A friend of mine posted this on another forum: "Being a good writer is 3% talent, 97% not being distracted by the internet."
Of course, this writer friend of mine found the quote whilst surfing the internet. Which leads me to ponder the concept of distractions in general.
When I'm at home, the following distractions descend upon me like a swarm of zombie dwarves when I should be focused on writing: laundry, snack foods, tv, exercise, facebook, youtube, picking up the cereal that my nephew spilt this morning, birds chirping outside, email, ipod, itunes, pandora, scrutinizing my body in the mirror picking apart every flaw until I'm convinced I'm a monster that no man could possibly love, more snack foods, the sound of wind, my neighbor's dog, what's that on the floor - a spider or a ball of fuzz? ADD. Gotta love it. I must say though, the internet is a big one. Especially since I do all my writing via laptop. I'm beginning to see the wisdom of Mike the Tech who insists on doing all of his writing on a variety of vintage typewriters. What I once thought of as charmingly eccentric (and maybe a little foolish - after all, there is no "save" button on a typewriter!) I am now seeing as a brilliant way to filter out at least the internet portion of my list of distractions. Now what to do about the cellulite on my thighs?
Oh my gosh. That list cracked me up! In fact, your post has inspired me to write a blog about my writing distractions. I will write it after I'm done reading Drudge Report...
ReplyDeletePretty amusing there, Hansen.
ReplyDeleteThat said, the main reason that I use a typewriter is that one cannot "ctrl-t" one's way into distractedness with them.