If you've ever had the pleasure of calling I.T. professionals, especially those working in a Support capacity, you may have been asked these questions:Have you tried restarting the program?
and my personal favorite,
Have you tried turning it off and on again?
If you've never watched The I.T. Crowd, go Netflix it right now. I'll wait.........
Okay, so my point in all this is sometimes revising becomes a call to an I.T. department. Have I tried this? How about that? Maybe my brain and my fingers need to WebEx to get on the same page? If I could just GoTo Meeting with every industry professional I'm about to query/submit/research, maybe I'll get it exactly right for them.
But if you're anything like me, sometimes you have to try turning it off and on again. Step away from that MS (what I mean is, back away veeeery slowly) and come back later. So, my spring break (SPRING BREAK) is my turning it off. I'm going to work on my revision, definitely, but not to the extent that it feels forced.
This brings me to my new goal. I'm dedicating two hours a (week)night minimum to writing. No blogging, reading, anything, until I get through two hours. Now, that may be one page or thirty, but time is my greatest enemy, and I plan on commanding it in the second quarter of 2011. Weekends are a writing free-for-all!
Do you ever feel like turning it off and on again is the best thing you can do for your WIP? How do you truly step away? Vacation? Other projects? Conferences (have I mentioned BackSpace)? Do you love your I.T. department as much as I do? :)
-Marie
11 comments:
I turn it off -- totally. Then I go away -- local or farther. Give it time and then hit the on button.
I'm thinking about stepping away from my WIP for at least a week--I gave it two before, but I'm still running into all kinds of obstacles that make it feel like the browser's crashed. :P
I had some of my best ideas when I went away right after I finished my first draft. I kept a notebook with me so I could write them down, since I was on a beach with no computer (poor me, I know!). Stepping away for a while lets you see it with fresh eyes.
The computer would be on fire, and they would STILL tell you to turn it off and on again.
I love the IT crowd... one of the BEST Brit Coms EVER. Every epsiode made me laugh.
That's so RIGHT about editing and revising.
AWESOME post (bonus points for Moss)
Good luck with your two hours a night! I am trying for at least one...if I stay away for even a few days I get out of sync with the story and it's so hard to turn it on again. Of course, when I finish this baby I'm planning on leaving the laptop off for awhile!
I <3 that show. I'd totally forgotten about it. Great reminder, and have a fun vacation!
Nice comparison of IT Crowd to revision!
I actually take too many freaking breaks. Will have to work on that...
Also, so excited I won the Spring Forward contest! But I don't know what your email ID is, so I'd really appreciate it if you could tell me. Also, just out of curiosity, is the contest international as well?
LOL! Marie, I've already to *that* before I called IT! And they *still* make me do it in their *presence* as it were.
And I do need to get away from it all sometimes. Then again I just blame my fuzzy-head on my latest virus. I finally got your message and emailed you today. ; ) Sorry for the delay.
What a good point! And, yes, sometimes just turning it off for a while helps.
I used to get annoyed when IT would automatically tell me to restart, so I started doing it BEFORE I called them and, wonder of wonders, it did solve the problem - sometimes.
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