In the last 90 minutes I have written 900 words.
Often when I sit to write my posts for 300wordsaday.com, I take an hour for each post, late at night, trying to concentrate. Tonight, sitting in the public library, I’ve written three.
So what was different?
1. As I walked in I thought, “I just need to write.”
2. I wrote each post in Dark Room, a tiny free software package that fills the whole screen with a blank page and the words I type.
3. I closed gmail. I closed twitter. I closed my “todo” list.
4. I’m writing at 6:30 pm instead of 10:30 pm.
5. It’s March 1 and I’ve wasted enough of the year so far.
And that makes a thousand.
Love it! Donald Miller did a post about using a kitchen timer when he writes. While the timer is on, writing is the only thing he is aloud to do. The power of focus!
Simple & powerful, thanks. And going to check out Dark Room
Jon, thank you for this significant, succinct post. I needed this.
Haven’t heard of dark room, but sounds like a good resource. I’m recently blocked off two hours (I’m a slower writer, I guess) on my calendar each day between now and the end of May. I’m averaging 900 words per sitting.
I go downstairs to my office, close the door, don’t open twitter or facebook (except today when I needed a synonym for white trash and wasn’t finding a good one through ordinary tools, but that’s another story altogether) and don’t answer the phone.
I’m also recognizing that I’m cutting the social side of things down significantly, but I guess only for a season.
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