Went to Borders tonight to do some writing in the cafe area. This is sometimes productive and sometimes not. Tonight it sort of was.
I'm working on revisions of a story which has been through a couple of rounds of criticism at Critters. The readers there have given some good advice and insight. Ah, but how to apply it?
While I always have ideas a-plenty while I'm away from the work, there are a lot of times when I freeze up while I'm actually writing. This time what I did--and yesterday, too--is to disable the wi-fi on my laptop, kept the manuscript displayed in Word as a reference, and hunched over semi-free writing stuff in longhand. This is turning out to be a good way to work, both in producing material and having fun. Does that mean that longhand is a more natural way to write? That might just be me. Despite working with computers and being used to constant Internet access, I'm not really a techie at heart.
2 comments:
I agree that continuous internet access is something of a spoiler so far as personal creativity is concerned. After already being very successful as a writer and computer geek, Neil Stephenson chose to write the enormous 'Baroque Cycle' by hand. It was an amazing achievement.
On a personal note I've recognized that the more artwork I look at online the less I paint. There must be a correlation.
In part it could be sensory overload. There are a lot of artists doing a lot of worthwhile things out there. But seeing so much work at a time may distract from what you want to do.
I don't think it's necessary, or even positive, to stop looking. But one needs to pace oneself.
Post a Comment