Solitaire As A Working Tool

     I hear writers all the time say, either by voice or in writing, that some of their primary distractions are things like facebook, the internet, blogs and solitaire. 
      I always check my facebook, but that's a brief distraction. Once I've seen all the new posts from people whose posts I care to see, what else is there to look at?  Same is true for blogs: I regularly read and comment on those I follow faithfully, then I'm done.  (Blogging myself is considered a work exercise and sometimes it's rather a chore.) I can't think of enough things on the internet to distract me because I don't shop, don't care to see the crap that's on Youtube, and my husband emails me all the cute stuff he finds on Icanhazacheezburger (not sure that's spelled right). I have on occasion been distracted for hours by the site Texts From Last Night, but I'm often frightend by what I find there and don't go back for awhile.
     So my big distraction is solitaire, especially Freecell and Spider Solitaire. Also Sudoku, but not as much. I have found a way to make this into a productive activity. I use a game or puzzle or two to gauge my mental/creative state before I write.  If I win 2 games of Spider Solitaire or whip through a diablolically challenging sudoku puzzle, that tells me I am in top form and ready to take on any writing project I have going.  However, if I can't do well at either of those and downgrade to Freecell and can't even master that, it tells me that taking on difficult revisions or part of a WIP I'm struggling with is not the best idea. In fact, it could be disasterous in the form of making a bigger mess than what I was dealing with originally.
      These games and puzzles are also a great warm-up excercise for both sides of your brain - organizational and creative. So starting out with them can be motivational. However, if I don't have a lot of time, I can easily use it up with my "pre-writing" activities. Which downgrades them right back to "distraction".

www.jennifermballard.com
www.daylightsend.weebly.com
www.trustindarkness.weebly.com