Writing Road Blocks (PT 6)

Hello Fellow Bookworms,

I’ve decided to give an update on my Writing Road Blocks Series. If you’re new to my blog and have no idea what I’m talking about keep reading it will make sense. If you have been keeping up with this series and you are here today welcome back.

As we know, I’ve been having challenges with being able to sit down and focus on my writing and the time that I am trying to dedicate to it. During the course of this series I developed a few troubleshooting techniques to help me get through the issue and hopefully allow me to sit down and write.

You see the problem was not coming up with ideas. I have an idea book that has tons of different ideas in it. In fact, that’s all my idea book is for. It contains quotes of the day that I made up, summaries of short stories that I am interested in writing, ideas for poems, and many other writing related things. So I have ideas for days. The problem was actually sitting down and staying focused to write. My attention span was just not there.

I started trouble shooting while blogging about it. Then I started keeping track of the amount of time I was on YouTube versus the amount of time that I was at work. I really broke it down in Writing Road Blocks PT 5.

Since my last Writing Road Blocks post on May 10th, a lot has changed. First off I really made myself sit down and write. I started off with playing YouTube in the background, I would play old movies or shows that I’ve already seen. I would switch it up and I’d play instrumental music. I found one of those channels that has the jazz with a relaxing cozy background on YouTube and I sat down and wrote. I pulled out my book of ideas and began with listing all kinds of different ideas that I could write about, poems, and quotes. Those small mile markers began to feel like huge accomplishments. I began to feel good again about writing and about the amount of time that I was sitting down to write.

I kept doing that, and I kept acknowledging myself and rewarding myself with positive words of affirmation. It kept me encouraged while YouTube continued to play in the background as I continued to sit and write.

My blog post have definitely increased. The other writing projects that I have been working on have come along a lot further, while a couple are now completed. Huge accomplishments for myself being that I was the person blogging about how I couldn’t sit down and focus.

Once I realized that I had an addiction to YouTube, I was able to take that information and use it to my advantage. Playing the cozy jazz channel in the background, the instrumental music, the old movies and old shows that I’ve already seen all helped because it didn’t feel like I was removing YouTube. YouTube just became background noise, and accepting that really helped me to be able to sit and focus. The anxiety of telling myself that I was addicted to YouTube and needed to reduce the amount of hours that I was on it was really troubling and difficult for me. Reason being is I don’t have any social media. (Although I want to start using my Pinterest again.) YouTube and this blog is about as social as it gets for me on the internet. Realizing that while allowing YouTube to play as background noise was really huge for me. It really helped me to relax and not feel the pressure and anxiety of wanting to watch YouTube instead of write. Once the pressure and the anxiety was off of my shoulders, I was able to relax, and with that came beautiful words.

For the most part I’ve been doing pretty good with sitting and focusing. I understand that what I am currently doing may not work forever and eventually adjustments may need to be made, but it works for now. I’m now able to close this chapter and move on. With that, I can now end my Writing Road Blocks Series as my road blocks are no longer road blocks.

Thank you for reading this six part series.

Stay tuned to my blog as I get creative and share more of my work. 😎