Anxiety is man,
He tells earnestly
For what I should worry
But as I focus on his features
He seems to be blurry
So I’ve come to find out
He thinks he knows best
In his well trimmed suit
With a velvet vest.
But his words are empty
A spiral of care.
Obsession dressed in good intentions
To hide the nightmare.
Death for a Day
Someone breaks into your house. But, you were prepared. After bashing the intruder in the head with a baseball bat and killing them, you come to find that you accidentally killed The Grim Reaper. And until the afterlife can send a replacement, his duties are YOUR responsibility.
Good morning! Long time, no blog post? With that in mind, I think it’s either befitting or ironic that I am sharing a little list of comprised of some of the most common “Writing Sins” that totally mess with my writing productivity. Little things that mess with my best of intentions to write buuuut I could just refresh my pinterest feed one more time, right?
Having your phone nearby and not silenced.
Is it no surprise that I’m a super distracted writer? Generally I don’t see myself as an easily distracted person but there is something about sitting down that makes my wonder from whatever I am supposed to be doing and search for something else. And, often, that something else, is my phone. Phones basically give you instant engagement and gratification. I’m sure we’ve all heard the studies done on this. The tiny dopamine rush we get from the stimulation of entertainment (this rush being small but effective in wiring our brains to seek it out more or “refresh” the page). But, because of this, having my phone nearby, can often be a distraction waiting to happen. Especially if I don’t silence it. These days, for many reasons, I have my notification completely off nearly 100% of the time, and I will say, it really, really helps.
Having too many tabs up.
I’ll often find myself wanting to clarify this one “thing” in my writing so I open up a new tab, to research said “thing” and one rabbit hole of research later, here I am with 1000 tabs up and no writing actually done. So, for my benefit, I limit the amount of “tabs” I’m allowed to have open. In fact, it has to be really important for me to minus my word document and look up because I know my own tendencies. This is why I recommend that if you ever need to further research something for clarification in your writing, insert a filler word and move on. The filler word should be weird like “pink elephant” for its easily searchable in a word document and found. Come back to it later.
Getting a little to caught up in music
I feel there’s a common theme of distraction here. I cannot write with music really. I end up humming along and just getting way to into it and Oh! Look! Now I’m distracted. Again. If I do happen to be in a focused mood, instrumentals often work best. Chill instrumentals. And even then, it’s probably best I don’t recognize it so I’m not tempted to hum or sing along.
Being too perfectionistic and getting too bogged down in getting everything just right.
Hmmm… distractible AND perfectionistic? What a great combo! This is more of a mind thing. If I’m ever to get any writing done, I have to tell myself over and over again “you can’t edit a blank page, just keep writing”.
Not having a snack nearby.
I’m just repeating myself at this point. This is yet another gateway to distraction. Take my word, have food nearby, unless you have a specifically planned break for food.
Not knowing your productivity pitfalls or strengths.
Hence this list. But it can be different for everyone. It’s simply a matter of knowing yourself and your own unproductive tendencies and having specific ways to counter them. Not only that, but try and play to your strengths as well. If music really helps you picture the ambiance of a story, by all means, utilize that. If it is nothing more than a source of distraction (like it is for me), then maybe resort to some other background noise like ambiance sounds.
Getting too caught up in word counting.
If I am struggling to pump out some writing, I find I have a huge problem with typing, and then checking the word count like I’m writing an essay for school. This is because I have a word goal I hope to meet every day, and while this does me good, on bad days, I find myself way too caught up in meeting the quota. I haven’t really found a way to combat this if I’m honest. I feel that if I don’t force myself to write at least a little everyday, it is easy to get out of the habit and oh! Now I haven’t written for a month. Yay. But I definitely feel like my writing suffers when I am just checking a “list”. My only tip on this specific tendency is just know, that we all have bad writing days. But I think I ascribe to the idea that something, even if its a bit forced on this particular day, is better than nothing. Really I think that’s the ideology that’s at the heart of productive writing.
“Something is always better than nothing”.
“Thanks for underestimating me; I needed the motivation.”
“Tell me, if our hearts were replaced with clocks, would love more?”
“Someone here has to be hollow; might as well be you.”
“I dont remember your face but I remember I love you.”
“Follow close- there’s no telling what’ll be waiting for us.”
“If you were made to mend broken hearts, you would have been born with a needle and thread.”
“Knowledge and understanding are two totally seperate things I’m afraid.”
“I deserve to be loved, not merely considered.”
“You fell so many by the sword yet you cannot save yourself.”
“Please don’t look away.”
“The problem with people who take down giants, Is they end up thinking they’re giants themselves.”
In a fairytalesque land, where nobles and royalty randomly marry their Princes and Princesses off to strangers, yet another Princess finds herself in this position and, as oppose to agreeing to this fate she runs away only to run into a gang, one comprised completely of royalty and Noble children and teens who refused their parents plans of marriage for them and joined forces once they found each other.
“Once upon a time, not so long ago, in a land uncomfortably close by…”
“So, I know it looks bad,”
“What could go wrong?”
“Some nay-sayers will say what I did was “illegal” or “detestable” but I’m here to tell you what really happened…”
“Once upon a time, nothing went as planned.”
“I shoulder have believed them.”
“The clock had stopped.”
“Everything was going so well…”
“I can explain.”
“I few regrets per the moment.”
“I’m not exactly sure where to start, but I guess the beginning is typically the best place, so here we go.”
“The sky above was entirely lit.”
“Once upon a time, the end was met.”
“I don’t know what’s with poet’s obsession with rain. It never did me any good.”
“Once upon a time, I grew up.”
“The sun was setting, but that’s when my day began.”
“Things are very different.”
“I looked into the distance, unable to believe my eyes.”
“So this tale starts boring, not gonna lie.”
“Some say I’m cynical, I warn you.”
“It started with an explosion. Do I have your attention?”
“I may have killed someone.”
“I stopped to catch my breath…”
You are born with the ability to see people’s thoughts, swirling in a cloud above their head. You’re accustomed to seeing images, faces, and nearly indistinguishable words above everyone’s head as you go about life. Generally their thoughts are pretty “colorless” and don’t pique your interest anyway. That was until one fateful day when you met them.
A merchant bottles and sells emotions. Emotions like bravery, love, happiness, and so forth. But they have one bottle that they sell that no one has ever bought…
“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.”
“Jazz is rhythm and meaning.”
“Creativity takes courage.”
“Don’t wait for inspiration. It comes while one is working.”
“To arrive is to be in prison.”
“When you’re out of willpower, you can call on stubbornness.”
“I am made of all that I have seen.”
“Derive happiness in oneself from a good day’s work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us.”
I, my dear friends, am a project bouncer. All too often I’m struck with a lightning bolt of creativity that fuels me roughly for a week only to dissipate as quickly as It came.
And so I’m left with a story concept that is pushed to the back shelf that is already crowded with other dead ideas and concepts that I l tell myself I’ll get to later. And of course, later never comes.
I think the most frustrating bit about this aspect of personality is that fact that I always feel like I’m overflowing with ideas and yet I don’t actually get anything done. After the end of a creative jolt I’m left with nothing but a vague character description and plot outline and a blank word document. It’s like I’m encountering writers block before I’ve even started. I can’t focus on one idea long enough and everything feels like it’ll result in a dead end.
But, as I’ve come to figure out, my problem isn’t necessarily the time that I have with an idea that’s giving me issues. It’s the way I use it.
You see, if you’re anything like me, your creative eureka! Moments happen often frequently but they are fleeting. Generally what I do with this time is… well nothing. And that, my dear friends, is my problem. I squander my creative bursts on… daydreaming? Nothing productive anyway.
So here’s how I combatted this issue. The solution was really simple actually.
Every inspiring idea and concept that comes to my head revolving around this topic, I write down. Everything. All the random bits of dialogue, all the random character details, the scenes… all of it.
And needed to put to use my creative energy right away. I needed to stop “letting it simmer” because that leads to me burning out. I learned that I needed to take advantage of this flash of inspiration and actually WRITE. There’s no room for perfection. I just need to DO it cause pretty soon I’m going to loose steam and that’ll be the end of it.
And, so, by the end of a weeks time (and my creative high), I should have the hardest part of the story out of the way; the beginning. And if I can get that down, I can run with it and see where the story takes me.
“The beginning is perhaps more difficult than anything else, but keep heart, it will turn out all right.”
~Vincent Van Gogh
By the Brooke 