Writing in Snow

An Open Document

Word count: 525

The idea is to keep an open document, keep it up and ready so that when you find a spare moment you can write. In the spare moment, sit down at the computer and write, compose a poem or work on a story. It does not mater what you write as long as you write. Interruptions occur, so if you keep a document open and ready you always have something ready to work on when you get the chance between interruptions.

Interruptions occur all the time and if you have an open document waiting then you have something to work on between the life’s little interruptions. Interruptions occur at the oddest times and can be anything mundane or unusual. For instance, my coffee cup is empty so I have to get up, go to the kitchen and fill it again. This is a mundane interruption; most of the interruptions I encounter during the day are mundane interruption.

Other events are not interruptions, but daily routines that have to be handled each and everyday. If you keep an open document waiting for your return, then these duties do not interrupt the writing process or stop the writing process because you have a document open and waiting for words, sentences and paragraphs.

Sometimes life’s events attack one situation after another and appear to calculated to stop your writing all together. I you keep a open document up and the computer on, then you need only a few seconds or minutes before you begin writing between the attacks of daily living.

The open document idea is one I found in a writer’s newsletter. The editor of the newsletter used it and it works well for her. I am attempting it to see how it works for me. I expect it to work well; of course, I know that nothing is perfect and that just because the open document worked for one person does not mean it will work for everyone. However, I am going to attempt it for the next nineteen days and see if it works for me.

I am hoping this method will give me a chance to overcome those instances when I am working on a story, poem, etc. and encounter momentary blank spaces in my thought process. This instance when a writer suddenly realizes she or he does not know what to type in next. Those moments occur to writers and a writer needs to know how to handle them. If a writer keeps a story document open and waiting, then when one of those moments does occur the writer can get up and go clean the toilet or wash the dishes until the moment has pass and the words flow again.

Of course, with a computer a writer does not have to do housework when you cannot think of next scene in a story. A computer and internet access give a writer the option of doing research, surfing the internet or playing an online game during those moments of “I know I wanted my character to do something, but I can’t remember what.”

Good writing idea
Keep an open document
The computer on