Internet Blackout 2011, Part Dos

Posted on by Beth Hull

…a continuation of Wednesday’s post, plus a quick reflection.

diary + manuscript = obsession

Day 5. Only two pages of obsessing about writing, and my bad mood: But if I do feel like crap because of issues in my writing, does that make me a bad person? Can I just blame the stinkin’ wind & call it not-my-fault?

Day 6. I’ve decided my email limitation challenge thingie is sort of stupid. It’s extremely inconvenient when it comes to planning outings & events.

+ 10.5 pages of manuscript-obsession-drama.

To a critique partner & friend I wrote, “This is dumber than the No-Chocolate Challenge of 1999!” (Yes, my friend A & I both did this. It wasn’t really dumb, just kind of annoying once I realized I could get through the year without chocolate.)

Day 7. I have some hours to myself! Yay! I keep getting stuck, though [again, sigh, I am writing about writing TBC]. Right now is when my email & blog ban really helps – otherwise I’d be emailing & blogging right now.

——

Earth's Crammed...with obsessing over my manuscript.

Why are you doing this?! people wanted to know. I couldn’t really tell them. Before the challenge began, I hypothesized and dreamed that it would magically make me prettier, make me happier, and make me lose me ten pounds.

None of the above. Well, maybe I was a little prettier. My eyes weren’t as red from staring at a glowing screen for so many hours each day. And maybe I was even a little happier, as I was spending more time with friends and family, and got oodles of work done on my manuscript. But the weight loss? No way. Because with some of my newly-freed-up free time, I baked. We eat what we bake, in this house.

Overall, limiting email to an hour on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday freed up some time. Not writing blog posts freed up even more time. I got tons of work (and obsessing) done for TBC and felt really good about that. The other side of the story is that not checking email on certain days was kind of pointless, especially with my being so strict about it. I should have broken my email ban to confirm my meeting with the preschool director, for example.

Will I change anything as a result of this experiment? I’m thinking rather than give myself a LAW about when I can and can’t work online, I could try to limit my visits to a couple of times a day during the week. That way I can take care of basic planning with friends and colleagues, and on weekends I’ll still  get that family time I so enjoyed. And in the future when I really need those extra hours for writing, I can always take a little vacation from my blog.

ETA: Just read a great blog post featured on Freshly Pressed about another writer reflecting on technology’s impact on her writing time management.

Internet Blackout 2011, Part 1

Posted on by Beth Hull

What did I learn from severely limiting my time online? I’m still unsure. Perhaps on Friday, when I finish this post, I’ll have some answers for myself. I mean, really, I haven’t had much time to reflect, what with all the email checking I’ve been doing lately.

Here are some notes from my diary (diary quotes in purple, my witty and amazing comments the usual gray/black):

Day 1. As soon as I fired up my laptop, the mouse hovered over the Firefox icon, but with a great push of willpower I moved it over to the Microsoft Word icon. So proud of myself.

Right now I’m thinking, yes, I can totally do this. I’m a little worried that there could be urgent emails waiting in my inbox, but really, I’m not the president. I’m not in charge of anything. So I’m a little itchy-twitchy about not getting to check, but at least I’m rational about it (so far).

Besides: I used Z’s entire two-hour nap to work on TBC (The Black City…the title of my, ahem, manuscript). Got the ward thing all figured out, made some little edits. It feels good. And today felt more like a family day. We didn’t do anything special, since Z has a cold, but we hung out all together on the couch after her nap, instead of me rushing off to check email.

Email. Email & my website – those are the two time-sucking culprits. Facebook can take time, but I don’t honestly enjoy it, especially not posting about myself – isn’t that what my blog is for? It’s fun to check up on other people, but I’m usually not on for longer than twenty minutes, & only every couple of days. My Twitter visits are much shorter. If I’m honest I’ll admit that Twitter’s a little intimidating. Intwitteridating?

Anyway, loved my day offline. But I’ve already got a list of email priorities, so I don’t waste time once I finally sign on.

Day 2. Printed out manuscript. Nothing in my diary about internet black-out because I was too busy making manic predictions of how this is the novel that will hit it big. (I am embarrassed to admit this here, which is why you get only summary.)

Day 3. A dream I had – I accidentally checked my email, breaking my hiatus. I was really upset about it in the dream. Then in real life, I had to email a note to P about the potluck, asking her what to bring! I didn’t have her phone number! Husband said it was okay. In my defense, I started drafting a message on paper and was going to make him sign into my email and type it up.

Signing in and seeing all those emails waiting for me (yes, most of them Freecycle) – and then not clicking on them! Difficult. There were two that looked especially interesting. Damn.

Day 4. Here I gripe about the wind (I REALLY HATE THE WIND). I wrote a random poem:

Very few things
disgust me more
than a stuffed animal fallen
on our bathroom floor.

MOVE OVER, W. S. MERWIN. I also complain about how sucky my manuscript is. Honestly, my feelings about it change constantly. What’s the Hamlet quote? I think it goes, “I am but in love with my manuscript north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a piece of crap when I see one.”

I checked email yesterday! Yes! I was supposed to do only one session – at least, that had been my aim, but with the schmooze at P’s & uploading files for the Writer’s Group, I needed both a morning & an afternoon session. Each was about 20 minutes.

It felt pretty good. Lots of support from people emailing me to tell me how they liked that I’m not checking email (and they noted this irony). Some business stuff. Kinda liberating to jot off quick responses & not dilly-dally while writing them.

The diary entry goes on for NINE pages, nearly all of it obsessing about TBC. The lack of emailing and blogging redirects me to the paper diary, I suppose. Also, I talked with another internet-addicted friend on the phone and warned her she might have to check my email for me if things got desperate.

On Friday I’ll post the rest of the wrap-up.

The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams

Posted on by Beth Hull

That (ridiculous, highly inconvenient, yet time-saving) limited-internet challenge is finally over, and I’m back with a review for a book so good I had to read it twice. Later this week I’ll do a post or two on what the limited-internet challenge taught me (if anything). But for now, feast your readers on a book that is, well, wonderful.

The set-up: Thirteen-year-old Kyra lives in an isolated Compound with her mother, her father, her father’s two other wives, and her twenty brothers and sisters. She is content (barely) with her piano playing, her secret love for Joshua, and her secret visits to a library-on-wheels…until the Prophet (the dude in charge of their community of “Chosen Ones”) says that Kyra must marry her sixty-year-old uncle.

Main character’s goals: Once she is told she has to marry Uncle Hyrum, Kyra wants OUT. Her goal is to avoid that wedding at all costs.

My reaction: Unsurprisingly, this book evokes a strong visceral reaction. We have polygamy, we’ve got young brides, lots of babies. We’ve got book burning, forbidden love, child abuse, murder. The first time through, I had to read it in one sitting (thankfully the novel is somewhat short), because the premise alone made my gut clench.

The child abuse thing almost had me putting the book down – it got a little too gut-wrenching at one point. In fact, I still can’t think about that scene. In fact, I’m writing scenes in my head where the jerks who do it get in Big Trouble. Jail would be too kind for them.

Of interest to writers: What a hook! Damn, this is a sensationalistic idea but it is tastefully done. Kyra’s voice is strong and authentic. Watch especially for the melding of lyrical prose and cannot-put-it-down tension. A-MAZ-ING.

Also, great first line: “If I was going to kill the Prophet,” I say, not even keeping my voice low, “I’d do it in Africa.” May we all have such grabbers at the beginnings of our manuscripts.

Bottom Line: It’s a(n) [enter your favorite positive adjective here…none of mine seem to do it justice] book. I read it twice.

Re-Post: Max the Noble

Posted on by Beth Hull

And finally, my last trip down memory lane, with an old post on my sweet laundry hamper, now passed down lovingly to my daughter.

This is my last day of severe internet limitations. (Again, I’m posting from the past…it’s Friday, January 28th as I write this.) I bet I am really hurting for the internet at this point. I bet I check my website stats like eighty times tomorrow. You won’t be able to tear me away from Facebook, even though I have a love-hate relationship with it. Actually, no, you could tear me away from Facebook.

Forget about all that stuff.

Click here to read about the magical laundry hamper!