Distracted by Your Own Words? Try This.
We live in a small house. Our den/computer room is arranged such that my screen is visible to anyone in the room. While this exercise is not new for me, I found a new use for my six-point type writing exercise. Privacy!
In addition to allowing me to type whatever words come to mind with no thought for whoever is in the room, there are practical applications as well.
Open up Word Pad. Select a script font (such as Edwardian) and set the type for 6 pt. Start your cursor on the page and go wild! You can’t read it and Word Pad has no editing marks, so you get a nice stream of characters that have no green or red squiggles, no misspellings, no punctuation problems, and no possibility you could read it without a magnifying glass or defeating the purpose of the exercise. And the best part is…no one else in the room can read it either!
It isn’t that I mind my husband reading what I’m writing. In fact, I enjoy his input. However, I find it distracting when he turns and begins reading over my shoulder. Almost inevitably, it causes my hands to leap from the keyboard and my thought process to stall.
With this writing exercise, especially with my headphones on and play list running, he can look all he wants. It distracts me much less. I’m not sure why this is since he always gives me an odd look and shakes his head, but it works.
It also works to keep my fingers typing, just as I keep my hand moving in my early morning longhand sessions. No editing marks mean there’s nothing to draw my attention to the screen. It also helps to limber my arthritic hands for a session on the keyboard. I can even close my eyes and type away. I’ve used this method for a few years, and find it works best for free-writing, venting, and pre-writing fiction.
I save the undesignated exercises in a special folder. Every so often, I’ll open one up, enlarge the type and clear up the font into something more legible. I always find something good somewhere in the mess…some little gem that made the session worth it.
Try it sometime. Let me know what you think!
WOW! Thank you for this idea! This makes me want to do a post on people reading over my shoulder. It’s one of my pet peeves. I CANNOT write if somebody does that.
Your exercise sounds wonderful. I must try it sometime.
What a great idea!! I’m going to have to try this sometime. I too hate people reading over my shoulder – at our old house hubby had to look past my screen to see the TV when he was at his computer and even that put me off! And he doesn’t even like reading so I know he wouldn’t! lol here I have my own out of the way corner, it’s great.
Interesting Idea. But it would never work for me. Even though I type quite fast, I tend to fat-finger on the keyboard and if I can’t see what I’m writing, I’m very likely to end up with a page of unrecognizable gibberish.
The concept is a sound one though.
Thankfully I don’t have the problem of anyone reading over my shoulder. It would freak me out because I am very protective of my writing while in progress.
Writing in Notepad in 8pt. is an interesting practice. I will try it BJ and let you know how it works.
[...] Here’s a cute idea to get the same benefit at your computer. [...]