(Warning: Ranting ahead that will make you fear for my sanity.)
Inspiration is a fragile thing. Sometimes it just won't come; sometimes I finally grasp it only for my mood to shred it. Usually that will happen if I'm depressed by a lack of reviews or some such thing; however, there's a bigger emotional threat to my inspiration.
Few things will ruin my mood more than being interrupted.
I'm OCD enough about finishing things normally. I'll be biting back growls if a friend visits me in the middle of my doing a homework assignment, even if I could use a break and really like talking to her, just because I want to get things finished.
That, however, pales in comparison to how I feel when I'm interrupted in writing.
I have a tendency to stare at a computer without inspiration for a while in the name of discipline, and then, once I find something, I go after it like a maniac. And that's usually when my mother decides I need to rub her back, my father decides I need to rub the calcium deposit on his foot, the dryer goes off, Dad wants me to take out the trash, empty the dishwasher, sweep the floor, or do something totally non-urgent that in his philosophy always has to be done right this moment. All while expressing extreme disapproval at my slacking around all day beforehand. And by the time I've done my errands, suddenly an hour of my writing time is gone, something else to attend to is going on, and I'm so ticked off I'm no longer feeling any inspiration for anything (except possibly ways to orphan myself in a story), which in turn makes me more ticked off.
And the worst part is, that's just how life is. No one's going to just let me lock myself in my room all day and try to write. There are always things to be done and, frankly, if I don't do them immediately I'll probably forget about them. Everything's justified; I'm just whiny.
Any advice? Any similar issues in your creative life?
The only ways I've gotten around this problem is to make sure that anything and everything is already done, before I start, but even that isn't 100% effective... With a laptop and flash drive, you could go somewhere else for a while, maybe... The best way for me to get time for myself is because I work such odd hours. I get hours to myself before anyone else is home from work. Nobody except my sis, who is also an artist and totally understands this stuff. Can you change your schedule around?
ReplyDeleteMim
Yeah, I forget about too much stuff to effectively get things done beforehand.
DeleteSometimes I'll go into my mother's room with the laptop, but I always feel kind of bad because I already spend little time with my parents. And I feel like Dad might be angrier if he thinks I'm deliberately running away from work.
Since I don't really work, I don't have much of a schedule, and Dad's off all summer since he's a teacher. It'll get better once school starts up again—I do have a schedule with gaps in it, but I'm a little OCD about only doing homework during those gaps in the day. Of course, my roommate is pretty much the least disruptive person I could ever hope for, so this won't be much of an issue at all once I'm back in my room. Then I'll just have to deal with personal focus, which is always an issue.
I have similar problems, too - I can get really edgy and snappish when I finally work up the inspiration to write another chapter and I'm interrupted by some inane chore. I doubt it bothers me as often as it does you, though, because I so rarely ever write that it doesn't as frequently coincide with other stuff I have to do.
ReplyDeleteYeah—I spend a lot of time at least pretending to write, and those times I'm productive (whether all that inspired or not) are terrible times to be interrupted. I doubt I could stand setting out my focused writing time like you and being interrupted. Yikes.
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