Kristi Jones

Cleaning out the Clutter (in my head)

 

Whew! Another holiday season comes to an end! I've put away the tree and the stockings, vacuumed up the plastic pine needles and am ready to get back to writing! During all the Christmas craziness, I did some hard thinking about why writing has taken a back seat during the past five or six months. I didn't come up with anything.

 

But I do feel bombarded with information. My head is filled with voices that are not my own. I want to hear my own voice again. I want to see what it's like to live with only my own thoughts.

 

So, my New Year's Resolution this year - in addition to the usual post-holiday attempts to eat healthy, workout and burn off the extra pounds I've put on since November - is to put writing front and center again. To do this, I am going to abide by a few new rules. Some of these self-imposed restrictions are tough, so I'm going to follow them January 8th thru March 8th. (With school aged kids, I am a prisoner of the public school calendar!) During Spring Break, I'll re-evaluate and see how effective my rules are for increasing productivity and reducing distractions!

 

So (drumroll, please) here are the rules I will be following:

 No TV Monday thru Saturday

I will allow myself one day of television distractions, mostly because I can't bear to miss the end of the football season and the beginning of Downton Abbey, Season 3. However, if this single day of television becomes an all-day marathon, it will have to go. (Funny thing is, I never think of myself as a big TV watcher. I guess we'll see, right?)

 No reading

Now this is a tough one - but like most book lovers, if I get into a book I just can't put the darn thing down. I can't tell you how many writing hours I've frittered away reading other writers' work! Completely enjoyable, but not very conducive to my own writing. This is not a rule I can follow after March 8th, but I would like to try to eliminate other author voices for a short period of time and see how that affects my relationship with my own words.

 No reading and no TV means no news

This is a tough one for me. I'm a little bit of a news junkie. In fact, if my husband could find a way to eliminate all news media from our home, he would do it in a heartbeat. Hopefully nothing interesting or troublesome will happen for the next 60 days!  Of course there is always TV Sunday....

 
I will write a MINIMUM of four hours a day

This is/was my usual routine, so that should be fairly easy. And without books and television to distract me, I imagine I will exceed that goal most days.

 Limited Online Media Time

During writing time, I will NOT check Facebook, Twitter, the news, or any other online media. I will also turn off my phone.

That's it. I'll be blogging as I go!  Wish me luck!