I realized lately that one barrier to writing is social media. Try not to laugh too hard that it took me so long to realize something most writers know is obvious. Here’s the thing: I’ve always known I had to watch the amount of time it took from my life; I only lately realized what the degree to which it also sucked out mental and emotional energy and that most precious commodity of all, creativity.
All those blog hops, friends posts, timelines, groups, events, tweets are fun, I kid you not. I’m not even talking about memes, and quizzes designed to tell me my age, or what movie star I most resemble. I’m talking about the people I know and interact with on a daily basis, people I admire in a variety of ways, people I enjoy.
They also leave me tired, drained, and spun up so that even when I hold to an artificial time limit, like an hour at a time, I can’t settle into my works in progress and write. To write fiction requires that I get into the heads of my characters, feel their pain, and share their joys. That is hard to do when my head is full of the games, humor, hard work, conflicts, problems, ideas, and brainstorms of other people. It just doesn’t work for me.
So today I start again. As much as I love friends, family, and colleagues, I will try to keep my inner self insulated from all the noise—at least until I get my work-in-progress to The End. But first, coffee.
Yes. The family comes first. The work comes second. The friends (including those on FB, even me 😉 ) need to take their place in the queue. I am sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for this book, Caroline.