Fighting Distractions - Guest Blog by Author Lucy Felthouse

As a writer, one of the most difficult things I have to deal with is getting distracted from my work. Aside from basic needs, like eating, sleeping and using the toilet; there are also got emails, Twitter, Facebook, mobile phone... the list is endless.

I'm very easily distracted, too. A car door slamming, voices, sirens; I'm there, looking out of the window to see if anything interesting is happening. It never is. The only time looking out of the window helped anyone is when I saw the old lady fall in the snow and ran out to help pick her up – but that's another story.

So it's a constant battle to stay focussed. Keep writing, writing, writing. Nooo... you don't need to read that email right now, at least finish your sentence! I'm terrible. I can't even listen to music whilst writing, which is a shame because I love music. I can do my other jobs, like PR, marketing and web design whilst singing along (terribly, I might add) to songs, but not writing. If I put music on, it's like it scrambles my brain or something and the words just don't come out. I even tried some classical music, thinking perhaps it was the lyrics distracting me. It was better, but not brilliant. So I have to have quiet.

As you know, it's pretty difficult to achieve quiet. It probably wouldn’t help, anyway. I think even if I lived alone, in a house in the middle of nowhere, I'd probably still find something to grab my attention. Birds singing, wind blowing... anything. It's a wonder I ever get anything finished. I do, though. I've discovered two very effective ways of making me stop messing around and get on with it:

• Look at the publishing credits of some of my favourite authors and think I'll never get anywhere near that – ever – if I don't get a move on

• Take a peek at my to-do list. I'm my own worst enemy, often taking on too much. But it helps to give me drive and determination to cross things off the list.

I'm sure many writer-types are nodding at the above. I'm equally sure there are others rocking out to some cool-ass music wondering what on earth I'm going on about. But that's the thing – we're all different, but we've got one thing in common: nobody is perfect (OK, except maybe Jared Padalecki – see, another distraction!) and that's one of my many imperfections.

But I don't care. After all, wouldn't life be boring if everything was easy?

And no, I'm not telling you how many times I checked Twitter and Facebook while I wrote this. No way.

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Find more information about Lucy Felthouse on her website, http://lucyfelthouse.co.uk/.

You can also follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Her latest release, The Great Outdoors Vol 2 is available on Amazon, 1PlaceforRomance and Smashwords.