Minimise Distractions When Writing

With apologies to the team over at Daily Writing Tips, I must be in a slightly silly mood. I’ve just read their four suggestions for minimizing distractions when writing, and I just had to write my own:

1 – Work somewhere quiet. The bathroom is good, with the door locked. Although that requires the ability to tune out the insistent banging upon the door. The basement also works. I know, they suggest that we persuade our parents and our young children to give us peace and quiet, but that must have been written with their collective tongues firmly in their collective cheeks. No one who actually lives with their parents or with young children seriously expects that to happen.

2 – Get comfortable. We’re in the bathroom or basement, right? Well, I know where I get comfortable in the first place, but I’m not sure about where to get comfortable in the basement.

3 – Turn off electronic distractions. Like the computer. Wait …

4 – Set a stop time for your writing. Set an alarm that you can count on. A small child screaming “MOMMY!” works well. Or, if you do most of your writing after the children are asleep, you can always rely on the “eyes twitching and watering because they want to close’ signal. That’s my favorite.

Like many parents who work at home while raising small children, I write in the living room, with one eye on my toddler, while Treehouse plays. Every ten minutes or so, I have to stop writing so that I can re-fill the sippy cup, change a diaper, cuddle Baby Boy to sleep, pick up toys that have scattered across the entire house, or simply tend to someone who doesn’t wish to share Mommy’s attention with the computer. I do my best writing between 9pm and midnight, which corresponds to “everyone’s asleep except Mommy”.

Sometimes I’m not sure how we do it. Honestly, I’m not. But we do.