Give Me A Break

You may have noticed I’ve been offline for a while now (at least I’m deluding myself into believing you’ve noticed) . Part of it was because I was forced into it through internet trouble, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the internet free days . . . well mostly. Like any addict, I found myself suffering from withdrawals, but going cold turkey opened my eyes to the enticing ways of that frivolous waste of time called the internet. To be fair, the internet has many wonderful advantages that when placed in the right hands can do wonders for a writer.

My hands are NOT the write right hands. My hands find it far too easy to click on link after link and take me further into the world wide web instead of working on my WIP.

In all honesty, I didn’t think I spent that much time online. I figured the hour or so I spent visiting blogs, responding to emails, tweeting, etc. was but a small portion of my writing day . . . but being without access brought home the sad truth.

If I got to a rough spot in my writing it was so easy to click on my email, or follow a link from a tweet, or reply to another blog. These “little” trips online throughout the day wasted more writing time than I’d ever imagined.

Though I still have many distractions to take me away from writing (kids, housework, pets, food), they are more “necessary” evils. The internet isn’t “necessary.” Years ago, writers didn’t have access to the world at their fingertips and they still managed to write. Am I better than they because I have the internet? Nay! . . . in fact, I may be more worser of a writer (intentional murdering of English grammar because I’ve been awake since 4:00 a.m. and am feeling silly).

And so . . . I’m going to make it official. I’m taking a break from the internet while I concentrate on finishing my rewrite. This doesn’t mean I’ll be vanishing completely like I have for the last few weeks. I’ll still drop in from time to time to update my blog, shoot off a quick tweet, read a blog, etc., but I won’t be replying to blogs, clicking on links, and otherwise “surfing” the waves of available distractions.

So, though I may not reply to your blogs, I’m still reading now and then to keep up with what’s going on. Who knows, I may even occasionally reply—

“NO! Stop it! She won’t be replying either!”

Woah! Sorry about that little interruption from my inner editor (she’s overprotective of my time and extremely jealous of the internet . . . I think she was the one who somehow caused the internet troubles in the first place, though she’ll never admit it) . . . what was I saying . . . oh yeah, I have to limit myself more.

I hope none of you wonderful people will be offended by my decision. I do still care about what’s going on in your lives, but I have to be selfish and concentrate on what NEEDS to be going on in mine.

As Shakespeare put it, “Parting is such sweet sorrow.” In this case, it’s sweet because I know I’ll accomplish more writing, and sorrowful because I’ll miss the interaction with all of you.

See  you when I emerge from my writing cave . . . all bleary eyed and staggering from lack of internet contact. ;-)

Write on!