I Wanna Run Away, Gotta Get Away...

By Robin "Red Hot" Kaye

Do you ever want to run away? I do—and usually on a daily basis when I’m in deadline hell like I am right now.

Yesterday I was holed up in my office with the door closed writing a highly emotional love scene—much more emotion than sex, although there was definitely sex. I was deep in concentration mode. Do you think my friends and family would get the hint? I mean the freakin’ door was closed.

Not only did I have my family to contend with, but my neighbor and her two kids. And that’s only if we’re not counting the dog, the cat, and the fact that my husband chose yesterday to wash the windows. I know, I should be happy my husband decides of his own volition to wash windows. But really, does he have to do it while I’m writing? Then, my neighbor interrupted to ask if we could all have dinner together, I told her to talk to my husband. What did she do? She walked across my office, opened the damn window he was washing and began a three-way conversation.

In the time it took me to write the last two paragraphs, I’ve been interrupted twice—it’s a way of life for me. A kid, a husband, or a neighbor pokes their head in and I’m pulled out of my story so fast, I end up with mental whiplash. They think nothing of it, after all, they just had to ask you a simple question—it only took thirty seconds. In this case it was “What’s for dinner?” That jerked me away from my work and derailed my train of thought—either that or the dang train kept running along the track without me.

Anyone who has ever suffered from whiplash knows it takes a while to get back to what you were doing before the injury. Since I have so much experience with this, I thought I’d tell you how I handle it.

I do my best to get past the mad. I hate being interrupted. If you’re not bleeding from an arterial vein, then you should know to leave me alone when I’m working—especially when I’m on deadline. If you’re too dense, then you get to suffer the consequences—I yell. It’s a great way to vent frustration. If I sit and stew about it, it just takes me longer to get my writing hat back on and get down to business. I’d like to say that yelling keeps the interruptions from reoccurring, but that would be a lie.

I get up and do a few things. After all, the train’s either been derailed or way the heck down the tracks. Since I’ve already been interrupted, I might as well get something cold to drink, or a nice cup of coffee, and visit the rest room, (so I don’t have to do it later, thus pulling myself out of my writing again). On the way, tell everyone I see that I’m working, and would really appreciate them respecting my “don’t knock, don’t tell” policy.

I ask my husband to take care of dinner. He’s not the best cook in the world, but hey, as he always says, he hasn’t killed anyone yet.

I put on music. If everyone is home and I have Harry Potter blaring on the TV on one side of my office and a battle from Call of Duty in the room on the other, I listen to something that will drown both out. If I’m agitated, I try something soothing. Anything to keep that one part of my mind occupied so I can catch my train of thought—hopefully where I left off.

I turn off the email and my Internet. I’m distracted enough by things I can’t control. I don’t need to be distracted by things I do have control over. I just have to remind myself that I lived for a very long time without ever checking my email. I can live for a few hours before I check it again.

I only allow myself to re-read the last paragraph. I don’t know about you, but I love to read—even my own books. I will go back and reread the book instead of writing. I allow myself one paragraph, or if I really have no self-control, I’ll read from the beginning of the scene. That’s it. Read and get back to writing.

My husband just came home from work and interrupted me again. When he asked what I was doing, I read him the above. He laughed at me then told me it was a good thing I didn’t work in an office environment. He deals with the same problem every day and that I’m not so special. I didn’t get any poor baby’s from him.

I rolled my eyes and pulled the fiction-writer card. He shook his head. Nope, he writes code for computer programs—along with managing a department and all the perks and problems that go along with it. Getting pulled out of his work is a nightmare for him too. “So, what do you do to avoid that?” I asked. My dear, sweet, lovable husband told me that he makes sure his office is not conducive to conversation. He’s basically anti-social—at least at work. People really have to need him in order to have the guts to bother him. He went on to tell me that I’m just too social, too available, and well, there’s no reason not to bother me. “But I yell!” I said. He laughed, kissed me, and went off to start dinner. Told you the yelling isn’t a deterrent. At least I’m right about something.

So tell me, what do you do when you get interrupted from writing…or whatever it is that you’re usually doing? How do you get back into your work?