Focus: The Write-Life Balance

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Dear Brain: stop it. Focus. Why do you insist on working ways that don’t, you know, work for us?

I function best when I focus on one thing at a time. Sit down, complete the draft of one story, then move on to the next. The more fractured that focus becomes, the more fractured my writing becomes.

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Lately, it feels like every time I turn around, a different story is tugging at me. “Write me! Write me!” I’ll see or hear something that will click with a story – any story, and often not the one I intend to be working on – and that’s what my brain latches on to. Two minutes later, it hops to something else. Meanwhile, none of these stories actually progresses.

Bouncing from story to story, I lose track of details of settings, characters, plots. Worse, I lose track of voice and atmosphere – the entire tone of the story – until each sounds the same. A generic neutral.

Despite my earlier question, I do know why I have such difficulty with focus right now. It’s because of work. The day job. My focus at work is constantly getting pulled away and interrupted. Then there’s the time factor.

Once upon a time, I was unemployed for several months and had the opportunity to make writing my full time job. I discovered I could complete a draft of a novel in about three months. Then I worked part-time for a few years and that time frame jumped to six months. After landing a full-time job, it became nine months. But stress is cumulative, and that nine months has steadily crept closer and closer to a full year.

And the longer it takes, the harder it becomes to maintain that focus, energy, and motivation.

All the plans and discipline in the world will still fail me if my brain doesn’t cooperate, but for now they’re all I have. So if you have any favorite strategies to help you focus, please share in the comments!

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