Thursday pages were crap today. I went to Dairy Queen to bribe myself with ice cream, but got nowhere.
I tried poetry, nothing. I tried to think of something fiction-y, nothing.
Not writer's block. I still hold to my principle that "writer's block" is synonymous with "cop out." What happened was a day that got eaten up by other obligations and even when I sat down for my designated writing time, those obligations intruded. I wasn't able to slow down enough to focus on stories becuase I was too busy thinking about everything I had to do to prepare for Comp. 101 tomorrow morning, too busy thinking about getting ready for writers group on Sunday, too busy thinking about...
Most of the time I'm pretty good at shutting that stuff out, but I wasn't able to manage today. This past week or two I've been in a writing slump, too much peripheral stuff going on. Fortunately, things on campus are getting ready to slow down a bit, which will be helpful.
How do you deal with focusing on your writing when there's so much else in your life needing attention? Do you have any proven techniques for shutting the peripheral stuff out? How do you get focused?
3 comments:
I do the opposite and tell myself that under no circumstances am I allowed to write. (Works when you're trying to go to sleep too--just tell yourself you can think about whatever you want to, but you have to keep your eyes open and not fall asleep...and generally that leads to some problem-solving dreams too.)
Sometimes life's just too busy. You know that whole 'refilling the well' metaphor? Sometimes the well overflows with miscellaneous stuff and you've got to drain that stuff out before getting to what you wanna do. Trust me, I know what you're going through. I've told myself 'no writing' while waiting for baby and have just been reading. I feel the need to revise, write endless short stories, and work on at least three novels right now. But no! Because the baby just refuses to come. She must be 20 pounds by now.
Oh, and sometimes a Snickers Blizzard is all you really need.
This is true, sometimes the ice cream is its own reward.
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