H is for Home

I'm a day late with "H" because I had the hardest time figuring out what to write about. Well here is my attempt at "H" and since I'm working at the library right now and I have reading and writing to get to, I'll make this short.

Home is where the heart is, blah, blah, blah. Home is where the chaos is. Home is where I write, well of course it is. I don't have a writing office, after all, who does? My point is that I live in small quarters and I share the space with another adult and three little children, aka: my family. My writing space, you ask? My dining room table. The dining room chair is my seat and since this set-up is designed to eat, not write, my wrists often hurt. And even though there are five other chairs at the table my 3 year old insists on sitting on my lap while I'm at the table.

Productivity? What's that? Add this to my normal internet distractions and I can easily make excuses for my slow word count.

How about you? Where do you write? Do you think your writing space contributes to your productivity or hinders it?

E is for Efficiency

       As a follow-up to my distraction post, I hope to make my time more efficient. I am a lists and charts type of person and I try to be as organized as possible. But more often than not, my life is chaotic. I have three kids under the age of six and many responsibilities (no more so than any other mom) but unlike my non-writer friends I have this responsibility to myself to write.
       With this said, I must find a way to organize my life to balance my children, house, and writing, without letting distractions take over. I've often thought about turning the internet off using one of those websites like Freedom that disconnects service for said amount of time, forcing you to be productive. I just don't know if this will work, after all there are ways around it - I have an iPhone. Not to mention my obsession with reading, which doesn't require an internet connection and can be ALL CONSUMING. Help!

        What are some of your distraction avoiding techniques?

D is for Distraction

I love to write!

I love to create stories, situations, scenes (the alliteration is coincidental) charcters, I could go on and on. But for some reason, and I know I am not alone, I am easily distracted by a million and one other things. My blogs, editor blogs, agent blogs, author blogs, Twitter, the Blueboard, email...oh especially email. I don't know what I think I am expecting because I must check it like thirty times a day, no exaggeration.

What is it that forces us (and when I say us I really mean me) to do everything but what we really want to do. Some people say it's fear, I don't know that I buy that. Sometimes I think I'm being lazy. I've often thought that it would be really cool if someone would create a device that "magically" processes your creative thoughts without you having to do any of the actual work. Like if I have a thought about a scene, I've plotted it in my head, and then I've plotted the next scene and the scene after that, this device just gets it all down for me. Poof! Instant novel.
             But no, I have to sit down and flesh those scenes out. Give them description, dialogue (more alliteration) action, and so on. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy that process. I don't know what my problem is. Maybe it is fear. Fear that what I've created in my head won't make it to the page in the way I hoped or intended. But I preserve, and I manage to get some creativity in amongst my procrastination.

Do you procrastinate? How so?