I’m a writer. That’s my job title. But it’s a funny description for someone who does what I do: spends her days grasping for any excuse not to write.
You see, I have the discipline god gave a golden retriever. I’ve read about writers with fuel-injected work ethics, devoted scribes who lock themselves in mountain cabins for weeks at a time to expunge their souls onto the page with no interruptions.
Me, I welcome interruptions. No, I crave them. Focus is hard; interruptions are easy. When I hit a bump in my work — a lay-there lead, herky-jerky transition, or wussy ending — I slip out of writer mode like soap from a wet palm and find myself hunting for online distractions.
Email. Twitter. Google News. I’d like to blame modern technology for my short attention span, but the real menace is me and my diabolical reluctance to concentrate.
“It is a man’s own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.” Buddha said that. I would have said it myself if I hadn’t been so busy not researching column topics or negotiating editorial deadlines, but rather diving down the rabbit hole that is YouTube, searching for old friends on Facebook (who, at this point, it’s safe to assume, don’t want to be found), and checking Weather.com for the next 10 days’ forecast — not because I’m planning a wedding and may need to order a tent but just because the ‘Net allows me to see the future and how cool is that?