Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Accepting The Process

For a long time, I imagined to be successful as a writer, artist, designer, architect, etc., one had to have infinite focus and be able to concentrate for hours on end. I imagined they were all Michelangelo who was known to spend days working without stopping for food or sleep.

I was wrong! I am a writer. Just because I have an attention span problem and I can't sit still for longer than twenty seconds at time, makes me no less a writer than the person who does become so engrossed in their work they need an alarm bell to ring so they remember to stop for food.

I've been frustrated with myself for a long time about how I write. In school I fretted and worried over every paper thinking I was never going to get them done. That I was doing them wrong. So of course I was going to fail right? All because I rarely sat down and finished the paper in one go. If I was a good writer shouldn't I be able to just write? Shouldn't a one thousand word research paper just roll off the fingers and onto the page?

Nowadays, I still write in chunks. I still start something one day, walk away, sleep on it, and finish it another day. I still start something over one, two, three, four, sometimes five times before finding a direction that leads me to a finished product. I still get up mid-sentence sometimes and walk away from the computer because I thought of something I need to do and I don't want it nagging me at the back of my mind while I'm trying to focus.

Sometimes I get up and clean my house, wash the dishes, fix my makeup, or run an errand just so I can let thoughts roll around in my head for a while. It's like I'm trying to put everything into words all at once and I need to breath for a minute to reassess what needs to be said. I used to think I was too easily distracted and I'd never make it if I couldn't focus better. I tried time and time again to force myself to sit at my desk and not get up for anything.

Then, I embraced all of this as part of my process.

I have no idea how other writers work. No clue if Emily Brontë, Jane Austen, or J.K. Rowling sat (sit in the case of J.K. Rowling) for extended periods of time furiously penning their epic stories losing all sense of reality, never becoming distracted by anything. I haven't the faintest idea if the rough draft of Wuthering Heights or Pride and Prejudice or Harry Potter were as golden as the copies that made it to print.

What I do know, is my process is mine, and it works for me. It may make for a longer slower process than some writers since I seem to need to really consider what I'm writing about before I begin, but it's me.

That's not to say there isn't always room for a little bit of experimentation and improvement. They say the maximum amount of time our brains can stay focused on any one thing is twenty minutes. So I'm running a little test on myself over the next few weeks. I'm setting my timer for 20:00 minutes all day long. Every time the timer goes off I get up from my desk and walk away. I'll stretch, do Yoga, wash those pesky dishes, whatever, just something to get me away from my desk for a minute or two.

I'm interested in answering two questions: Does this help me stay more focused for the twenty minutes I'm at the desk? And, does this improve my energy throughout the day?

I'll get back to you on my findings.

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