Adjusting the focus...

Writing Retreat Day Two:

I started a book last night that I found here at the retreat about the many ways we can sabotage our own writing. The one I read about today was distraction. I believe that certain things hit you at certain times because you need them. This chapter was an example of that belief. The author creates a fable by retelling the story of when her office was invaded by flies and she took after them with a copy of The Globe instead of writing.

"I wanted to get everything in that room just right before my writing began. I was afraid that just as a good idea was about to come to me, a fly would appear and jar me, and the idea would be lost forever. It was my very commitment to writing that kept me from it."

Again, I am taken back to my post about the girl on the track team. Just as she was focused on looking perfect instead of the actual running, just as many of us are fixated on living a perfect life instead of the actual living of it, I have been concentrating all of my energy on having the perfect writing process or the perfect manuscript instead of the actual act of writing. I know I have posted about this before, but I just keep repeating it to myself until it clicks. When things are hard, my husband has this thing he says to pull me back in- it's just you and me. I will apply this to my writing, and when I get distracted by the little details, such as what will this agent or that editor think about my work- and worse, me as a person, I will remind myself- it's just me and my writing. There is nothing else.


My favorite model- the sun. I love playing with the rays of light and experimenting with the rad lens flares they create. I took this this morning in the backyard before the clouds covered overhead and it poured snow all day!