TOWN IN A WILD MOOSE CHASE

Feeling hot and bothered this summer? Take a look at B.B. Haywood's new book, Town in a Wild Moose Chase. It should make your temperature drop. Candy Holliday and her friends are at it again in the third book in the Berkley Prime Crime series, this time during Cape Willington's winter carnival! The book will be published, appropriately, in the winter of 2012. Read it to see how a cozy is put together!

Addendum to article below....

For some reason, the link I enclosed for today's post--a great essay in the New York Times--seems to be broken. It requires sign-in to the the NY Times site. My apologies. The article is just great. It was published on July 24 and talks about  imprisoned writers through history whose writing improved because of their incarceration. Find it, read it, if you can.

PRISON MAY BE JUST THE PLACE FOR WRITERS

Photo by Arvin Balaraman

Maybe what I need--maybe what you, as a writer need--is a stiff prison sentence. That might be just the ticket to get us all focused and inspired to churn out the work we so desperately need to do without the distractions of the digital age.

But I have to confess, it's not simply the Internet that gets in the way of my productive work. It's my aged mother-in-law, my failing cat, and the umpteen things that I'd rather be doing during the summer than putting nose to grindstone.

Here are a few tips I've come up with to help myself do what needs to be done. Maybe they will be helpful to you as well:

• Exercise in the morning, before the day begins. Then you have no excuse to quit working mid-day.
• Get your in-box down to a reasonable number and KEEP it there. (This is advice I really need to follow with upwards of 500 queries as of this writing.)
• If you are writing, write. Don't email or answer emails. Don't talk on the phone. Don't surf the web. Write for two hours or so, then do those things.
• Reward yourself with a night out, a movie, a visit with a friend after a long, productive day.Or, do you think the Internet helps you?

What do you do to keep yourself organized and prolific? Does the Internet slow down your progress?  How do you avoid its allure? Or, does the Internet help you?