Focus...Focus...Damn I lost it!

Okay, I don't know about anyone else, but sometimes the most challenging aspect of working at home is that five-letter "F" word: FOCUS.

Not only do I write for a living (yeah, it's awesome), but I'm also the co-owner, CEO, webmaster, cover designer, and co-editor of Cressen Books LLC.  And I probably forgot a few titles in there, but when there are only two employees of a publishing company, you do whatever needs to be done.  I'm just grateful that my Muse handles the finance and the marketing end of things (those are definitely not my forte).

And as you can see, I have already lost sight of what I was beginning to muse about: FOCUS.  As I was saying, I work at home, which is great and really lends itself to contributing to the creative flow process.  But the downside to working at home is that there is always a distraction of some sort.  It can come in the form of catching up on my favorite blogs, watching The Daily Show when I should be working on a book cover (yes, I'm a huge Jon Stewart fan!!), or reading a book on my Android because I find myself dying to know what's going to happen next to someone else's characters instead of writing what's going to happen to my characters.

So the battle rages on...me trying to be diligent and get all the stuff done I need to while resisting the urge to be distracted by so many enticing things.  And how do I accomplish that?  I have absolutely no idea.  Just kidding.  I've learned over the last year and a half that I've been working from home that distractions are inevitable.

So, instead of forcing myself to finish that book cover or write the next scene in the mystery, I try to loosely divide up my day to include distractions.  I set aside time to peruse my favorite blogs, watch an episode of The Daily Show, and read a little further along to find out what's going to happen next to someone else's characters.  And in between all of these fun distractions, I tell myself to FOCUS on what my creative juices are leaning towards at the moment.  When I do this, I find that I spend a lot more time on the "work" stuff and less time being distracted by other things because I know that at some point during the day, I'll take some time to allow myself to be distracted.

With that said, it's not always easy and sometimes this method doesn't work out very well.  But as a whole, it works best for me.  So, now that I've indulged in one of my fun distractions, it's time for me to FOCUS and get back to "work" figuring out just how I'm going to progress my character through the next scene.