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Audio Journal: Writing in a Noisy & Distracted World · The Daily Writer

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to this audio journal episode.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: So right now I'm standing out on my deck and it is really, really noisy.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know all the noises that are coming through on my iPhone mic, but let me describe some of the things that I'm hearing right now.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: I hear the wind, I hear my neighbor's sprinkler, there's some neighborhood dogs barking.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: There are the cicadas, I guess there's cicadas in the tree and they're really, really loud.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: I hear traffic from a nearby road.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: We have a major road that runs fairly close, not like in our backyard, but not too far away from our house.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: I can see all the traffic right now.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then we also live behind in our subdivision, is right behind a huge grocery store, so there's constantly semis, literally just a short distance away from our backyard.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Day and night there's semis in and out of there.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and by the way, there's a jet that's going overhead as well.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: So outside here, it's pretty noisy.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: And this reminds me of what it is like as a writer in the year 2020.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Our lives are filled.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: They're constantly filled, they're permeated with noise and distraction.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was getting some writing done on a client book today, and you know, there's Facebook messages waiting for me, um, text messages, emails, uh, there's things happening in our house that uh we need to give attention to.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes family members, our own thoughts, cars going down the street, dogs barking.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, life is noisy.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Life has a lot of distractions to it.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes they can really run us off course if we're not careful.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: So something I've been thinking about a lot lately, and this has been a real challenge that I have been thinking about, is can we write despite the noise?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Can we tune out the noise and can we get the writing done anyway?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it reminds me of lots of stories that I've heard over the years of how writers have gotten books done on trains, in coffee shops, in 15-minute snippets.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of great books have been written in just tiny little fragments day by day.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I wonder, can we do the same thing?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we have this image as writers of this kind of idyllic life of you know, having our coffee in the morning and having all these hours to ourselves of writing peace and quiet and concentration and and just having that luxury of all those hours that we can spend creating and writing and doing our work.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: But for most of us, that's not a reality, is it?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not a reality, especially if you have kids or you have noise in your neighborhood, or you have clients who need you at weird moments sometimes.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not reality.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: So my encouragement to myself and to you as well is can we tune out the distractions?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Can we get our writing done in small chunks?
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Can we get the work done?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Can we focus in small segments and get it done anyway?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, lots of people, lots of very, very successful people in the past have managed to do that.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I wonder, can we do the same thing?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Can we learn to work in little bitty chunks?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Can we learn to work on our phones?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Can we write on our phones?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Can we dictate on our phones?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: You see, the phones are a common theme in this episode, apparently.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: But phones are so useful for getting that content done.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, life doesn't have to be perfect.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: The world doesn't have to come to a standstill for us to get our creative work done.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: We can do it even in a world that's very imperfect and so full of distractions.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: So that's my encouragement to you, that's my encouragement to me as well to go ahead and get that work done.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Even though it's tough to concentrate, life is not perfect.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: There's kids who want our attention, there's pets and neighbors and social media and clients and day jobs and all this stuff that goes along with modern life.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: But hey, we can get it done anyway.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of people before us have, and I know you and I can as well.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: See you in the next episode.