Hey, look at that … I have a guest post over at SocMedia101.com.

This site, if you don’t know, comes from the brilliant minds of Julie Roads and Ron Miller and is devoted to helping people (especially new people) navigate the waters of the social media river.

Confused about Twitter? Wondering about Facebook? How about LinkedIn? (I know I’m still trying to figure that one out.) Well, this is the place to go for answers.

Not only that, they’ve got a brand-new, free eBook out called Finding Your Voice in a Crowded World. I helped proof-read it for them, so I was one of the first people to read it, and can vouch for its helpfulness.

Go! What are you still sitting around here for? (grin)

Joanna’s theme this month is breathing space, and in this crazy world, what could be more important?

I’m sure I’m not the only one who is glued to her computer screen for hours (and hours) every day. Nor am I complaining about that. If I didn’t love writing, twittering, blogging, socializing, and emailing, you can be sure that I would find a way NOT to spend so many of my leisure hours with my laptop. Since my first introduction to the internet back in college (circa 1988), I’ve been a big fan. I’ve made a huge number of real-life friends thanks to my blogs, and even with my real-world friends, much of our interaction these days is done electronically. I love my computer, and absolutely cannot understand how some of my friends and acquaintences don’t even own computers, much less use them.

But. Still.

There are times you need to step away from the computer screen.

No, really!

Fresh Air

Did you know, for example, that there’s this thing called the sun? And fresh air? You’d be surprised how refreshing it can be to spend time outdoors. Taking the dog for a walk and watching him check his “pee-mail” messages at the corner never fails to put a smile on my face. There are all sorts of things you can do outside–sports, for example, if you’re into that kind of thing–that get your body moving and stretching in ways that don’t involve a keyboard. Get the blood pumping, feel the sun on your face, and generate some Vitamin D. (Be warned, though. In my experience, fresh, outdoor air is always more tiring than indoor air, even if I’m just sitting quietly in a chair.)

Socializing

As wonderful, fantastic, satisfying, and cutting edge as social media is … and believe me when I tell you that I would be lost without email, twitter, blog comments, and Ravelry (a knitter’s site) … it can be just as much fun to see friends in person. No, really! It’s true! I spent all of Saturday afternoon at a friend’s house with a group of eight friends, sitting outside on a beautiful Spring day with our knitting and our spinning wheels, and it was delightful. (And, yes, that really is my idea of a good a time.) Five hours without email, without looking at a single pixel or electronic anything, but instead, laughing and chatting, eating good food, and making beautiful things with wool.

Things You Just Can’t Do on a Computer

There are, of course, things that you can’t do on a computer. Household chores like dusting or laundry. Running to the grocery store for a gallon of milk. Baking a cake. Changing the oil in your car. Going to a ball game. Some of these are more fun than others. Some can be combined with small amounts of internet use (thanks to Blackberries and iPhones). But they are best experienced when you are focused on them, instead of trying to type a tweet or compose a blog post at the same time. (Although, of course, letting your mind wander free while doing otherwise brainless things is actually one of the benefits.)

Clear Your Head

Maybe you think that you can only be productive when you’re tapping away at the computer keys, but that’s not necessarily true. Are you one of the millions of people who’s ever had a great idea in the shower? Or waken up in the middle of the night by a stroke of genius so brilliant it couldn’t wait until morning? Or had a brain-wave while driving the car, tapping your fingers in time to your favorite tune on the stereo?

Yeah. I thought so. Sometimes, the best way to be brilliant is to walk away from trying to be brilliant.

So, what are you doing, still sitting there?

Sometimes you just have to walk away, so that you’ll be ready to come back.

Another thing I’ve been thinking about, about writing:

It’s internally created entertainment.

Now, of course, there can be a difference between the fun kinds of creative writing and the obligatory kinds of drier, business-types of writing. But still, I find that dredging words up out of my subconscious can be remarkably satisfying all on its own.

The tricky part–for me, at least–is how easily my internal entertainment can be over-ridden by external entertainment.

In fact, it’s quite appalling, how easily I’m distracted sometimes.

I can’t do creative, fictional, write-a-story writing with the television on. Or with any kind of vocal music in the room. Or in the next room. My brain too eagerly latches onto words, and if I’m listening to or focusing on someone else’s words (like, say, lyrics), I can’t hear the words whispering in my head.

If I’m thinking about other stories, I can’t generate my own. Lately I’ve been more or less obsessing on Chuck, my favorite television show. It’s “on the bubble,” as they say, and it’s ramping up to its season finale in two weeks, and until I see how they end this season and I find out whether NBC is going to renew it, I’m having a hard time thinking about anything else without having a scene from the latest episode pop into my head, or one of the songs (from its great music selections) drift into my ear. I’m kind of obsessed, because the story they’re telling has gotten even more multi-layered and intriguing, my brain just can’t let it go.

But, see? That’s the thing–I’m letting external sources of information derail my concentration on the internal.

I’ll start working on something–a marketing piece, a blog post, a list of instructions–and then I’ll get mentally distracted, hijacked, by my own brain deciding to think about something else. The book I was reading at breakfast. The song that came up on my MP3 player as I got to the office. The tv show I watched last night.

It almost doesn’t matter–the problem is that it’s a story, or words, that someone else wrote that is keeping me from focusing on my own.

So, what’s a writer to do?

My most drastic solution–and one which I find almost impossible to actually do–is to put a moratorium on all external forms of entertainment. That is, no television, no reading, no movies, no music.

That’s pretty much impossible, of course. (And, no, I am NOT skipping the last three episodes of Chuck, I don’t care how much writing I should be doing.) And, really, having a musical ear-worm playing in my head isn’t necessarily THAT distracting. What I truly find distracts me the most is a good story, so it’s eliminating those that helps the most. I have managed to give up reading fiction for brief periods of time. (And, if you knew the kind of reading habit I have, you would realize how hard that is for me.)

By eliminating the distraction of the story someone else is telling, I find it easier to hear the words in my own head.

Otherwise I spend so much time analyzing plot devices, story twists, unexpected developments, foreshadowing, and all the other hints and games that writers like to play, that I can’t think of my own. I can’t focus on how to get my own characters from plot point A to plot point B if I’m thinking about the way Chuck found his Dad and discovered why he had left his family 10 years ago. I can’t lay out my own step-by-step campaign if I’m mentally charting all the steps that the Chuck writers put down over the last season to get to where they are now.

It’s only by reducing the external clamor for my attention that I can truly focus on the words hiding deep in my head.

This is a fault of my own, of course. I used to have a longer attention span than I do now. That’s something I have to work on. (It’s the “shiny object” syndrome coupled with the fact that so many media these days focus on “short and snappy”. Soundbites. 140-character posts. 30 second ads. We’re not trained to think about any one thing for more than 10 minutes at a time. But that’s another story.)

The point is that my biggest distraction when I’m trying to write is not actually external distractions like my dog barking, or the television. It’s my own brain, sabotaging me by THINKING about those things later on that causes me trouble.

There are times when I truly miss my attention-span.

Anyway–how do YOU eliminate the external distractions when you’re trying to write?

(Oh, and incidentally, if you don’t watch Chuck, you should! Here are my reasons why. And the online buzz has gotten really loud lately. The show airs on NBC on Monday at 8:00–just about the hardest time slot–and is great fun. And, well, I AM trying to get as many people to watch as possible, before they’ve made their official decision as to whether to renew it or not, so … time is of the essence!)

I’ve written in general terms about why writers write (to put food on the table, to be read, just because they love to, and so on), but have I told you why I, personally, like to write?

Words

First and foremost, I love words. Putting them together, mixing them up, getting creative with different combinations. They’re like the best toys ever.

• They’re cheap; an unlimited supply is available for the cost of a dictionary or a good internet connection.
• They come in endless varieties. Not only are there different spellings from different regions or countries, but there are so many different flavors English. Italian. Spanish. German. Chinese. Arabic. Cherokee. Swahili. Not to mention dialects, accents, speech impediments–all things that add further flavor to the simplest of words.
• Forget about variations, the basic words themselves are endless. There are more being invented every day, of course, but it’s also fun browsing through old dictionaries and books to find words that have fallen out of usage. Talk about an unlimited supply!
• Not only are the words never-ending, there are even more ways to put them together. I know, you can’t have “more” than infinity, but if the list of single words (Cat. Bag. Rug. Desk. Chair. Computer.) goes on forever, it seems like the possible combinations are even more limitless. (The cat sat on the rug. The bag was on the desk. The desk chair rolled on the rug. She sat in her chair and turned on the computer.) You get the idea. Infinity squared. How can you not be excited by that?

Reading

I don’t know about you, but I started wanting to write because I liked to read so much. All those bedtime stories Mom read to me when I was little? The picture story books I’d borrow from my sister? (“This is probably too hard for you, but if you want to look, you may.” Which, of course, that I absolutely had to read it.) I was reading by the time I was three, and the family joke is that I haven’t stopped since.

It wasn’t too long after that that I started to write down my own stories. I produced my first “book” somewhere around the time I was 8. I laboriously typed it on Mom’s old manual typewriter, folded it in half, drew a cover illustration on construction paper, and asked my Dad to run off photocopies at the office. (The book, incidentally, was called The Last of the Really Great Mallomars and was a direct knock-off from my favorite book, Julie Edward’s The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles. But, well, I was eight, and since I wasn’t selling copies, I’m pretty sure there was no copyright infringement to worry about.

The point, though, is that if you are obsessed with reading, it’s entirely possible you’re going to want to write, too … which is exactly what happened to me. And even if it doesn’t make you WANT to write, reading is going to give you all the tools you need to do so. It’s a win-win activity, so far as I’m concerned. If only I had realized then–when Mom would tell me to turn my light out and go to sleep, I could have told her I was preparing myself for my future career as a writer … do you think she would have bought that?

Because I Can

In this world that encourages modesty and a lack of braggadocio, it can be difficult to shout your skills and talents to the skies. But. Writing is something that I not only can do, but can do well. That’s an extremely satisfying thing.

It’s one of the hardest reasons to state, though, because it not only sounds like bragging (sorry, Mom), but also because it opens me up to people coming along, pointing fingers, and saying, “Her writing is terrible. Look at all those broken grammatical rules. Choppy sentences. Dangling modifiers. It’s just awful.” To which I can only say, well, okay, but have you read some of the authors on the best-seller lists lately? You don’t have to be technically perfect to tell a good story.

Writing Makes Me Think

What? You don’t think so?

The world is such a busy place. There are so many errands, distractions, tasks, jobs, duties, pleasures, and things that finding time to commune with your thoughts is hard, if not impossible. But if I force myself to sit down with a pen or keyboard and write something, it has to come from my own head … which, often, leads to, you know, thinking. They may not be deep thoughts, but still, they’re coming from me, which means I had to stop and commune with my brain for a few minutes. Can’t let it feel neglected, you know! And if jotting down a few notes in a letter to a friend leads to some deeper thoughts, or triggers an idea for a story or an article? Even better.

Not to mention rewarding.

Writing Helps Me Be Myself

In many ways, sitting down to write something feels like getting back in touch with my brain. Much like a painter who finally finds the time to pick up a brush and place it on canvas, or a runner who puts on her shoes and goes out the door–writing touches something that makes me feel like ME. Not the part of me that does all the chores and jobs of a normal day, but the me who was enchanted by all those books Mommy read to me when I was little. My deepest self, the part that is enchanted by a good story. (Honestly, the quickest way to get my attention is to tell me a good story–I don’t care if the point is to entertain me or to sell me something, but if it’s good, I’ll listen.)

What About You?

I know. I’m not as driven to write as some writers–the ones who are absolutely passionate about writing something, anything, all the time. (Though, yes, I’ve definitely been there! The entire time I was writing my first novel, I couldn’t wait to sit down in front of the computer each day. Talk about job satisfaction.) But neither do I consider it a chore. It’s something I enjoy, something I’m good at, and just as much a pleasure as puttering around the kitchen, or knitting a sweater. I’ve written fiction for pure pleasure, and I’ve written marketing pieces and business mailings for work, and I’ve enjoyed all of it. It’s satisfying, picking from all those millions of possible word combinations and putting them down in just the right way. (Whoever said the only “creative” writing was fictional writing?)

But–what about you?