Do writer's suffer from Sensory Overload (Article) - 7/31/2008 11:04:56 AM
I'm not sure about sensory overload. It seems like my senses never get enough. I'm the guy on a hike in the mountains on a narrow trail clinging to the side of a "very" steep mountain, that stops suddenly to take in a lone and unique wild flower while everyone else on the hike stops abruptly in disarray attempting to avoid falling off the trail and plummeting thousands of feet into a canyon. I'm in the front because if I was in the rear, I would fall farther and farther behind. I keep stopping to let my senses feast. My challenge is to make myself sit down and work on my novel, the sequel to the one that I spent a decade researching and writing, My splendid Concubine, that’s already out there waiting for readers to put them on hold. The sequel is finished but requires revisions. It's waiting and the months keep rolling by while I take walks through New York with Beckie and watch her buy red shoes, make friends with a NY cop and miss making it to the library in time for the books waiting for her. Now, I'm tempted to take BART (I live near San Francisco and the BART station is a thirty minute walk from the house) in to San Francisco or Berkeley and find more creative and fun ways to procrastinate. But I won’t. I have to force my feet to leave this Internet connected computer to go to the computer where I write and write. The house is empty. The room I work in is private and quiet without much distraction. My wife is also a novelist (Anchee Min: Red Azalea; Becoming Madame Mao; Empress Orchid; The Last Empress). Now, she needs all distractions cut off or she can’t focus on her work. Her favorite procrastination is to find excuses to work in the yard where she enjoys herself and escapes from the deadline that is closing in for her next novel. To finish the rough draft or attempt to finish it, she fled to China where we have a three bedroom flat in Shanghai and she works there in the humid, summer heat. Even six thousand miles away she finds distractions--Shanghai is a walking city with lots to see and Anchee loves to walk.
