Distractions.

I am starting to learn what distractions I can and cannot deal with while writing. I never thought much about this until recently. In college I loved distractions. Television, video games, groups of people, lecturing professors. To me, they weren’t distractions. They were just background noise. I could study without a problem, even with them in the background. I could even write, as long as it was an academic paper.

Creative writing, seems to work differently. Maybe it uses a different part of my brain. Maybe its just easier to be distracted with creative writing. I don’t know. All I know is that I really struggle with distractions. Especially TV.

It would be nice to be able to binge watch my favorite show (I’ll even settle for a not so favorite show) and write at the same time. Sometimes I even struggle with music playing in the background. I’ve started listening to instrumental music only.

This isn’t one of those make or break things. I am not a huge TV watcher… More than anything I was just surprised. I expected it to be the same. For a long time it didn’t even occur to me that I would need to approach them differently.

In a way I only really figured it out because I have had time lately to write uninterrupted, and quite by accident I started listening to classical music. I was surprised at how much higher my word count was. How much easier the words came and the plot came together. The realization is bittersweet. Mainly because quiet, calm, alone time is a scare commodity at this point in my life… and very soon will be all but nonexistent. Which means I either need to figure out a way to write with distractions (cue laughter) or I need to find out how to get more alone, quiet time (cue even more laughter). Should be fun.