Dirty Laundry

iPhone Addiction, Procrastination, & The Writing Life

Don’t tell my editor but I’m spending too much time playing with my iPhone.  My wife bought me an iPhone for Christmas and it’s infernally addicting.  I have my website designer Susie Gardner to thank for introducing me to Touch Physics which is this amazingly fun but impossible to put down game.  The object is simple.  You just have to draw shapes to push a little ball into a little star.  It sounds childish but the puzzles are maddening.  I recommend it with a warning.  You won’t be able to stop.

Despite this new game in my life (and the fact that there are a million things on my plate these days) I am managing to make good progress on the new book.  And I’m not just saying that because I probably have scared my editor silly with the last paragraph.  Seriously, though, about a month ago I took a nasty detour in the story and woke up one day and said, “How the hell did I get here?  Why are these characters doing this?”  Now, some people will say that you should let your characters guide the story but I have found that I can’t work that way.  Sure, they can guide it a bit, surprise with what they say or do, as long as they stay on the road, but my characters were going off-roading without the proper vehicle or tires or anything.  And we all got stuck in a deep ditch together until I hauled out the tow truck and pulled us back on course.

So, although I hesitate to say it, I am cruising along at a high-page-count-a-day speed and feel really good about the novel once again. 

These are the pitfalls of writing, I guess.  Nobody is telling you where to go or what to write and so you have infinite choice.  Which can sometimes make things very difficult.  But the days that the pages just come out easy and almost effortlessly are the days you live for.  And when they do you don’t feel nearly as guilty spending a few minutes (or a bit more) playing iPhone games.

Posted by Don Calame on 2.13.09 at 05:27 pm in Prattlings. (1) Comments