7/17/2016: Internet Access

I have kept myself from internet access for my past few writing sessions, and I am finding that in my off time I am still thinking of writing. In fact, it doesn’t seem as difficult to get into the writing mindset at all—when I have sat down to write-or-else. I am wondering if there is a connection, and it seems like there might be. Dr. Glahn mentioned how letting our attentions be drawn to other things constantly keeps us from really delving into things. Before, I would go to Facebook or to Netflix or to YouTube, and sometimes these would just be short trips, but I wonder if even these little distractions had serious repercussions.

It reminds me of Guam. We got there, and I didn’t do anything on the internet except the occasional movie. The only other things I did were study for courses, do my internship stuff, and explore the island. I would work on my writing wherever I was, no intention required.

I should continue to deny myself distractions. I think it might enable me to really delve into my writing ideas and make it something I’m always, or at least more often, working on.

Sometimes your best thoughts can come when you have nothing better to do than to sit and think after having worked hard on something and having nothing else to focus on. It allows your background thoughts to work on the same topics uninterrupted. It’s like chewing cud. You bite, bite, bite, chew, chew, chew, swallow, bite, bite, bite, and so on.

Distraction overload.

I guess you just cut out everything you’d rather do more. Make them unavailable however you can. The key is to find the thing that’s really high on your rather-dos and then cut out all the junk-food-rather-dos that are above it. Then you’ll choose to do that thing.

I always found that to be the case with playing guitar. I only ever wanted to do it when I was out of town and couldn’t play games or watch movies.

This is the same thing John Cleese talked about—carving out a period of time in which you disallow yourself from doing anything other than your creative art. You give yourself freedom to create and only to create. Freedom to create as long as you’re creating.