One thing (of many) that I've had trouble with for a long time is focus. I'm a bit of a magpie at times, easily distracted by shiny objects. For instance, it took about ten minutes between writing that last sentence and this one.
Lately, I've been working on getting myself focused for work and writing, and it hasn't been easy. I've found that meditation helps to a certain extent, if nothing else than to get me to calm down and take the edge off my anxiety. Generally, it goes focus --> lose focus --> get upset about losing focus --> get anxious about not focusing. Meditation is helping me go between the first two steps without making it all the way to step four.
I also figured out that there are ways to break my concentration that I can avoid. Notifications drive me nuts - if my phone buzzes due to an email or text, I will HAVE to see what it is, even if I'm in the middle of something. Same with my work email - if I get the desktop alert of a new email, then I need to open it ASAP.
Earlier this week, there was a training from someone at Microsoft about using Outlook and how to make it work more efficiently. The training itself wasn't great, but there was one thing that I got out of it that's been helpful - turning off desktop alerts and only checking email at specific times of day. Now, I can't just get off email completely - most of my work comes via email, so I need to be able to access the email threads to figure out what the devil I'm doing - but just turning off the alerts has made it easier for me to focus on what I'm doing, rather than jumping back and forth all day.
As for my phone, I generally set it to "do not disturb" when I'm at work. In both cases, I have exceptions to the general rule - phone calls will still notify me on my phone, and I get alerts for emails from my manager and my husband - but overall, it's made it a little easier to carve out the time I need to get things done. I've also taken to meditating for a few minutes either in the morning or right after lunch, which is when I usually have the hardest time getting back into the flow of things.
How do you focus? What do you use to keep yourself on-task and not distracted by all the things? I'm always looking for new tips and tricks.
Showing posts with label writing weakness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing weakness. Show all posts
Friday, February 24, 2017
Monday, January 11, 2016
Writing Weakness: Dialogue
Every writer has a few things that they know they are good at, and a few things that they know could use improvement. I frequently have a hard time coming up with things that fit into the former category, but boy howdy, can I fill up the latter. They're the things that I know I need to improve upon in order to make my writing better, but they're also things that are almost painful to work on, because I know it's just not good.
The biggest weakness I can think of in my own writing is dialogue. I've never been particularly gifted in the realm of conversation, even when I'm speaking in my own voice. To speak in the voices of my characters is even more difficult. I've noticed that they tend to start sounding the same (which is to say, like me, only more so), which makes distinguishing them difficult.
I also have the problem that many people of my generation deal with - that dreaded word 'like.' People have had filler words and sounds, like um, uh, er, and so on, for ages, but for some reason, around the late 80's and early 90's, 'like' took the place of those filler words for a lot of us. It's an incredibly hard habit to break, and for the most part, I'm able to avoid using it for every gap in a sentence*. However, I'm afraid I fall victim to using 'like' to switch between people when describing a scene out loud. For instance: "I'm reading this message from a publisher, and she's like, you can't publish this! And I'm like, then show me why, because otherwise it's getting published." It's...not pretty.
So, ways to fix the problem. Obviously, writing more dialogue, because practice makes perfect and all that. I've found in the past (and it's something I need to do more often) that interviewing my characters gives me a better sense of their voices, as well as giving me an opportunity to learn about aspects that wouldn't necessarily come up on the page. I also find myself getting rid of nearly ever instance of the word 'like' that comes up in my work, but that's probably specific to me. Do you guys have any suggestions, or things that work well for you?
*It could be ever so much worse. In a college Spanish literature course I was in, one of the girls would use 'like' as a filler word while speaking Spanish. As Spanish wasn't her native language, she needed the filler word much more often than she did in English. It was jarring, to say the least.
The biggest weakness I can think of in my own writing is dialogue. I've never been particularly gifted in the realm of conversation, even when I'm speaking in my own voice. To speak in the voices of my characters is even more difficult. I've noticed that they tend to start sounding the same (which is to say, like me, only more so), which makes distinguishing them difficult.
I also have the problem that many people of my generation deal with - that dreaded word 'like.' People have had filler words and sounds, like um, uh, er, and so on, for ages, but for some reason, around the late 80's and early 90's, 'like' took the place of those filler words for a lot of us. It's an incredibly hard habit to break, and for the most part, I'm able to avoid using it for every gap in a sentence*. However, I'm afraid I fall victim to using 'like' to switch between people when describing a scene out loud. For instance: "I'm reading this message from a publisher, and she's like, you can't publish this! And I'm like, then show me why, because otherwise it's getting published." It's...not pretty.
So, ways to fix the problem. Obviously, writing more dialogue, because practice makes perfect and all that. I've found in the past (and it's something I need to do more often) that interviewing my characters gives me a better sense of their voices, as well as giving me an opportunity to learn about aspects that wouldn't necessarily come up on the page. I also find myself getting rid of nearly ever instance of the word 'like' that comes up in my work, but that's probably specific to me. Do you guys have any suggestions, or things that work well for you?
*It could be ever so much worse. In a college Spanish literature course I was in, one of the girls would use 'like' as a filler word while speaking Spanish. As Spanish wasn't her native language, she needed the filler word much more often than she did in English. It was jarring, to say the least.
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