WRITE OR DIE and other tricks

It's so easy to get distracted while attempting to write something.

Whether it is a Christmas carol, a short story for a contest, or the sequel for "War and Peace",

every writer knows how hard it is to shut the world out and focus on the task at hand.

Take me, for example. I got the idea for this post at 6.30 am.

I rushed out of bed, run to the computer, switched it on.

By the time coffe was ready I had checked gmail, hotmail, facebook, the weather, the blog stats and (sadly) my bank account.

After a few phone calls I realized it was time to meet my friend for coffee and suddenly it was lunchtime.

To be sure not to let anything distract me for the rest of the day, I checked my e-mail again, I found some good advice and writing prompts from The Write Practice  and Writer's Digest, I spent one hour on Goodreads. 

Browsing other writers blogs I found links to Write or Die, a fabulous software that threatens to delete all your precious sweated words if you get distracted from your writing.

It's up to you to set the number of words you wish to write and the time limit. 

Then you pick the gentle, startle or KAMIKAZE mode and off you go, writing away.

Now, I'm not a lover of paying for online software, well I'm not really a lover of PAYING in general.

I read there are free versions of Write or Die, if you know some please post the link in the comments so we can KAMIKAZE all together tomorrow and then tell us how we did.

Anyway, by the time I found Write or Die a friend came by with his wife and we had tea and some serious psycho conversations. And guess what? It was dinner time and then the phone rang... and... yes. Finally I sat down and wrote this post. It is now 11.03pm. I definitely need discipline in my life if I want to succeed. And yes. I'm not referring to the blog post only.

At this time of the day it's nice to relax, writing becomes a way to let out what we have collected during the busy hours, so we can go to bed relieved and with an empty mind. 

Resist the temptation to check facebook (again) and don't worry about spelling right now. There will be plenty of time to check Word Reference tomorrow. 

And if the lovely granny who lives across from you is half deaf and won't stop screaming to the cat (every reference is purely casual) shut her out and get into RAINYMOOD.COM (it works! Just remember: the sound of rain might decrease your bladder capacity!)