Showing posts with label attentional focus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label attentional focus. Show all posts
Saturday, February 08, 2020
This Writer's PFWP and NTDN Lists: Two Tools for Resilience and Focus
>> CONTINUE READING THIS POST ON THE NEW PLATFORM WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM
Monday, June 10, 2019
A Writerly Tool for Sharpening Attentional Focus or, The Easy Luxury of a Lap Desk
By C.M. Mayo www.cmmayo.com
This blog posts on Mondays. As of 2019 the second Monday of the month is devoted to my writing workshop students and anyone else interested in creative writing. (You can find my workshop schedule and many more resources for writers on my workshop page.)
Sheer willpower isn’t the only thing needed, however. Habits, even tiny habits, can help enormously. Here’s where some writerly material tools can be useful… perhaps. I say “perhaps” because what works for one writer may not necessarily work for another.
What do I mean by “writerly material tools”? Well, you could have a special pencil and make a ritual of sharpening your special pencil– so there you have a pencil, and you have a pencil sharpener. Not a budget buster. If you don’t know what to do with your money, why, you could go gung-ho for such writerly material tools as a gold-plated typewriter with your name engraved in curlicues or, say, some rococo-rama iteration of George Bernard Shaw’s rotating writing shed. >>Continue reading this post at WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM
This blog posts on Mondays. As of 2019 the second Monday of the month is devoted to my writing workshop students and anyone else interested in creative writing. (You can find my workshop schedule and many more resources for writers on my workshop page.)
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| My writing assistant presents the lap desk. He likes the lap desk. It means we all sit together on the sofa. |
As far as the need for equipment goes, writing is not like casting bronze sculpture. All you need is a pencil and paper–any scrap will do. The formidable challenge most writers face is managing their attentional focus, that is to say, their ability to actually sit down and, ahem, actually write.
What do I mean by “writerly material tools”? Well, you could have a special pencil and make a ritual of sharpening your special pencil– so there you have a pencil, and you have a pencil sharpener. Not a budget buster. If you don’t know what to do with your money, why, you could go gung-ho for such writerly material tools as a gold-plated typewriter with your name engraved in curlicues or, say, some rococo-rama iteration of George Bernard Shaw’s rotating writing shed. >>Continue reading this post at WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM
Monday, October 15, 2018
More Noodling about Email-- and Dispatch Boxes
By C.M. Mayo www.cmmayo.com
I stand by my 10-point protocol for email, but the past few months, after my mother's passing, have brought a tsunami of correspondence. Much of this, from friends and family, has been very welcome, actually; it's just been challenging to keep up with it and everything else. All of which is to say, if I owe you an email, dear reader, please know that I have not vanished into some befogged plane of hyperspace. I am working on it, and with good cheer!
On the ever-gnarly subject of email management, I note that my favorite guru of Attentional Focus Theory, Cal Newport, has recently posted "The Average User Checks Email 5.6 Hours a Day. This is Not Good." It's a bit thin that gruel; Newport is simply pointing out some recent report that, by Jove, that's the number (and I believe it). I mention it here because I would like to add the thought that, for many professions, the need to manage large volumes of correspondence is nothing new. (Check out the antique dispatch boxes here.) In my case, as a writer, translator, and workshop leader with several books published, and family and friends, it is to be expected-- and this would be true were I somehow to be transported to 1918 or, say, 1818.
You know, I'll bet Jane Austen complained about the hours she spent on her correspondence.
The seachange of course is that our smartphones have brought us all into potentially instant contact. It used to be the case-- I am old enough to remember-- that really good friends and doting relatives might write, oh, say, every few weeks or so. And I have decided, in my case, that's about reasonably right. In other words, I do not use FB or Whatsapp; I use an old-fashioned telephone, send occasional snail mail and, above all, email. This is consternating to some, a shrug of so what to others. When I write an email I write a thoughtful one, and-- further evidence of thoughtfulness-- with proper punctuation. Some people appreciate this. Some don't. And... the world keeps on turning.
Today I received a charming letter from poet Kim Roberts-- a real letter, placed by the postman in the mailbox, which box I opened with a key, and in an envelope I slit open with an letter opener. After I read the letter, I walked my dogs in autumn sunshine. Then I made a batch of split pea soup.
Life on earth.
And now, dogs snoring, having finished this Monday's post, I will work on my correspondence, I mean, email.
I am thinking of my laptop as, among many things, an early 21st century dispatch box. It's kind of magic, how letters just appear inside it. It has the image of a white apple on its lid.
> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
 |
| screenshot of a few antique dispatch boxes for sale |
I stand by my 10-point protocol for email, but the past few months, after my mother's passing, have brought a tsunami of correspondence. Much of this, from friends and family, has been very welcome, actually; it's just been challenging to keep up with it and everything else. All of which is to say, if I owe you an email, dear reader, please know that I have not vanished into some befogged plane of hyperspace. I am working on it, and with good cheer!
On the ever-gnarly subject of email management, I note that my favorite guru of Attentional Focus Theory, Cal Newport, has recently posted "The Average User Checks Email 5.6 Hours a Day. This is Not Good." It's a bit thin that gruel; Newport is simply pointing out some recent report that, by Jove, that's the number (and I believe it). I mention it here because I would like to add the thought that, for many professions, the need to manage large volumes of correspondence is nothing new. (Check out the antique dispatch boxes here.) In my case, as a writer, translator, and workshop leader with several books published, and family and friends, it is to be expected-- and this would be true were I somehow to be transported to 1918 or, say, 1818.
You know, I'll bet Jane Austen complained about the hours she spent on her correspondence.
The seachange of course is that our smartphones have brought us all into potentially instant contact. It used to be the case-- I am old enough to remember-- that really good friends and doting relatives might write, oh, say, every few weeks or so. And I have decided, in my case, that's about reasonably right. In other words, I do not use FB or Whatsapp; I use an old-fashioned telephone, send occasional snail mail and, above all, email. This is consternating to some, a shrug of so what to others. When I write an email I write a thoughtful one, and-- further evidence of thoughtfulness-- with proper punctuation. Some people appreciate this. Some don't. And... the world keeps on turning.
Today I received a charming letter from poet Kim Roberts-- a real letter, placed by the postman in the mailbox, which box I opened with a key, and in an envelope I slit open with an letter opener. After I read the letter, I walked my dogs in autumn sunshine. Then I made a batch of split pea soup.
Life on earth.
And now, dogs snoring, having finished this Monday's post, I will work on my correspondence, I mean, email.
I am thinking of my laptop as, among many things, an early 21st century dispatch box. It's kind of magic, how letters just appear inside it. It has the image of a white apple on its lid.
> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.
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