Distractions

An extract from "The Color of Your Dreams: Publish Your Damn Book Already"

NOTE: While this excerpt comes from a book about the mindset of writers, it could easily apply in almost any career.

Blame the Internet. That’s what everyone else does.

I’m talking about the reason you don’t get your writing done, and, consequently, why your words don’t end up in print. Same with all of the poor little gadgets, like the cell phone or the tablet or the video game. They’re consistently accused of sabotaging the efforts of writers.

In a seemingly never-ending quest to overcome these abominable tools of convenience, we search for help, ironically from other electronic marvels. Digital task programs. Calendar overlords. Project management systems. Hell, there are apps you can download to your phone or laptop that lock out the Internet for a prescribed length of time, just so you can get your work finished.

Yes, we’re at the point where our own willpower and determination be damned. We can’t cut it. We need digital supervisors to shepherd our efforts and keep us focused.

The Convenient Villain

Distraction is easily blamed on outside influences, and these do contribute quite a bit. I readily admit to working better away from home because the lure of things—even stupid, mindless things—is too great around the house. It’s as if we need to have something evil to act as scapegoat for our own shortcomings. I can’t help it! Those email alerts keep going off.

Which is patently ridiculous, and we know it’s ridiculous, but it’s an odd compact we’ve made with the Muse or whatever label you assign to your creative side: I’ll humor you occasionally with five hundred words, but I reserve the right to screw around whenever I like and it won’t be my fault. Do you hear me? Not. My. Fault.

We’re all wired differently when it comes to outside distractions. For writers, a prime example is the cliched coffee shop. I saw a comic strip about a guy who innocently sat alone in a coffee shop with no laptop and no cell phone to stare at. Just sat there, drinking his coffee and looking around. What a weirdo, one woman thinks to herself before diving back into her little screen.

It is kinda funny that generally people on their laptops outnumber the people just sitting there or chatting with another humanoid. It’s a sign of the times when the most-frequent complaint baristas receive has nothing to do with the beverages and everything to do with the number of available outlets.

But coffee shops don’t work for everyone. I really want to write there, but the conversation at the table next to me is just too interesting or the music is bothersome. I understand that some people need that background ambiance. I mean, there’s even an app for that, too. Yes, a “sounds of the coffee shop” app in case you’re stuck at home and need that clinky/chatty/dark-roasted atmosphere in order to spew words.

There’s a fine line, however, between something that distracts versus something that provides respite.

When a Break Becomes a Trap

For instance, I heard a podcast interview with writer Nick Hornby (High Fidelity, About a Boy, and the screenplay for Cheryl Strayed’s Wild). He mentioned keeping a jigsaw puzzle going at a table beside his writing workspace and how he’ll sometimes turn around and labor over it.

As someone who’s been a jigsaw freak since childhood—and has assembled a 24,000-piece behemoth—I was instantly intrigued. I wondered if this was a trick I could borrow, then just as quickly discarded the idea. Nick is able to use it to clear his mind for additional writing, but I know myself. I would get lost in the puzzle and maybe not resurface for days.

Paraphrasing a Clint Eastwood character, “We’ve all got to know our limitations.” What may be a therapeutic break for you could be a subversive distraction for me.

The Distractions You Don’t Get to Avoid

Then there are the necessary outside distractions, the kinds you can’t just ignore. Although it may be the ultimate dream, you’re likely not able to write full-time yet and so this thing called “a job” pops up. If you’re in a relationship, you better figure out a way to wedge your writing life into that commitment. We have obligations and responsibilities. We gotta pay the bills and we gotta keep our people happy.

Oh, and don’t forget parenting. It’s probably disrespectful to label that a distraction, but can we agree it’s vexing trying to pen a bestseller when some little—but loud—person is demanding a goddamned peanut butter sandwich?

So yeah, there are real life distractions, and there’s nothing you can do about most of those.

The Call Is Coming From Inside the House

What really interests me, though, are not necessarily the outside distractions, but the inner. To me, cell phones and video games and family are nothing compared to our own, self-inflicted damage. The kind you can’t blame on anything else.

We already touched on fear, which is, as we described it, internally generated. But in its purest sense, a distraction is, quoting one dictionary source, “that which divides the attention or prevents concentration.”

Based on that definition, I nominate, as the worst offender in the writer’s pantheon of distraction, the syndrome I call “the new baby in the house.”

Here’s an example. Like you, I have ideas for stories or articles spring to mind that immediately captivate me. I’ll jot down notes and even some narrative or dialogue, things I’m sure will propel the idea into a published smash hit. It’s not unusual for the first chapter or two to spill out, my fingers barely able to keep up with the word flow. It’s gonna be huge.

And then . . .

And then another idea strikes me. An idea just as tantalizing, maybe more so. And I jot down notes and even some narrative or dialogue. A first chapter may even materialize.

At this point you’re saying, “Wait, what about the first idea?”

It’s been abandoned. Maybe not officially. You still keep the manuscript on your desktop, or simply minimized in the lower task bar. But c’mon, the new baby in the house—that fresh story idea, the one that promises publishing superstardom—has kidnapped your attention.

Now that I think of it, perhaps the new-baby metaphor isn’t right. This is more like a siren song, the pernicious call leading you to paralyzing doom. Paralyzing because you’ll get two or three chapters into this new idea before yet another steals your soul. Sidetrack after sidetrack.

See, this is an all-too-real form of distraction that doesn’t get the attention normally paid to tangible, physical things like phones and email. And I believe, at its core, it’s more damaging. We can lock up our phones and shut off the Internet connection, but we can’t shut off our monkey minds. There’s no downloadable app to lock up your brain and keep it on task.

I’d pay $99 for one if it existed. Maybe more. Probably more.

If you’re looking for the cheap and easy solution to this problem, I’m afraid you won’t find one. This is where pure discipline is required, the only tonic that can help. You need to cultivate a mental toughness to catalogue new ideas, including a few quick notes, and then put the idea down for a nap. It’ll still be there when you finish the first project.

Success Is a Wonderful Waste of Time

And then we get to the internal distraction created by fantasy. No, not the dragon, wizard, troll, or gorgon forms of fantasy, but rather the dreams we concoct about the eventual success of our words.

Everyone will love this! Easily number one on Amazon. New York will come calling with a seven-figure contract for all the follow-ups. I want the new house on a lake somewhere, with a dock. Oh, and a little kitchenette in my master bedroom.

You know, the stuff we incessantly think about when we should actually be producing the words that would generate the fantasy life we’re imagining.

To be fair, a bit of fantasy is not only okay, but it’s also an important ingredient to success. After all, we’re told we need to visualize success, right? It’s why people create vision boards.

The problem comes when we slip headlong into a dream world, and we spend all our time visualizing rather than creating. Just like your diet, a healthy mix is crucial. And don’t ask, “What’s a healthy mix?” You’re bullshitting yourself if you pretend to not know where the line is drawn.

No need to feel guilty if you’ve occupied Fantasy Land for too long. Today is a good day to put your fantasy life on its own diet. It’s a distraction when it’s bloated, and our goal is to minimize distractions.

Know the Enemy

So we’ve seen the enemy, and it is distraction. Some are external, many are internal, and all of them are threats to the fragile framework of creation. Don’t beat yourself up over a few random detours along your path. Just pay attention to what is most often hijacking your time and figure out a plan that helps to protect those valuable minutes. It could be as simple as finding an isolated, quiet oasis where you can paint a picture with your words.

We’ll explore that specific strategy in the next chapter. In the meantime, stay committed and true to the color of your dreams.

Just don’t get lost in the palette.

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Dom Testa writes fiction and nonfiction. “The Color of Your Dreams” takes a deep dive into the mental roadblocks that often hinder people who want to get published.

Find it at DomTestaBooks.com.