The art of writing

I overheard, well actually I was eavesdropping again, a nifty little tip that I am so excited about. I don’t know why this idea didn’t occur to me sooner. I would like to claim it as my own gem, but it’s not!

When I am writing, or about to write, I have so many ideas in my head it’s like popcorn exploding. I’ve learned over the years to try to ignore the exploding ideas and capture them in a notebook. I get about one out of hundred written down. The rest evaporates like hot air. I don’t need the added distractions of social media, notes on my desktop, and the niggling feeling…did I pay that gas bill last week or not?

Where did all those ideas pop to?

I’ve tried turning off my phone and silencing my IPad with its incessant bonging, you have new mail, new tweets, but even with everything shut off, there is still the computer with all its bells and whistles to distract me. Not to mention a desktop filled with all sorts of toys to play with. Have I learned to play chess this week, or master Latin as a native speaker? Errg…I think not.

There are quite a few writing programmes available that will allow you to use the full screen, but I need more. I need mind space so when I overheard this little tip, I did the little dance of joy!

The thing is, it’s always been available on the computer, only I never thought of using it this way.

I now have a “new user” on my computer. My novel.

There is nothing in the new user’s profile that isn’t the novel.  No other writing projects to peak into, photo’s to mull over, internet access, mail, zilch, nada, zip, just the novel  and everything that it needs.

Now, I sign on to My Novel and work from an area of darkest cyber space where it’s just the two of us tethered together and we are floating free!