The week in solitude with only two dogs and three cats to demand my attention and limited Internet access did me some good. Not only did I get several chapters of the Ivy novel written and revised, but I also found a new creative spark for revisions on The World (Saving) Series.
The first two days there I admit that I kept the same slow, slightly distracted pace. But by Saturday night I realized that I was getting bored and needed to do more work to better fill up my time. That was good enough to light the fire under my butt. I found myself doing twice as much work as I usually did when I was home.
The exceptions were Tuesday and Thursday. Tuesday I had a job interview and was gone a good chunk of the day, so I only did some outlining. Thursday I got a chapter written and one revised, but didn’t have the attention span to push it past that. I was looking forward to my aunt coming back that night so I could go home. It was nice to get away, but I was ready to get back to my bed and my fridge and my animals.
I’m pleased with the productivity I had that week and I hope at least a little of it carries over back at home. The Ivy novel is going to continue to take its dear sweet time and I’m going to get frustrated with my lack of progress on it and I’m going to deal with my bad habit of procrastinating, but I think this burst of productivity will help propel me through the hard parts. And I’m really glad that I had a chance to tinker with The World (Saving) Series again. It’s gotten me excited to get back to the project and I think I can hammer out the revisions on the first third of the novel before the month ends.
In the end, it’s all about discipline and focus. I need to carry the writer’s retreat mindset of getting my work done in my mind all the time.
A saying has floated on my Twitter timeline repeatedly and it’s so very true:
Writing is 90% not getting distracted by the Internet.
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