Blog 1 9/3 - Josh Freetly

    Writing starts at my desk in the corner against the wall with my laptop place directly in front of me. On the desk around the computer is a pencil, paper, and of course, my phone. The walls around my desk are a light blue that I find calming when the stress of writing starts to weigh on me and get in the way of workflow. Placed at the back of my desk, against the wall, is a bulletin board providing more additional background to the calming blue of the familiar walls around me. The board is decorated with things I find inspiring or that I find amusing and when I need a short break to gather my thoughts it helps to serve as inspiration and motivation to keep going and do my best work on the writing. The last thing in my writing area is headphones both to block out noise and to play music to help focus.

    Focus is the most important part of my writing process and the technology I use in my writing process, my laptop, phone, and headphones help me tremendously with focus when I use them correctly. Used incorrectly they can start to distract me from the task at hand. My phone is the single biggest potential cause of distraction near me, rather than be checking various social media platforms or texting my friends when I should be working. I counteract a lot of this by keeping it face down at the edge of my reach to make it a less tempting distraction. When it does not distract me, it offers a brilliant tool for quickly looking up words or references to use in my writing. The laptop and the headphones go hand in hand when they backfire into a distraction, be that by listening to distracting music or watching something unrelated to the writing taking place. Using the laptop and the headphones correctly allow me to get a lot of work done by allowing me to quickly switch between my materials and focus on relaxing and productive music. 

    The focus I've been building up to this point is best maintained in a quiet controlled atmosphere with some background white noise to block at some distracting noises. I prefer to be alone in the room when I'm writing as others around can make noise or be too tempting to talk to and cause a distraction. The other noise involved is the music I'm playing to quiet out any other background noise and to help tame my thoughts. The music is usually something I've heard many times making it more background than something I need to actively listen to or it's soft ambient background music that won't be distracting. It is always played through headphones as that helps me really zone in and get my writing done. After the music has been on while it is will sometimes stop and I will have gotten focused because of it and no longer keep it playing. A familiar setting with my preferred technologies and solitude always builds a good atmosphere and keeps me focused, motivated, and inspired.