You have to stop here and look at your phone. Along with her homework assignment this week, a student in my fiction writing class asked what I did to overcome distractions....
Well. Huh. Well! I had to think--it's a distracting question. I checked Facebook. I looked at my phone. I pondered--distracted, yeah--and then I happened to put down my phone and pick up a collection of my boy Ralph Waldo Emerson's writings. And I saw that he had experienced the same problems.
Well. Huh. Well! I had to think--it's a distracting question. I checked Facebook. I looked at my phone. I pondered--distracted, yeah--and then I happened to put down my phone and pick up a collection of my boy Ralph Waldo Emerson's writings. And I saw that he had experienced the same problems.
Today, carpets; yesterday, the aunts; the day before, the funeral of poor S.; and every day, the remembrance in the library of the rope of work which I must spin;--in this way life is dragged down and confuted. We try to listen to the hymn of gods, and must needs hear this perpetual cock-a-doodle-doo, and har-tar-kut right under the library windows. They, the gods, ought to respect a life, you say, whose objects are their own. But steadily they throw mud and eggs at us, roll us in the dirt, and jump on us.
So what is my advice to the young writer? Pretty basic, I guess—do as I do. Write in short, intense bursts. Work from an outline of some sort so that, once distracted, you know where to start back up. Keep a towel handy to wipe the mud and egg from your face, and keep on trying…..
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