the day's knitting so they know where to pick up the Your first five or ten words are already ordained, so that you get a That way, when you sit down at the keyboard the next day, Page, or a bon mot, so that you've already got some material when you sit down at the keyboard. Try to find one or two vivid sensory details to work into the next The secret is toĭo it every day, weekends included, to keep the momentum going, and toĪllow your thoughts to wander to your next day's page between sessions. Or meal-break (though this shouldn't become a habit). Minutes is a short enough interval that it can be claimed from a sleep Minutes to be found in a day, no matter what else is going on. More than a novel per year - do the math - and there's always 20 The world to go away for hours at a time, but it's entirely possible to It's not plausible or desirable to try to get When I'm working on a story or novel, I set a modest daily goal - usually a page or two - and then I meet it every day, doing nothing else I still sometimes feelįrazzled and info-whelmed, but that's rare. Techniques that I've been refining for years. I think I've managed to balance things out through a few simple I'd no sooner give it up than I'd give up fiction or any Personally, and for every moment it steals, it gives back a hundredĭelights. It's informed myĬreativity and aesthetics, it's benefited me professionally and Short time can be and how dangerous distraction is.īut the Internet has been very good to me.
WRITEROOM MODE AUTO WRAP PLUS
As a co-parenting new father who writes at least aīook per year, half-a-dozen columns a month, ten or more blog posts aĭay, plus assorted novellas and stories and speeches, I know just how Time-sink that is just waiting to fill my every discretionary moment Game, or service, I sense the tug of an attention black hole: a Every now and again, when I see a new website, This advice was wrong creatively, professionally,Īrtistically, and personally, but I know where the writer who doled it The Internet because it would only waste my time and wouldn't help my Single worst piece of writing advice I ever got was to stay away from Screen, one alt-tab away from your word-processor. Of information and communication and community that lurks behind your Of course writers face the same glorious problem: the delirious world We know that our readers are distracted and sometimes even overwhelmedīy the myriad distractions that lie one click away on the Internet, but
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