Every day I’m forced with the same temptation: play Minecraft or work on writing. It’s hard to sit down at a computer every day and be productive. I have a list of things I check and read before I ever start writing. After all I should still have fun right? More and more of my pre-writing time is spent reading, talking, and thinking about writing, however; so why can’t I occasionally blow my time recreating the houses from Architectural Digest?
The answer is “good studio habits,” or whatever the literary world calls them. In the visual art world one has a studio so it is studio habits; I suppose “good office habits” is more appropriate for writers. Wording aside, the basic gist here is that sometimes it’s damn hard to get up every day and make yourself do something. Even going to a good paying job with amazing co-workers can be a big taxing and gets repetitive. The hard part about working for yourself is you don’t have these same amazing co-workers silently judging you into productivity.
So every morning I face this dilemma, hours of slacker video game time, or time spent being productive. The positive part of having developed good studio habits is that now when I do give in and slack off, I find it extremely dissatisfying. My brain has trained itself that during these hours I’m supposed to be thinking about writing, so even when I’m shouting my companion off a cliff in Skyrim and laughing, I am thinking “you know I could write a story about an adventuring bastard who finds money hungry fools and kicks them off cliffs.” This tends to drive me out of the game and back into the writing zone where I at least make notes about my goofy story ideas.
Feel free to share stories about things you’ve done to develop good studio habits, or vent about your daily writing distractions. I’m blessed not to have children; I understand they trump all things in the ability to distract.
Luck Hawkins 