Somebody Else Says: Nathan Bransford on Distractions

Today, Nathan Bransford blogs about letting yourself be distracted from your writing, giving yourself recharge/refresh time away from the current WIP.

You can read his excellent, realistic post here.

I’ve been thinking lately about how I’ve been having at once the most relaxing summer I can remember AND managing progress on two WIPs and non-writing work stuff. It’s good, you know. And thinking about the one thing I consciously added more alloted-time to in the past year–reading. I think this has a lot to do with my productivity.  With the recharging that Nathan talks about.

If you follow my blog or my Facebook updates and tweets, you know I read a LOT. I also read fast, so it’s not as many hours as it probably seems, but still…it is the crucial distraction/escape in my life. Yes, I can justify it in other ways, because reading and writing are so interconnected, but to be honest, that’s not why I do it. It’s the one thing (after family & friends) that I do completely by choice and am unwilling/unable to give up. I realized last year that I had cut down on it and that, consequently, I was a lot more stressed. I missed the escape that I get from all the wonderful worlds other writers are creating for me.

So I read.

What’s the distraction that you know, takes you away from extra writing hours, but that there is no way–for good reasons–you’re giving up?