Landing : Athabascau University

Writing, distractions, actual, real distractions and procrastination.

This is a short one because I am so irritated by the suggestion that the features of our word processor programs —"bells and whistles" — could ever constitute anything approaching a real distraction in our contemporary, online, connected world.

I'm sorry but I'm just not convinced by the "technological bells and whistles" argument. I write in Google docs and copy/paste into Word for formatting and submission. I have composed in Word directly and I can emphatically state that the multitude of tabs and options does not distract me from the task at hand.

This whole word-processor "bells and whistles" argument is bogus. We are faced with distractions that far outweigh the charms of the "Word Count Tool" or the "Spell Check." Perhaps unbelievably, I am able to resist the erotic charms of Word's "Page Layout" and "Review" tabs, incredible as it might seem. Facebook, Youtube and my cell phone incessantly chiming, chirping, beeping and clamouring for my attention are far more enticing, as are my three kids (aged 14, 16 and 18) and their all-or-nothing demands. Yes now you have issues of incredulity! ;)


We have live debate; online romance; youtube subscriptions; streaming news; political activism; checking the feedback on our latest, incisive forum posts, and many other draws of our attention. I can honestly say I couldn't give two hoots how many esoteric menu items my word processor offers, (surprised?)

With all the real distractions I face every day it's remarkable that I ever get around to writing anything at all. I far prefer to court controversy than approval (which is what is basically required in academia - strange if you think about it for a writing course) and my online political activism is stimulating to the Nth degree. 

However, to return to the supposed distractions of the academic writer (and I can only assume that they are unstimulated by their chosen subject matter... I have decided to stop beating about the bush once and for all. My academc writing career is ready to take off. Without further ado I shall commence the first stage, familiar to all great writers. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, the procrastination shall begin! 

Comments

  • Jon Gordon July 13, 2013 - 9:25am

    Undoubtedly your "real distractions" are distracting, but I think many writers are also distracted by those squiggly red and green lines that Word puts under "errors," and when they stop writing to try to fix them they lose their train of thought and, as a result, feel they have nothing to say. This is not, in my view, mainly Word's fault; it is the fault of an education system that focuses mainly on eradicating "errors" from student writing rather than teaching a process of invention, drafting, revision, and proofreading. (The word count tool is a similar issue, with students trained to write until they reach a certain number rather than until the figure out what they want to say and how best to say it).

  • Gary Clemans-Gibbon July 27, 2013 - 10:03am

    I would expect that the spelling and grammar checker in Word can be turned off. I haven't tried turning them off myself though. I am often amused at Word's attempts to correct my English with its own "US English!"

  • Jon Dron July 27, 2013 - 11:16am

    Why not get your computer to procrastinate for you and skip the middle man? I have Typinator, which sometimes corrects Word's Canadian autocorrections to British spellings, then Word autocorrects Typinator's autocorrections...

    In passing, if you have a Mac, Scrivener is brilliant. Made for writers by writers.

  • James Ronholm July 29, 2013 - 7:35am

    Not a distraction perhaps - but when the writing is done, having too many options for layout (etc.) might mean increased production time. Having fewer options means less chance to differentiate your document with stylistic devices. Whether that leads to more time spent on the writing or not - I couldn't say.

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