Sweet are the uses of adversity.
—William Shakespeare
The problem with the Internet is not all the porn and spam and magic potion peddlers. Not for writers, anyway. The real problem is e-mail.
I am not alone in my addiction to e-mail. We e-mail addicts check our e-mail often throughout the day, although we try to resist the urge. About the only thing that helps me is going on vacation. When I'm out of town I feel like an idiot spending time online. There are too many other things to do.
E-mailing and surfing the Web can seem like work, but the truth is, unless you're actually doing research, you're not working. And even research can become an escape. Yes, you are writing when you e-mail, and this is good, but it is still not working. A 12-step group for e-mail addiction may be right around the corner.
Psychotherapist Dennis Palumbo believes—and you and I know— that constantly checking e-mail is one way writers procrastinate. "From a practical standpoint, e-mail is death to writers; the Internet itself is death to writers. I have a number of writer patients who have been so addicted to checking their e-mail once an hour or cruising the net that they've rented office space without phone jacks. If their wife or husband or child needs to reach them, they can use the cell phone. But they cannot get online."
Author Allison Johnson says, "If I'm really into a piece, I check e-mail later. I can turn off the noise blip that alerts [me] when one has come in. When I get in the zone, the flow, or whatever you call it, I don't want to be interrupted and will let the phone ring, etc. I won't eat or get up until I'm done. If you're easily distracted, you can also turn off the ringer and sound on the phone. People who have a hard time concentrating should take serious steps to minimize potential distractions."
Work on a computer that isn't e-mail ready so if you want to e-mail, you'll have to go to another computer that's connected to the Internet. Or, instead of going online each time you think of e-mail you must send, open your e-mail program, write the e-mail, and save it to send later. Or you can leave the house to work, taking your laptop or just a notebook. That's one way I've found to avoid checking e-mail; I take my laptop and go down the street to Café Zinc. Other writers leave the house to write, too. Crime writer Laura Lippman, who writes at a neighborhood café several days a week, says, "There's no phone at the coffeehouse, there's no e-mail. It has kind of that nice murmur that I remember from newsrooms, so I feel very much at home, sitting at a place where other people are talking, where phones ring, but no one is asking for my attention. It's a place where I can just focus, utterly, and I do. I still go down there almost every day. Most of my procrastination tools are not available to me when I'm there."
Keep foremost in your mind how much you want to get writing done. Reread an earlier chapter, "Stolen Moments," and learn to feel guilty if you don't write. (Here's one time guilt pays.) That may be the ultimate key: If you like yourself better when you write than when you don't, and if you don't like disliking yourself, then you'll make sure you get writing done before you spend time e-mailing.
Or you can use the e-mail distraction to your advantage. One morning after I walked my son to school, I came home and sat at my laptop. I didn't know where to begin, which chapter to work on. My mind was in a fog. So I did what most writers do at this point: I checked my e-mail.
There was a message from Jess, a student who has become a good friend. She talked about her writing and then she asked a simple question: What's up with your book?
The floodgates opened. But instead of talking about my book, I wrote nonstop about my newish neighbor, who was at that moment using her electric leaf blower to whisk the dust and debris from her patio. (What happened to brooms?) These neighbors have lived across the street for three months and we have barely smiled at one another. They use an outdoor heater when their friends are over. We live in a beach town. Who needs an outdoor heater on summer nights? This gives Californians a bad name____In the midst of this vitriolic downpour, I stopped and noticed what I was doing. This was about more than my neighbors: Take it a bit deeper, Babs. What's going on here?
I missed A. J. and Sue, that's what it was. Their bungalow was torn down two years ago after they both died to make room for the monstrosity that obstructs the sky, where my new neighbors now live. I miss all the old people and their houses, which keep being torn down. History is being obliterated. I miss my parents who were old when they died.
I tell Jess all this and press SEND. Then I realize that when I want to get started and don't know where to begin, writing an e-mail to someone close to me works as a prompt. Because after I wrote to Jess, I started in on my book; I was sufficiently warmed up.
Going beyond the surface, reaching into the satchel of your own pet peeves and weaknesses and dark side, is not only good therapy and costs nothing, it can help you see how to flesh out your own fictional characters. Likewise, if you're writing a nonfiction piece—an essay, say—your understanding of weaknesses might help you to better understand the less-than-perfect nature of the people you're writing about.
Writing to one person, even if you have no intention of ever sending the e-mail or letter, can set your pen on fire and free up the feelings festering inside.
Take fifteen minutes to respond to an e-mail correspondent you're especially close to or feel comfortable being verbose with. Begin with where you are. Go as deep as you can; deeper is where those verdant images and ideas and revelations reside.
Tell your friend how you are doing in as much detail as possible. If she asks what you did last night, tell her, right down to what you wore and what was said. Paint a picture of your night. If she asks how your kids are doing, go on and on, but be specific. Include dialogue and rich descriptions.
You don't need to send the reply if you don't want to. You actually may end up writing a short story or an essay or a vignette that you use in another work in progress.