The author blog of C. J. Ivory

Tinkerer with words. Dresser-Upper. Adorer of Steampunk and VictoriaNoir fiction. Occasional Lawgineer.

April 11, 2011

Things That Stop Me From Writing, or, How Will I Ever Get Finished?


My kittehs. They’re sooooo adorable, but sooooo distracting. Also they’re officially disturbed: one is a paper shredder, the other one climbs the curtains if I don’t pay attention to them.

The paper shredder...

...and the curtain climber. Don't be fooled, they're both evil.
My husband. Since the big earthquake, hubby’s been working from home. We don’t share an office, but boy are we good at distracting each other.  
Him: I’ve hit a roadblock with my article. 
Me: Bummer. Shall we walk down to the cafe for an espresso? 
Him: Deal.
(Repeat, several times a week)

Social Networking. Any time a new notification pops up on Facebook, Twitter. Because, you know, it might be interesting.

Writing Blog Posts. Heh. Ironic.

Reading Other People’s Blog Posts. Stop being so interesting, damn you!

Writers' Forums. Both a blessing and a curse. Occasionally I read a post that gives me a writing epiphany and I rush off to tap out another thousand words. But mostly I just weigh in on the important topics, such as arguments pro- and contra- the Oxford comma.

Hunger. I’ve officially come to hate lunch. Worst meal of the day. You can’t drink a gallon of coffee with it the way you can with breakfast; the food’s never as interesting as dinner; and apparently it’s not appropriate to accompany it with a glass of wine. Who makes up these rules, anyway?

Checking my word count. I must do this eight or nine times a day. First I check my cumulative word count. Then I check how many words I’ve written today. Then I use the calculator to figure out what percentage of my book I’ve written (this last one is particularly stupid, since I never know how long a book’s going to be until it’s finished).

Wikipedia. Seeing as I write in an era that even my grandparents didn’t see, I often need to fact-check. I start at Wiki because it provides me with a list of more reliable sources. The trouble is I often get bogged down in quagmire of interesting facts that makes up Wiki, and emerge several hours later to a house full of shredded paper and clawed-up curtains.

Robert Downey, Jr:

Enough said

Feel free to comment and add your own distractions to the list! Or to send me pictures of Robert Downey, Jr :)

9 comments:

Trisha said...

I get distracted by a lot of the above too ;) I definitely check my word count a lot. And my kittehs are VERY cute. :D

Charlotte Jane Ivory said...

Oh, another obsessive wordcount checker!
I'm thinking I need to install a widget on my PC so that, whenever I try to open the calculator tool, it flashes this across the screen:
>>IF YOU HAVE TO CHECK, THEN YOU'RE NOT DONE.<<
;)

Carolyn Arnold said...

Oh, no doubt about it, the man is hot!! :P

And your kittens are so cute!! (may be "evil" but doesn't that endear them to you?)

and I'm so with you on all the distractions, and can ditto all of them, including the hubby one. :S ever weekend holds such writing, editing, and querying potential, but how much actually gets done? never as much as I thought. lol

Dana said...

Oh, I'm with you with so many of these things--especially Twitter and writing forums!

My kids distract me a lot, of course, and so does noise. Even when the kids are sleeping, I still find myself getting irritated my noise outside--it breaks my concentration.

Love the kittens!

Caroline said...

I'm so glad that someone shares my love of Wikipedia. It is quite frowned upon at work given that we are supposed to be serious historians, but I could spend ALL DAY reading up on European royalty. Sick I know.

And I have destructive kittays (as I call them) too. Amelia in particular likes to lie on my laptop...while I'm trying to write.

Charlotte Jane Ivory said...

Kittehs are a writing hazard, aren't they? One of my blog comments recently ended up with "01010101010101" at the end of it, because The Paper Shredder came and flopped down on the keyboard while I was writing. Perhaps she was trying to give me some dire warning in binary code?

Charlotte Jane Ivory said...

Carolyn, shall we form a RDJr fanclub? :D

Deb said...

I loved this even before I reached the sexy twist at the end! Thanks for the giggles, and the reminder I'm not nearly alone in my distraction-happy ways :)

Carolyn Arnold said...

Charlotte, I wish their was a like option for your last comment lol