Internet Time Thief Often Requires Drastic Measures (and a Simple Solution)

Ok, I admit, sometimes when writing I lack self discipline.  It’s been an ongoing problem lately.  And the culprit (other than me) is the Internet Time Thief!  The Internet is so readily available, a mere click away, and it’s so darn tempting, but it's stealing my time!  But today, following a suggestion that I learned from a staff at MPH following my booktalk on Saturday,I decided enough is enough!  

The problem is, in the middle of writing, I keep finding myself thinking, let me just check to see if I have any emails, or any blog comments?  Or check on my blog stats to see what posts are doing well today?  I’ve been doing this about a dozen times a day (maybe more, especially when bored, restless).  Do I have too much time on my hands?  I’m thinking this will only take a minute, which it does, until I respond to an email that could easily have waitedfor a more opportune time, or get snared by one of those yahoo news stories that suddenly grabs my attention, especially those cute baby or animal YouTube postings. 

Not only does this kill my writing momentum, it gobbles up a lot of time.  Then I got to figure out, now where did I leave off and re-motivate me to get back into the story.  Then half an hour later, I do it again!  What is my problem?  The Internet!   Temptation!  The problem is my own lack of self-discipline!

Lately, I’ve been grumbling about this, even wishing for the old pre-Internet days when I could just work on the computer free of all those temptations trying their hardest to seduce me from my writing!

Then the lady from MPH said, “Sometimes, I switch the Internet off while I'm writing.”

“You can do that?” I heard myself thinking.  Of course, such a simple in-your-face solution!  I felt embarrassed not thinking of that myself.  I keep the Internet on in case I need to research something or verify some fact.  Which, of course, I really don’t need to.  I could do it the old-fashioned way, grab a nearby dictionary or a mini-encyclopedia, get what I want and get back to work.  When I do research on the Internet, true it’s so much faster to find something, but I find myself getting so absorbed in all that information it often becomes yet another distraction from writing!  In other words, counterproductive.  For in-dept research I could save it for non-peak writing time, like in the evening.

So this morning, after catching myself interrupting my work for the umpteenth time, I thought, disconnect it!  Just take away the temptation.  So I did.  I unplugged my Internet connection, and moved it out of reach, so the only way I could reach it is by getting out of my chair.  I didn’t want to make it too easy on myself.

So far it’s working beautifully.  Of course I had to hook it back up in order to post this blog, but then right afterwards, I unplugged it again and got back to revising my novel.  That’s important, since I’m on a deadline and I do need to get it out by the 15^th! 

Sometimes, when you lack discipline (it’s always best to admit these things so you know where the blame truly lies), you just have to take some drastic matters into your own hands.  Wow, such a simple solution to what has become an on-going headache, not to mention a massive waste of time!

Here are links to some of my author-to-author interviews of first novelists:

Ivy Ngeow author of Cry of the Flying Rhino, winner of the 2016 Proverse Prize.

Golda Mowe author of Iban Dream and Iban Journey.

Preeta Samarasan author of Evening is the Whole Day. 

Chuah Guat Eng,  author of Echoes of Silence and Days of Change. 

Plus:

Five part Maugham and Me series

Beheaded on Road to Nationhood: Sarawak Reclaimed—Part I 

The Cycle of Success and The Power of Five

Success, according to Lisa Jimenez in Conquer Fear!, is a cycle of enthusiasm and discipline.  When you lack enthusiasm to do something, that discipline had better kick in, and when it does, that brings results, and results bring more enthusiasm, and enthusiasm brings in more discipline which bring in even more results, and this is where you want to be in the success cycle.  Still, it all comes down to discipline, doesn’t it?  For a writer, discipline is what you need to produce results, whether it’s five pages written, five query letters sent out, or five stories submitted.  This is what I call The Power of Five.

Robert Collier said, “Success is the small efforts, repeated day in and day out.”  So I keep Power of Five reminders on my computer table, on my computer, and in my 3-5 keep-me-motivated goal cards.  I know, overkill.  But I don’t want to escape those reminders and that’s good – so long as I actually do it!

Well this week I did.  Among doing other things, I finally submitted five short stories each day for five consecutive week days.  So that’s 25 stories out this week.  For a mailing, that’s not particularly huge.  In the past I’ve done more than 25 in one day on several occasions.  But then weeks would go by, months before I got around to sending out my stuff again, and I got a lot of stuff to send out.  Maybe 200 or more of what I call writing assets, be it articles, short stories, novels, screenplays, plus about 50 more that could be written fairly easily, then there are query letters for articles that I would like to write, and letters to agents and publishers that I need to get out if I really want to take my writing career to that next level.

    

During the years that I was teaching writing full time my efforts at marketing my work or myself as a writer were erratic at best, and now I want to change all that.  I want to be more consistent in my approach to success.  The Power of Five is my answer.  I learned about this from Jack Canfield’s Rule of 5 in The Success Principles.  He and Mark Victor Hansen would do five specific things that would move their goal toward completion, to get Chicken Soup for the Soul to the top of the New York Times Best-Seller List.  It took them a year to make the list and another year to make it to the top.  Those five things, day in and day out, created this momentum, as they pushed a huge rock up the best-selling mountain, but when they reached the top after two years, going down that other side was much easier.  They now reaped the benefits of what they sowed.  The Chicken Soup for the Soul series went on to become the publishing phenomenon of the decade.

For me, if I apply my own Power of Five every working day (Power sounds more powerful than Rule), it will require discipline.  After awhile, this discipline will become habit, so even if I don’t feel like doing it, even if I lack even a spark of enthusiasm, the discipline will kick in, then the results will come, and then I start seeing the possibilities and I get really excited, and I enthusiastically, send out some more.  This is the energy I felt this week.   Sure most editors will say, thanks, but no thanks, but every now and then, one will say, “We love it!”  That’s how I recently got my 100^th short story publication! 

 

When I start doing this for the small stuff, like short stories, I start thinking about the big stuff, like novels and screenplays, agents and movie deals. It has always been about submitting, submitting, submitting what you write.  Already I can see the possibilities.   If it works for others, and not just for Jack Canfield, maybe it’ll work for me too and that’s worth finding out.  So come Monday (or maybe even this weekend), I’ll send out five more.  In fact yesterday, I actually sent out six, and that sixth one was a biggie, to a publisher in the US for a collection of short stories.  See, already I can feel it’s working and that after one week!
 

So what five things can you do today that will take you a step closer to your goals?  

Of course my wife just found five things for me to do around the house, but that’s ok.  We’re in this together. I definitely want to keep our marriage in a success cycle, too.

              -Robert Raymer, Borneo Expat Writer

*Here's a link to more on Lisa Jimenez and a video too.

**Update, the 20th anniversary of Lovers and Strangers Revisited

Here are links to some of my author-to-author interviews of first novelists:

Ivy Ngeow author of Cry of the Flying Rhino, winner of the 2016 Proverse Prize.

Golda Mowe author of Iban Dream and Iban Journey.

Preeta Samarasan author of Evening is the Whole Day. 

Chuah Guat Eng,  author of Echoes of Silence and Days of Change. 

Plus:

Five part Maugham and Me series

Beheaded on Road to Nationhood: Sarawak Reclaimed—Part I