The Dangers of Distraction.

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Do you do it? You know what I mean; participate insocial networking. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Digg, StumbleUpon and Google+are all sites where you'll find me commenting, posting, bringing items ofinterest to other people. Then there are the peer review sites; those placeswhere you post a piece of writing and hope for some reviews, but in exchangeyou have to post reviews of the work of others, which, of course, means readingthem. There are even altruistic sites, like Critters, where the emphasis is onthe support and nurturing of young talent for no reward other than that ofhelping out.
All these activities detract from your writing byinvolving the use of your time. There's so much advice out there on how best tolearn to write and how to learn to write well. But one piece of advice standsout from the rest, in my mind at any rate: if you want to write, and writewell, ignore everything else, and write. That, of course, is a little sparseand not as comprehensive as it ought to be. If you write without reading, forexample, you're doomed to repeat the mistakes of others, doomed to repeat whathas already been written, doomed to remain enclosed in your world of delusionwhere you're a brilliant, if untried and unpublished, writer.
So, to that injunction to write, I must add; read.Read often, read well-written work only, which doesn't necessarily meanbest-sellers. I mean, Jeffrey Archer's novels are sometimes described as'best-sellers', but would you call it good writing? I've read a few of theauthors who sell lots of books and discovered that they often write in clichés,clichés of both phrase and idea. Formulaic, superficial writing seems to sellwell for reasons I don't understand. But if you're more interested in dollarsand pounds than the quality of the work you produce, you know where to findyour role models. But be prepared to be forgotten as soon as your book is read.Prepare to be lost to history and the future. It's rare indeed for abest-seller to outlive the era in which the work was published. Oh, there areexceptions; there are always exceptions. They prove the rule, after all.
So, to improve your writing, read extensively fromthe best you can find. And then, write. Write something new every day, as apriority. Even if you can manage only a few words, even if it's no more than adiary entry, write something, something new, every day. Make it the best youcan if it's only a few words. If, on the other hand, you're engaged in theconstruction of a more beefy piece, a short story, essay, novel or non-fictiontome, then I'd advise you to get the words down first. I know some people are,or feel they are, incapable of moving on until what they've written is the verybest they can make it. For most would-be writers that way leads to an eternityof unfinished work. If you get the words down first, you can then revisit anduse the editing process to refine and improve.
To return to the beginning: social networking andthe like. If you must network, connect, interact - and which of us doesn't dothis?- I'd suggest you do it only after you've done your day's writing.If you treat your writing as a profession, treat it as work, you'll be far moreable to set and keep to your real priorities. The job of a writer is to write.That's the first priority. Everything else is secondary and should be treatedas such.
I speak from experience here.
I've spent most of the past few months engaged insocial networking; building that essential writer's platform beloved of agentsand publishers. So, I've Tweeted, posted stuff to Facebook, engaged indiscussions on LinkedIn,joined groups on Goodreads.It's been productive in terms of contacts and connections. And I've had a greatdeal of fun in the process; made a great many new friends at various levels ofthe writing craft from real beginner to accomplished author and every stagebetween. Met and connected with readers of all sorts. I wouldn't have missedthe experience for the world. But, in that time, I've written and submitted toofew stories, put down too few words (apart from November last year, when Iparticipated in NaNoWriMo as a way to drive myself back into actually writing,and produced the first draft of a comedy thriller, writing 112,242 words beforethe time was up). But I have, sitting on my computer, two volumes of an epicfantasy trilogy, and I should have written volume three by now, should have hadthe books out there in the market place for readers. But no; the networking hastaken precedence. So, I know what I'm talking about here.
So, following my own advice, I'm now aiming toproduce at least one new story each week, complete the editing and route to publicationfor my NaNoWriMo novel titled An Avenger Unseen, and begin work on volume threeof the epic fantasy. All social networking will take a back seat and be doneonly when I've completed my writing for that day.
If you want to write, I urge you to write. Leave thedistractions, digressions, procrastination for others and you might find thereare people out there actually reading the words you've put down. Isn't thatsomething worth aiming for?
A silly question to ponder: If corn oil comes fromcorn, olive oil from olives, and vegetable oil from vegetables, where does babyoil come from?