Getting distracted from writing is so easy. In the space of time it took me to walk from the living room to my semi-sort-of-office/inspiration room, I went to the loo—got lost on Instagram–, took my computer bag and notebook to my office, realised I’d forgotten my laptop charger, gone to get my laptop charger, turned on my computer ready to start, checked my room and bathroom next door for any invisible attackers (anxiety, what a fun ride it is), searched for where the cricket chirping was coming from (hint: it was outside), fetched my dog so she could alert me to any attackers I’d missed, got my dog settled with her blanket, checked on the cats in the living room so they didn’t destroy anything, removed anything they could destroy, come back to my computer to write, turned on my headphones, realised I’d left my phone in the toilet, went to get my phone and then turned on music (checked the door to the office was locked too so I couldn’t be disturbed and knocked out of my writing flow)—and then after finally sitting down to write, organising my word document so it was set-up the way I liked it, I wrote the heading of this blog post ‘Secret Invasion Episode 2 Review’… And then completely changed topics when I actually started writing the words.
You see, I’d planned to write a Marvel’s ‘Secret Invasion’ Review since last night. I’d finally found the attention span enough to watch the episode. I’d discussed it with my Mum, wrote down notes to organise my thoughts—all night I dreamed of writing the blog post. I woke up to sort out one of the cats at 5:30am and I was still thinking about the review. I thought of it at random moments during the day when I was trying and failing to get myself to come and write in the back room. And now, at 11:15pm, after everyone else has left me alone I finally come and write/prepare to come and write (a feat itself that took around 25 minutes of effort and distractions) and the review was gone. Maybe it’ll come back. Sometimes they do but for now the only line that was coming into my head was ‘Getting distracted from writing is so easy’.
And yes, to people who aren’t like me, you might say—but why don’t you just write the review anyway? You can choose what you write, right? To that I say, unfortunately, as I’ve discovered—no. When I try to force what I’m writing, as I’ve done in the past, it becomes hard. The words struggle to come out. I get agitated. I feel stressed. I get angrier and angrier at myself and the screen becomes progressively more and more aggravating—because it should be easy. When I write, when I’m in my safe space, I should find it easy. But I don’t. And worst of all, the writing turns out inferior and without personality. It’s subpar and lifeless. I find myself getting depressed, losing confidence and I can even end up not writing again for an extended amount of time.
Now, until recently this was a part of myself I would just be annoyed at. I would tell myself, exactly as above, that I should be able to write anything at any time—like any true writer would be able too. I should be able to write about the things I’m passionate about easily and quickly. This would then lead to more depression and anxiety because I felt like I was failing—as a writer and as a person.
So, after years of this, I had a decision to make. I’d recognized my pattern—the cycle of: force the writing, hate the writing, stop writing and repeat. I’d thought back to when I did write freely and without problems and realised that there was something I’d forgotten. Back when I was writing freely, I wasn’t putting pressure on myself to write anything specific. I was writing whatever I felt like in the moment, and I was writing a lot. It may not have all been the same subject, I may have rarely finished any longer pieces, but I was happy and enjoying my writing. I was constantly writing, learning how to get better and my writing was being rewarded for this.
After years of trying to pretend to be other people to accomplish things I’ve stopped (to some degree. Habits are hard to break). Instead I’m trying to accept that part of myself, learn what actually helps me (even if it doesn’t work the same for others) and that includes allowing myself to be distracted without getting angry. It includes allowing the train of thought to change tracks so that I can get whatever’s in my head currently, out. It allows me to enjoy writing again and be all the better of a writer for it.
Weirdly I have a concrete example of a time in the past that I’ve done the exact same thing and it’s worked out well for me. I was always excellent at English exams at school. English was always my best subject (who would have guessed, eh?). Without much effort on my part I would get the essay questions in exams and write reams of text about the subject (our English exams in the UK where mainly essay based time-exams so you would have to talk about whatever question they asked about a specific text, from memory as you didn’t have the text with you so you would have to remember quotes from texts you didn’t have to hand). I would disappear into whatever I was writing and would never remember what I’d written after I’d left (very similar to how writing should be when I’m in the zone). I rarely got below an A and an A was very much expected of me from my main teacher.
However, I also had another teacher who just so happened to be the Head of the English Department. For some reason, even though I always did well in the mock exams, I listened to everything he said we would have to do to get good marks and decided in one of my more important exams I would do exactly as he said. Maybe I hoped to get an A*? Or, maybe, more likely for me, I thought that my way couldn’t be right because even though I always did well it must be some fluke? I barely remembered what went through my head or any kind of decision-making on essays in the English exams I’d done up until that point… so I had to be doing well because of a fluke right? We did the test, I followed the Head of English’s advice entirely and really thought about what I was writing. At the end, I didn’t feel the same as I usually did but I did feel at least partially-confident. I’d done exactly as I’d been told.
The results came in… I got an E. A terrible grade, a non-passing grade, one above a complete and utter fail. I felt miserable, like I’d failed at doing what I thought was the right thing to do. My main teacher, who was a lovely woman and very supportive of everyone in her class, was confused how I, more than anyone else (everyone had done badly because of some terrible marking that year as well as all this) had done so poorly. She sent off for my paper to check through herself and, whilst the marking by the person doing the marking had been shocking (definitely deserved more than an E), it certainly wasn’t up to my A Grade standard. She couldn’t understand why it was so different than my usual papers—and I never told her, not wanting to throw my other teacher under the bus. But from then on, on the exam re-take and all my subsequent exams, I never took advice again. I did exactly what I’d always done and let myself fall into the zone and just write. My exam scores went up and I ended up with an overall great score.
I’m not even trying to say this to show off. I recognize other people struggled more in school than I did… that school and academics came more easily to me than it did others—but in real life, in adult life, these skills that were unique to these exams is practically useless. And my over-thinking, has-to-be-in-the-zone/easy-to-drift-off-brain led me to a life of high anxiety, OCD, depression and no income despite many qualifications. At some point, most likely after this day when you can clearly see the lack of confidence and doubt started to creep in strongly, I lost track of who I was and how I worked best.
I would say that this is a very ‘writer’ trait—this ability to be distracted from doing anything you’re meant to be doing, this urge/need to write whatever is in your head at that moment and not the many others that’ve popped in your head all the rest of the day and night, but I can’t claim the same for all writers. I can’t even say the same for all the writers I know. My close friend, Misselthwaite (yes, nickname), is very similar to me in some writing habits but not all. Other people I’ve met in retreats and the many classes I’ve attended work in so many different ways and are creative in their own ways. One gentleman I met was a very methodical thinker. He’d worked on the Retreat we were on to create a step-program to how to write a book that he could use to be exact (including percentages for show vs tell, speech vs description vs action etc.—It was insanely impressive). He could sit down and write following that pattern easily, basing his story in places he’d been and things he’d heard (which were vast) but he would struggle with fantasy or imagining outside of the set rules. Another lady was writing short stories based on people she’d heard about in her local town.
There’s no right way to be a writer. As long as what you produce is liked by someone, than you’re a writer. It could even be you. The only trait I’ve consistently seen through most writers is the doubt you feel about how good of a writer you are… and, the only writers I’ve ever met with large egos and little doubt have tended to be the worst writers because they haven’t accepted the need to constantly learn as a writer. You never stop learning as a writer (or a chef, for that matter—or many other careers).
So, what was I saying? Oh yes. Getting distracted is really easy. Well, I think this blog post is proof of this. How many subjects did we get through in the space of a couple thousand words? And did any of it help? Well, it certainly helped to clear my head out a bit.
What can you take away from this other than The Literary Onion has issues? Well, I suppose, my advice to writers in this post is to take the time to get to know how you work best, to not force yourself to write if that’s not how you work best, to force yourself if that is how you work best, to not comma splice as badly as I have in the last 2000 words, to be consistent with your writing choices and give yourself a break. Writing’s supposed to be fun, it’s supposed to be a safe space, do what’s best for you—and don’t let that self-doubt cripple you because you don’t think you’re as good as somebody else. Let that somebody else be themselves, and you focus on being yourself. Good writing may come out of writing for someone else, but great writing comes out of writing as you and for you.
I hope you’re having a great day… and thank you for reading my rambling.
Signed,
The Literary Onion
P.S. Yes, there may be mistakes in this post and I apologise. I will fix any I see, when I see them but I’m making sure to post this as soon as I write it so that I don’t A. Forget to do it after I move onto something else or B. Let the self-doubt take over and never end up posting it at all for fear of judgement. Also, I’ve only just realised that a Christmas song is playing in my headphones– See, distracted!
The Literary Onion 