Dumb Little Writing Tricks That Work: Unplug your Internet!
And if you don’t have the self-control to do it, I’ve got a tip for you!
An observation from writer and essayist Jonathan Franzen:
It’s doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction.
Oh, yes. The evil temptress known as the Web! Sure, you should buckle down and get started on that scene. You know, the one you’ve been struggling with now for a couple of days. You know the only solution is likely just slogging your way through it time after time until you get it right. So here you go, opening the file. And there it is, the vexing scene itself. And here are your hands on the keyboard, ready to go, and then…
Fingers…
Wandering…
Over…
To…
The…
Mouse.
Click!
Open Internet browser.
And suddenly, it’s two-and-a-half hours later, where you find yourself bidding on eBay for a glow-in-the-dark Michael Jackson prayer shawl or some such nonsense that you have absolutely no need for… other than to distract you from your writing.
So here’s the trick: Stay offline. I mean literally unplug your DSL line. If you’ve got wireless, disable it. Don’t tell me you don’t know how to do that. I’m the world’s dumbest computer person and even I know how to disable my wireless.
Or try a program like Freedom.
Freedom users report gaining an average of 2.5 hours of productive time each day. We’re proud to have helped our users reclaim 10,000,000 hours in the past year. No wonder Freedom is used by people at the world’s best companies and universities.
And then just write.
Facebook will wait for you. The DailyKos will wait for you. Twitter won’t wait for you, but writing requires some sacrifice… even refraining from tweets.
What won’t wait is the solution to that damn scene!
So when you sit down to write, admit that while you may be a grown-up, at least in terms of your age, you really need to treat yourself like a child — and just unplug your Internet.
This has been another installment of “Dumb Little Writing Tricks That Work.”
For more posts in the series, go here.
