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Pen in Hand

IMG-20130709-00210Yesterday at Kristen Lamb’s Blog, Kristen listed 5 traits of the successful writer: passion, self-discipline, humility, healthy relationship with failure, and persistence.  She states, “We can have all the talent in the world, but without these five ingredients, we will be hard-pressed to ever reach our dreams.”

Each of the five traits on the list can be a challenge for me at one time or another, but the most consistent challenge is self-discipline. I am constantly distracted by my laptop life: Facebook, email, checking my blog stats, Free Cell and Spider Solitaire, Ravelry (looking for my next knitting project), reading other people’s blog posts, etc.. The writing/working time slips away as I roam from one distraction to another. I’m not alone. People are actually writing about this phenomenon. Here are two links to articles about what is being called Internet ADD:  http://zenhabits.net/8-practical-tips-to-cure-your-internet-add-attention-deficit-disorder/ and  http://kristiholl.net/writers-blog/2013/01/internet-based-add-do-you-have-it/

I’ve decided that the only cure is abstinence. I have the luxury of a lot of writing time this week, and finally, yesterday, I figured out what I had to do to get anything accomplished–and did it. I closed the laptop, got out my journal, and worked my way through the next chapter of my book. Today I’m going to type up my notes–on my NEO (no internet, just a nice clicky keyboard and a small screen.) I have three more days to myself this week and a lot to accomplish. I’ll let you know how this strategy works.

Do you get distracted by your online life? How do you switch off and get the work done? What’s your biggest challenge among Kristen’s 5 traits? Love to hear your thoughts and solutions.

Hope you have a creative week and find your own way to carve out some creative time and make progress toward your writing goals.

 

Social Media Decisions and Questions

Hi Everyone,

I’ve finally taken the leap and created a Facebook page for Heather Wright Writer. It’s a place for me to share links to articles that I think will be useful to other writers. I belong to a number of groups where I’ve posted these links in the past, but the groups have become more “buy my book” groups with most of the posts being along those lines and that’s not where I want to be.

On my page, I try to post a link to something useful and writerly every day or two, so you’ll only hear from me once a day at the very most–and I won’t be using it to post advertising promos about my books. I might offer a link to a free chapter, but that would probably be it. Please follow along if you think you would be interested.

I’m on Twitter, too, if you’d like to follow @hwrightwriter. Once again, you can look at my list of recent posts and see that I don’t send out automated sales messages every 2 hours and rarely do any book promotion unless it’s to specific groups that I think will find my work useful. If you want to read someone who (better than I) expresses her dismay at the use of Twitter for bombarding people with marketing messages, drop by Kristen Lamb’s excellent blog and see what I mean.

How are you handling your social media choices? Do you have more than one FB page or blog or Twitter account? How do you feel about book marketing on social media? Do you buy books based on Twitter marketing blurbs?

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