The Necessity of Focus

While checking my email the other night, I came across this blog post on focus. In a nutshell, Victoria listed only her writing goals and commented that she hadn’t made headway on any of them because she lacked laser focus on each of them. This got me mulling.

I have bragged more than once about my ability to multitask. I like spreading my focus because it keeps me energized and I feel like I accomplish more in the end. I’m also good at remembering where I left off with projects, as long as the space between stopping and starting isn’t too long.

However, I have learned to keep on top of one WIP at a time. Sure, I write a lot of notes down whenever another story’s thread pops into my head or if key scenes won’t leave me alone, but I try to keep my headspace devoted to one project at a time. I don’t want to lose the sparks of other writing possibilities, however, I tuck them away.

After reading about another writer’s experience and looking at the writing I have done this year, I’m wondering if my bragging is, well, worth bragging about.

Breaking it down, and just focusing on writing, this is what I tackle in a single month:

writing, editing, posting 6-7 blog posts at an average of 600 words each;
reading and scheduling those blog posts, as well as those of my fellow Inkettes;
hunting down, reading, blurbing, and scheduling links for social media each week, with the assistance of my fellow Inkettes; and,
coming up with topics to blog about.

I have set days for each of these tasks because they have to be done. I am accountable not only to myself and I am the type of person who can’t let others down. It’s a thing with me. Like I said last week, I write my blog posts over the first weekend of the month. I work on links every Saturday, unless I can’t, then they’re pushed to later in the week; I schedule people’s posts every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday night; I link hunt when I have a spare moment; and I come up with blog topics on the fly.

Every month I successfully accomplish the items on that list. Not to mention my day job tasks, my family tasks, my pet parent obligations, and everything else that makes up portions of my life.

Do you see the glaring hole though? I have absolutely ZERO time devoted to fiction writing. I do it when I feel like it, which is the worst plan ever.

One of the major writing tenets is do not wait for the muse. Yet that’s what I do time and again! My blogs take up a lot of my time, yes, but I’ve learned how to deal with that and block out time well in advance. I have to start doing the same for my fiction, I can’t just take off the rest of the month’s weekends because I drafted my butt off for two days.

I must focus on fiction.

Of all of Victoria’s Focus Project rules, this is my favourite and the one I’m going to start implementing this month: Regularly Prioritize My To-Do List. Every week I write “fiction writing” on my to-do list, but it gets buried in the other drudgery that takes up my time. I can’t keep letting that happen. I’m working less hours at the day job willingly in order to prioritize writing. I can’t let this opportunity go to waste.

My take on focus wasn’t exactly what Victoria was getting at, I think. Overall, I can focus when it counts. I need to learn that my own work counts and to make time to focus on that too.

 

 

*Image: Dictionary Focus Crop by Chris Dlugosz via Flickr.

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