Why the internet is a trap - and how this writer deals with it

If you're a writer, I imagine you are familiar with the problem of the internet trap. You turn on the computer to start writing, and an hour later you're still on the internet. You think of the pages you have still to write and you want to scream, Why is this happening? How can I stop it?

So I thought I'd begin this week by talking about why the internet is such a trap, at least for me. And also, thinking about how to manage the whole thing. I hope that my thoughts may help those of you out there who experience something of the same thing.

Internet Trap #1. Small flashes of wonderful in a torrent of irrelevant

I've heard partaking of the internet compared to drinking from a fire hose. I don't quite agree with this, because it suggests that if you could manage to take a sip, it would be good water that you were getting. To me it's more like a baseball game: you'd better have good friends with you and be doing something in the stands, because most of what's going on is stuff you don't care about anyway (in this I reveal my bias against baseball - sorry baseball fans!). Each critical play is buried in a ton of waiting around. On the internet, sometimes I'll have a day where I find tons of links I want to pass on to my blog readers. Then I'll go for weeks without encountering anything to care about at all.

Internet Trap #2. News

Yes, this is where I get the vast majority of my news about the world. And though I spend a lot of time in worlds of my own, I do care about what's going on. So I find myself clicking through to read about current events when I should probably be writing, or at least not reading my sixth article in a row about a particular issue. Even one I really care deeply about.

Internet Trap #3. Small tasks

This is a big one for me. Going through emails, making sure to check up on social networks, etc. It feels quick - each email takes very little time to process, either to file or look at or throw away. Each part of the stream goes by quickly. But the tasks pile up, and you can easily lose a half-hour or more in increments of two seconds.

Internet Trap #4. Reminders and notifications

By this I don't mean going to one site or another and checking news streams etc. This is about when your computer beeps to tell you someone is inviting you to chat, when you hear the tone or see the flicker that indicates a new email has come in, etc., etc. It's like when the phone rings. Your first instinct is to stop whatever you're doing and check it. When I'm really concentrating, I don't notice this stuff half the time. But when I'm not super-absorbed, I can get pulled right back out of whatever it is.

Internet Trap #5. The desire for distraction/the risk of missing something/the desire to have "something happen."

Who among us does not procrastinate? Even when I'm not being beeped at I feel the temptation to go on the internet. I might see a cat photo, or a picture of a cool cake, or the face of a friend. Related to this is the sense that something important might be happening (either in the world or with a friend) and I might be missing it. The worst thing I find myself doing is rifling through the internet hoping that I'll run across something that will change my life for the better (like discover that I've sold a story or find out that someone has said something nice about me).

Internet Trap #6. Sense of community, the importance of internet presence

These are actually good things about putting in time on the internet! But they contribute to the draw of it. The internet helps us feel like we're not just alone in a room writing, and for many of us (like me) this is a very good thing. Besides which, we would like to increase our visibility by maintaining an internet presence, and have been told this will help us to succeed. Surely being active in blogging and social networks will make this happen. But how much will it really contribute to the bottom line? And how much will it take away from the critical time we need to spend actually writing? Those are hard questions to answer.

Internet Trap #7. New networking opportunities

How many times have you been invited to a new networking site? There are so many out there, and being a part of one has both good aspects and bad. I have found that if I start participating in a new networking site, it reaps benefits because I get better chances of quality interaction with the frontline participants. On the other hand, it takes on far more importance than it deserves, and thereafter one of two things will happen. Either it will not retain my interest and I'll have to drop out because I just don't have that much time in the day, or it will be worth participating in and I'll have to spend a bunch of time balancing it against my other networking commitments.

Whew! So at this point I'll talk about how I deal with managing these problems. Believe me when I say that my solutions are not perfect. If you have good ideas in this arena, feel free to make suggestions in the comments!

Solution A: Give yourself meta-time, and manage actively.

This is a pretty simple thing, but I can't recommend it enough (that's why it's solution A!). You know you're on the internet. You know it's sucking your time. Take a step back and look at what you're doing, and when. That will allow you to evaluate it and make decisions about changing it. This is what I do to deal with the problem of new social networks - I step back after experimenting with them and ask how I want them to fit into my whole internet picture.

Solution B: Schedule yourself.

This is my way of dealing with many of the issues above, including the fire hose/baseball game problem, the news problem, the small tasks problem, the sense of community/internet presence problem, and the networking opportunities problem. I try to fix, and to limit, the times when I'll be using the internet. Blogging time is limited to during the weekend, or before I get my kids up for school. Networking I often do while the kids are home, since it requires less concentration. Small tasks time I limit by fixing the amount of time I'll spend on it - and this includes networking and news stories time. To keep myself from losing track I'm going to try setting myself a timer with an alarm. This is also going to help me remember to give my eyes a rest every so often.

Solution C: Disable the evidence of notifications

Now, I don't mean that you should dig into preferences to disable all notifications. However, your computer has a mute button for a reason. If you must have your email and internet browser open while you're writing, make sure to take the word processing file you're using and expand it to fill the screen so you don't see those little telltale flashes and such. You just don't need those little sensory distractions.

Solution D: Cultivate a detached attitude

This is, I suppose, the trickiest. It took me quite a while to realize that I didn't need to read every notification of everything on every social network, but just to dip in and sample each time I was there. News stories will wait for you. Every service or game that you are involved with is designed to convince you that you must never leave it alone or you'll miss something absolutely critical, but this is not generally the case. If you do happen to be involved in a game (Farmville leaps to mind) that requires attention at particular intervals, consider stopping for a while when you have a project to complete. Be aware that you need to be the one running your use of the internet, rather than letting it run you. Muses are fickle enough, and we're already trying to fit them into the compartments that other parts of our lives offer us - we shouldn't ask them to bow to internet "needs" that are being cultivated in us by online marketers.

Solution E: Realize that you get out of the Internet what you put into it

This is what I say to myself whenever I find myself searching for something meaningful, or searching to make "something happen". When I put effort into my online presence (mostly by blogging), then I can feel the rewards. When I write a story and get it out there, that also has an effect on the internet - and I like that effect better. So there's no point just surfing around looking for something good, I tell myself. Go create something, and that will make something good happen. If it's time to get my blogging done, then I'll do that. But if it's time to write, I'll either hide the internet or turn it off completely and try to create something fantastic. Because that gives me something even better to talk about.

Am I perfect in my execution of this? Well, of course not. I began this post saying that I do have trouble with the internet taking more time than it deserves. However, this post is going to help me put into words what I'd like to be doing going forward, and I hope it will help me take the strategies I already use, and make them more effective.

So what do you do to keep the internet from taking time it doesn't deserve? Feel free to comment because I'm sure everyone would be interested to hear.

Blog Update

First off, I'm going to start by thanking all my readers. I totally love you guys and I'm so glad so many people care about the things I talk about! I have really enjoyed all the writing you folks have shown me, too - so many great ideas out there, and they're really fun to articulate with.

I've been very pleased with the way my blog has been working with the structured system I've instituted, which very basically speaking works like this: a writing post on a Monday, a "Retro" post on a Tuesday, Worldbuilding Workshop on Wednesday, Culture Share on Thursday, and free choice on Fridays. What I'm finding right now, though, with the demands on my time at the end of the school year combined with being in the thick of novel-writing (not to mention my short stories!) is that I'm getting overloaded. Those of you who follow the Worldbuilding Workshop will have noticed that I didn't manage to get posts up the past two weeks, and I apologize. The fact is, those posts are the most intensive of all the posts I do, and generally take two hours or more to write. You may be able to see where I'm going...

I'm going to be keeping the general structure of the week on the blog, but I'm going to be shifting Worldbuilding Wednesday slightly away from the intensive analysis posts, and onto more worldbuilding topic-based posts. You are still welcome to submit to the Workshop, but when I get Workshop posts up will depend on when I can find the time to invest in them. I'm hoping this will mean less stress for me, and also mean that I can give content on both Wednesdays and Fridays without burning myself out early in the week.

I am of course always looking for new posts for The Writer's International Culture Share. I have had a great response from readers, and I have a few posts coming up here that I'm really excited about. If you have had an experience living outside your own culture, or if you feel the specific details of your local culture would be of interest to people around the world, please contact me!

I'm going to make a special request to all my American readers here. One of the things I noticed while living in Japan was how much American culture was seen as a monolith by my hosts. It's easy for people to draw conclusions from movies and the media that "America is like this" when of course we know it's full of complex and fascinating local cultures. So far I've seen a lot of entries from countries all over the world, but I'm hoping some of you will feel inspired to talk about your local culture, and illuminate the fine details of religion, folklore, and cultural practices of US regions as well as those of other countries. Look around you and see if you can find an inspiration, because I'd love to hear from you!

Thanks again for being awesome, all of you. TalkToYoUniverse continues to be one of the most worthwhile projects I've ever engaged in, and a lot of that is thanks to you.

Juliette

Something to look forward to

As I was going through my files last week I ran across an old version of a story I wrote some years ago, called "The Valiant Heart." This is a story that I posted on a now-long-defunct version of my website - a story I'd always liked but never been able to sell.

Lo and behold, when I started looking at the text, I started wanting to rewrite it and make it better. I told this to a writer friend of mine, and she suggested that I keep the old version and do a comparison of the old and new versions, talking about what I'd changed and why.

I was immediately excited about the idea. Therefore, my current plan is to sneak some revisions for this story in between my other projects, and eventually (when the revision is done) post it up at my author website alongside "Let the Word Take Me," at the same time bringing out a discussion post here talking about revisions and what I've learned as a writer since the last time I tried to write "The Valiant Heart."

This should be fun! I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Why we should use words carefully in teaching writing

I came across this great blog post the other day, on the blog Les Edgerton on Writing. It's a terrific discussion of how words are used differently in teaching creative writing from the way they are used by the general population, and how that can lead to problems when people misunderstand the intended meaning. Do you know what "start with action in your story" really means? If you have any doubts, you should definitely check out this post.

Becoming "A Writer"

Did you feel like "a writer" when you started to write? I didn't. I suppose I felt 1. like a person trying an experiment, 2. like someone who'd discovered a dangerously absorbing hobby, 3. like a person writing alone in a closet (not literally!) when she should have been doing something else.

To take the closet metaphor a little further, there came a point when I decided to "come out." This meant talking to other people about my writing - at first, those people were friends who were interested in science fiction and fantasy already. Sometimes, though, I ended up having cool sf/f related conversations with people on airplanes, or in other relatively anonymous circumstances where I could "try on" the identity I felt I was striving for.

At a certain point in this process I had one of my little disconnected anthropological epiphanies.

I wasn't going to feel like "a writer" just because I was writing. I needed to take a public stance - in a sense, to declare my identity as a writer within a community that would recognize me as one.

This was a project.

Changing one's identity isn't as easy as slapping another label on. I take the identity of "writer" very seriously, in the sense of taking writing as a vocation, and I didn't want to be a person who was pretending to be a writer (I felt like this in some conversations). Fortunately I discovered something: the community of science fiction and fantasy writers is an extremely welcoming one, willing to help you join them.

That said, I think it's important to realize that entering any social community needs to be done with care and respect. It helps if you can recognize early on that this is what you are in fact doing, and think through the steps you want to take. It's not enough to go out and say to others, "I'm a writer. See how good I am? You want to read and publish* my work!" You need to enact writer-ness at the same time.

*This isn't really a post about getting published, though getting published is related to the process of becoming a writer. The nice thing about getting published is that people go to the trouble of writing down steps to take and rules to follow, so that you can take/follow them.

So how does one enact writer-ness?

If you're paying attention, the closer you get to writers, the more you'll learn about what they (we!) are like. Of course, I know enough writers by now to tell you definitively that there is no one single way to be a writer. However, I still think there are some helpful ingredients worth mentioning.

1. WRITE.
If you're not doing that, then why are we talking about this anyway?

2. Strive to improve your craft.
There is no pinnacle, and there is no "done" until the words are on the page the publisher has printed for you. There is only, "this is as good as I can make it right now." Every conversation you have, and every new thing you learn can open your eyes to more depth and possibility.

3. Listen respectfully.
So long as it addresses the content of your text, every word of feedback you receive on your work is worth listening to. If your aunt or your mom says they get confused at the beginning, believe them, and think about what that might mean for your approach. If you are on a critique group like Critters, consider each piece of feedback and why the reader might have had the impression they had. If you are lucky enough to get feedback from an established writer, be grateful and think through its import very carefully. There will be much to learn there even if you disagree.

4. Read attentively.
Read both to experience the range of story, style and voice, and to "get to know" authors in your field.

5. Try to meet and talk to other writers.
This can be literal face-to-face meeting or it can be engaging on the internet through blog comments, etc. Face to face opportunities are more valuable, I believe. One important thing to note here, however: going fangirl or fanboy is not going to be particularly effective for your learning process (as tempting as it is!). I think the place where I learned the most about writers was when I went to the Nebulas weekend - which was all writers and a very very few fans. I realized that most writers love to talk about their work, especially in direct and specific terms, so if I had a story of theirs that I could make comments on, I would have something meaningful to contribute to a conversation in which I could learn a whole lot.

You may have noticed at this point that I think it's valuable to approach the community of writers from the stance of a learner. I still take this stance all the time. This doesn't mean that you have nothing to offer of your own - of course not - but from the point of view of writing craft, it's important to recognize the experience and resulting expertise of others. Even if that person's writing is not your favorite kind, their success in the community will be related to their expertise in any of a range of different areas (gorgeous prose, great pacing, "story," inventiveness, marketing savvy, etc. - and not necessarily all at once).

I was very lucky going in, because I had my academic background, and I was able to use it to help my craft and to hone my ideas. Linguistics and Anthropology are great resources, and I was able to have wonderful conversations with writers where I felt like I actually did have some expertise - not in being a writer (yet, at that point), but at least in language and culture (topics which are clearly useful to stories). This blog has done wonderful things for my writing career: it helps people to learn my name, it helps me focus my own thoughts, and it creates a community that I can feel a part of on a daily basis, so that I don't feel any more like I'm writing in that little closet. The best part of it for me is that I started it out of love of the topics I discuss, and I still enjoy writing it - it helps me, and yet is not a chore.

We are so lucky to have the internet. Online is where the community of geographically separated writers can "meet" and interact - one of the reasons why it's worth spending time there.

But don't forget to write.

Our writing lies at the core of our identity as writers. I might meet an author at a convention or see them appear online, but unless I've read their work I don't feel like I really know them. I think this is the case for a lot of us. Similarly, it's possible to hang out with writers all the time and yet never be one, either because you're not writing or because no one cares to read your work. This points to a critical step in entering the community of writers: getting people to read your work.

Getting published is a terrific way to get read, no doubt about it. But remember all those rejections? If the editor read past the first sentence, they shouldn't be considered a waste. A rejection with comments is true gold, because it means the editor cared. It might look like a "no," but it might better be phrased as, "no, but I can see you're a writer." Other writers will respect you for having rejections like that, especially if they can see you're using them to improve your craft. And when you finally get an acceptance, your identity in the editor's mind will not be on that story alone, but in your history of interaction (as impersonal as those interactions might seem at first).

Because your writing is at the core of your identity as a writer, asking someone to read your work is a more high-stakes activity than you might imagine. Don't push it. Approach it with care, and with an awareness that professional active writers are extremely busy. Chances are good that they're either slammed with deadlines, excited about putting together the climax of the story they're working on, or trying to fit their writing in around the other busy parts of their life (like full-time jobs, children, etc.). Don't be offended if they say no, and similarly, be thrilled if they say yes. Not only is that gift of their time and attention extremely valuable, but they're expressing their willingness to consider you as a potential colleague. One great way to approach this is to comment on published stories in a constructive and respectful manner, and to volunteer to critique for someone if the opportunity presents itself. Your ability to provide a helpful critique can demonstrate your willingness to contribute to the other person's success - and writers help each other.

There is probably a lot more I could say about this topic, but at this point I'm going to close by saying I'm extremely grateful to all the many people who have taken the time to read and comment on my stories. I've learned a lot from you, and I know I will continue to learn in the future. At this point, though, there's one thing I can say with joy and confidence:

I am a writer.

Compartmentalization and Integration (Writing, Blogging, and Mothering)

When I wrote my article about productivity, I got a lot of comments from other writers about how they measure their productivity, and I was very interested to see the many ways that writing figures into people's lives. Most of the folks I know who are writers are not what you'd call full-time writers, but fit their writing in somehow. Because of the demands of my own life, I fit writing in amidst the demands of running the household and caring for my kids, who are currently in Pre-K and in 1st grade. It's a big juggling act. But I thought I'd take this opportunity to talk about how my different activities - writing, blogging, and mothering - actually interact and support one another rather than simply having to be compartmentalized into different boxes.

Mothering teaches me new things. I am always fascinated by watching my kids grow, learn and change, and I'm always happy when I find this gives me inspiration to blog. Blogging has gotten easier as I've gotten the hang of it, but I'm always looking for new topics, and my children often provide me with great ones. They also are inspired by my blogging (they tell me often that they want blogs of their own). My kids also provide me with interesting writing ideas - as sort of an ongoing research project, for the most part, but also because sometimes they suggest things to me that speak to me enough for me to include them. My son, for example, was the one to suggest that my first aliens be gecko-like. He takes great pride in that. My daughter has got me thinking about whether I should attempt a children's book - and believe me, that's quite a feat. The kids also support me in my writing, and console me when I get rejections.

Blogging helps my writing. It allows me to think through things "out loud," and question my own assumptions, as well as getting outside commenters' thoughts on my ideas. Just today I was thinking over a blog post on world details and the metaphors that characters use for their lives, and I had a terrific idea about the way that people might understand "the Pit of Darkness," which is the rough equivalent of hell for the undercaste of my Varin world. I think some of them think of it as an afterlife, while others think of it as the ongoing condition of their lives. This reflects a fundamental split in attitudes about the religion they follow, which makes perfect sense in the history of the world as I've designed it (the afterlife folks are more influenced by the "mainstream" religion of the Stargazers, while the condition folks are more true to the ancient tradition of the undercaste religion itself - not that they know this necessarily).

Writing helps my blogging. I need lots of topics to keep blogging like this, and when I can blog about story design, research, characterization, writing process, etc. - basically, anything that I'm doing right now in my writing - it helps me.

I'm a very busy person, and I know I'm not the only one. But I suppose the point of this post is that compartmentalization can only take you so far. I see teachers in my local school who cringe at the idea of adding anything to the curriculum because they already have too much to do. These concerns are real, and I definitely feel overloaded a lot. Sometimes compartmentalization is the answer - I quite jealously guard the time I spend on writing and blogging, just because it's impractical for me to be sitting in front of the computer during family time. But often, integration is the answer. I can talk through my writing ideas with my kids, and I find they have excellent views that can illuminate my thoughts. I can think writing while I clean house. I can take inspiration from my children's behavior, their learning process, or from what they're doing at school. I can blog about my writing and my family, and enrich my thoughts about each.

It's something to think about.