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Posts tagged ‘writing focus’

Jan 20

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How total immersion can help you finish your novel

At a raw food retreat I attended in 2004, raw food guru and author David Wolfe said two things that have stuck with me through the last ten years. This post will discuss the first principle. My next post will go over the second one.

He said that if you want to become an “expert” in any field you have to totally immerse yourself in that field: study it, read books about it, talk about it, write about it. Eventually, you begin to dream about it. Total Immersion.

Writing and finishing a novel requires the same type of immersion. Even when you’re not sitting down to write, your story needs to be running in the background of your subconscious. Read more

Dec 30

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Busting the writing myth of “not enough time”

When I get overly tired, I tend to do dumb things like walk into walls, trip going up the stairs, or bump my toe into a hard piece of furniture. Little things. Annoying things.

The day after Christmas, I could tell I was suffering from this state of fatigue because I walked into the bathroom door, I spilled aromatherapy oil on our piano, and as I picked up a picture frame from a bookshelf, the glass slipped out and sliced my finger on its way to the floor. Ouch. I lost a nice patch of skin from the side of my pinky finger and had to hold gauze on the wound for two hours to get it to stop bleeding. Double ouch.

I took the rest of the day off, realizing, a bit belatedly, that I needed to rest and regain my energy and motor skills.

In “Chapter After Chapter: Discover the Dedication and Focus You Need to Write the Book of Your Dreams,” author Heather Sellers writes about how many would-be authors say they can’t finish their novels or writing projects because they don’t have enough time. She thinks this is the case of a misdiagnosis. In reality, she says, it’s not really time that is the issue but a lack of energy. I can relate to her diagnosis. Read more

Jul 23

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Five tools and tactics to increase writing productivity

Everyone I know seems to suffer from lack of focus these days due to information overload, apps, and gadgets that compete for attention. That’s especially bad news for our brains and our ability to get work done, writing and otherwise.

Here are a few of my favorite tools and tactics to stay focused. If you want to amplify your productivity, consider if these would work for you.

Shut down anything that pings. Anything that interrupts is bad for productivity, so if you want to focus on a project, turn off any notification or alert functions on your phone and computer for e-mail, Twitter, and Facebook.

Close excess windows. Set times for research and times for writing that are separate from time spent on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. I’m most focused on my writing when I close everything but my Word file.

Create urgency. Stay on track by using a timer. You might like the Pomodoro technique, in which you use a timer to break down periods of work into 25-minute segments called “pomodori” (from the Italian word pomodoro for “tomato”), separated by short breaks. To learn more, check out the Pomodoro website and free PDF. Read more