Multitasking Writing

[Allyn]

Ok, so I was sitting at my desk with my music playing through my computer system while I was writing last night and this thread popped into my mind near the end. I want to know if anyone else goes through with either of these:

1) Multitasking within the story:
While writing my brain will think ahead in the story and start thinking about parts of those and sometimes, like last night, evolve the story even deeper and add onto it and such. This is normal occurance for me. I'll be writing one part and while I do that my brain insists on going ahead in the story and tries to figure out what I want to do next.

I don't know of that is normal for authors to do that or not.

2) Multitasking outside the story:
I was doing this last night also. I had my computer on (since I was listening to music) and sometimes, right in the middle of a sentence even, put down my pencil, click a few links, and then pick the pencil up and continue on. Or even when watching TV, although that one is harder.

Maybe it's a way for my brain to create the next part of what I am writing, i dunno.

Has anyone else experienced those?

 

[littlemissattitude]

Point number one: Sometimes this happens to me while I'm writing fiction, but more often when I'm doing non-fiction. My mind is always making connections as I'm writing, juggling facts and parts of the piece of writing, noting things that I need to say next and after that and sometimes something I have to go back and put in what I've already written in order to lay a proper foundation for what I'm writing at that moment. I'm also always thinking about sources when I'm writing something that I've researched. I've been conditioned by writing so many research papers when I was at university to document everything I write, and I'm pretty good at keeping where I read particular facts in my head and remembering where I need to go to write the documentation either in text or in a footnote or endnote.

(When I write non-fiction, I'm very fond of footnotes, which a quite convenient way for including little tangents that can't be fit into the main text. I'm kind of old-fashioned that way, and consider footnote-writing to be an art. I'm also quite uncomfortable reading non-fiction books in which the author has forgone any sort of documentation in the interest of looking "non-academic." Being a bit cynical, I like to be able to track down an author's sources for myself, especially when something debatable or controversial is being discussed, just to make sure the author has not misrepresented what someone else has written.)

Point number two never, ever happens when I'm writing fiction. I get lost in my work when I'm writing a story and it is as if the rest of the world doesn't even exist. I've had the experience more than once of putting on a CD to listen to while I'm writing and then suddenly the CD is over and I don't recall hearing any of it past about the second track.

However, when I'm working on non-fiction, I often multi-task. I can recall working on papers for school while actually reading an assignment, with the book propped up next to the computer, for another class entirely. I also used to write at work all the time, when I worked as a desk clerk. It never bothered me to stop to deal with someone who needed soemthing; I was always able to go right back to what was I writing with no trouble at all. I don't know what the difference is, why I can do this with non-fiction and not when I'm writing fiction. Maybe it's because in fiction, I'm creating a whole different universe, even if it is not a science fiction or fantasy story and takes place very much in what we call the real world. Or maybe it's because I'm much more comfortable writing non-fiction than I am writing fiction, and much better at non-fiction than I probably will ever be at fiction.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I'm there with you, Allyn - especially on point number 1.

Especially when in the early stages of writing - the mind sees a whole range of possibilities and demands they be looked at! But once the conetnt erally begins to become filled in, that's when you then can try to ensure that you write specific areas. And if inspiration takes you elsewhere, follow it!

Once in flow, though, I can't break it and go outside of the focus, without potentially losing something of the "train" of information.

For the second point did you mean while writing fiction, or just generally posting?

 

[Allyn]

point 1 happened to me again last night when I was writing, when I came up with the title for one of my novels. It was quite an exciting moment for me, since it came out of no where, and I had actually persued calling it by a similar name when I was thinking about it earlier on.

As for point number 2, Brian, I meant as writing fiction. While I haven't had it happen here yet, I have been known to write the post up and then go to another window and completely forget that I even started it until I'm clicking around in the tabs and come across it.

But the more I think about this fact, the more I think it has to do with my brain trying to figure out a way past a sentence or such, so it does what it does when it relaxes by looking at the monitor.

On the other hand, when writing reports and such, i multitask and what should take me 30 minutes to do will take me 10 hours.

oh! I forgot to comment on it, inspiration is a great thing, and it takes me places all the time. It has written me into corners and has gotten me out of them also.

 

[Dale]

I find it incredibly hard to do anything but write. If I have music on, it'll distract me (unless it's my mix of Opeth's instrumentals, then it gets me in the mood.) If I have a TV on somewhere in the house, I'm distracted.

At the moment, I'm trying to write, but I keep clicking my way into here. That, and I'm really hungry so it's difficult. I'll get some food and try again, I think.

 

[Dale]

I find it incredibly hard to do anything <I>but</I> write. If I have music on, it'll distract me (unless it's my mix of Opeth's instrumentals, then it gets me in the mood.) If I have a TV on somewhere in the house, I'm distracted.

At the moment, I'm trying to write, but I keep clicking my way into here. That, and I'm really hungry so it's difficult. I'll get some food and try again, I think.

 

[Hypes]

Ah! Another Opeth fan. Marry me, man!