Back again for my new weekly writing challenge. This week we’re doing 47 words. I might be a day behind or I might be right on time, maybe it’s Friday, maybe it’s Saturday or Sunday! But I am late in getting it out even for Sunday delivery so here we go. The theme is breaking habits.
Sometimes I put so much thought and emotion – okay all the time – into my writing that I wind up avoiding it all together, even if not intentionally. Writing this makes me think twice about my theme, maybe it should be focus? See? Too much thinking. Sure focus is another thing I need to work on but let’s do one theme at a time. Since my writing can take so much mental energy I become easily distracted. And I give in a lot, especially to over-thinking which is the killer of doing!
Part of the reason I give in a lot is because I have bad habits, things I can turn to instead of ___________ I like to run the TV in the background for distraction. Isn’t that very idea counter-intuitive? I’ve discovered that a lot of us do this. There’s just this need for some kind of noise in the background. Even then it’s not just the noise but the activity. I’m plenty happy if there’s at least something moving, running around on the TV, while I keep it mute or very near so. Still I make sure to put something on that is at least a tiny bit interesting. Ugh…no…that means there’s always something to fall back on.
There are times where I’ll write in spurts. I’ll write some 1,500 to 3,000 words then just kind of sputter to a stop. This is normal I know, I’ve heard about the method of writing for 20 or 25 minutes at a time then take a break. My bad habit here is that my break winds up taking WAY more time than it should. A break at work is like 5, 10, 15 minutes if you’re lucky. The other night I chose to play logic puzzles on my phone. I picked hard (doh, you know that’s going to take longer whereas medium will take under 5 minutes, oh but my reasoning was let’s see if I can’t be awesome and do a hard one super fast) and 45 minutes later I gave up on the puzzle mad that I’d abandoned my writing which is something I actually care about. Guess what? Then I was tired as it was well passed bed time.
I have bad habits. I love to eat, plenty of bad habits right there. I like to watch TV and movies. More there. I like to play games. Oh gosh… These are not wholly bad things. They themselves are not bad habits but in the context of my life they become bad habits. Just like reading is not bad, no no, but reading when you should be working or cleaning or maybe you read for fun when you’re supposed to be reading for school? You see my point.
So along with this prompt let’s break a few bad habits, at least on my end.
- If I’m not gonna watch it, no TV. (Not only will this help my writing practice but it’ll save energy and money! And yes there are gobs of other points we can make and habits we can break with regard to the TV but we’re keeping it simple, for now.)
- Breaks are to be no more than 10 minutes between writing sessions.
- Don’t eat just because you can and/or are bored.
I’ll check in next week with how this went. For now, here’s my 47-word flash fiction piece centered on breaking habits. By the way, you can translate this how you wish for your piece. If you decide not to write fiction please don’t forget to mention that. And now here’s my piece:
That Day
I don’t know what I was thinking, that day. When I look back, I don’t think I was. I was fed up. Tired of not doing anything and doing everything the same.
First thing, I started doing, not doubting. When the magic came, I went to work.
There we have it for this week’s flash-fiction prompt, 47-words no more no less. If you have a website/blog please link back to this here original post and post your story and/or link in the comments below. I may eventually use photo prompts as well seeing as I like to dabble in photography. I’ve got some cool images we could have fun with. 😉 You can expect another flash fiction prompt next weekend.
Thanks so much for visiting and/or participating!
We found that background noise for us was to distract us from our own thoughts, wants and needs. For us, if we multitask, we tend to do all tasks less effectively and with less focus and enjoyment (if that’s available).
Hello! I appreciate you stopping by. 😀
You’re very right, background noise does detract from my own thoughts. What you’ve said here makes me think about my anxiety and how perhaps this funny little bad habit of mine is not so little after all. Perhaps it is my anxiety’s coping mechanism and not so much my own because it takes away from ME. I also agree with you that multitasking isn’t always the effective way to do things.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on my thoughts, hope to see you again! Oh and feel free to come back and join in on some writing prompts should you feel motivated and able to do so. 😀