I’m a writer. That’s what I do. I write.

Unfortunately, being a writer means I do not have external office or a “regular” work schedule. I say “unfortunately” because, despite loving what I do, there are days that I would love to have an office so that I could walk out the front door at 7:45am and not be expected to return until 7:30pm…or even later!

But that’s not the life of a writer.

Writing requires a great deal of concentration. When the creative neurons kick into gear, there are two things that can happen:

I grab my laptop and write, write, write. The world is a happy place!

I grab my laptop and try to write but find myself unsuccessful. The world is not a happy place.

I don’t think I need to embellish on #1. I do, however, need to explain #2.

Increasingly, I am finding it impossible to write. At first, I figured it was due to extreme stress due to some on-going issues in my household. Then I chalked it up to not liking my main character very much.

Today, however, I realized that there is something else going on, something that creates #2. In fact, it is the greatest threat to the writer: Interruptions.

Interruptions range from the important (“Where’s the remote control?” “I can’t find my cell phone!” and “Can you take me to…[fill in the blank]?”) to the mundane (“I’m letting the pig inside, ok?”, “The dog ate my book!”, and “Why is the Internet so slow?”).

I have become the GPS for all missing items. In fact, that could possibly be my go-to career: finding lost things for other people.

I suppose I should not complain. Hey, it’s really nice to be needed, right?

And yet…while I usually respond with a sigh as I get up to find [fill in the blank], I wonder if this is not indicative of something larger than just being a living GPS system: our world has become far too comfortable with instant gratification. Where communication used to take weeks, sometimes months, to be shared (think updates from Old World Europe to the New Colonies!), we can now share information with someone on the other side of the world within nanoseconds!

My daughter recently kidnapped my cell phone to turn on READ notifications because she thought I was ignoring her text. Little did she know that I do not monitor my texts 24×7. Sometimes when she is texting me, I actually am driving or writing. Even if I hear that BING from my phone (another interruption that creates a Pavlov’s Dog type of panic…do I stop what I’m doing and answer or ignore????), I cannot always stop what I’m doing to engage in a 10 minute texting conversation.

And while I prefer texting to phone calls, I’m starting to wonder if it’s just not better to pick up the phone and call.

I don’t think re-training them is a viable solution. After almost three years, I still can’t teach Tobi how to “sit” on command or stop barking when he’s having one of those on-going, never-ending, what seems like hours, barking fits! And he’s only five pounds! I can pick him up and put him in another room! #doesnothelp

Locking myself in a room isn’t an answer either. They’ve all figured out how to break into my hideout rooms.

I may just have to start hanging out at Starbucks (expensive solution…have to buy pumpkin spice lattes!) or going to the library (uncomfortable solutions…I can’t kick back and lounge out).

I’m not sure what the solution is for this, but I’m open for ideas!

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