A 30-Day Trial of Only 30 Minutes of Internet a Day

This post will walk through a 30-day trial of reducing your undirected internet use to just 30 minutes a day.

When I was a kid, my parents allowed me to watch TV for only 30 minutes a day. Back then, I saw this as maltreatment. Now, I'm grateful for their foresight.

Today, of course, the real threat to our productive time isn't TV--it's the internet.

To be clear: I'm not talking about internet time spent on research, emailing query letters and so on. That's real work. I'm talking about toxic time-wasters: undirected, purposeless web browsing, pointless Facebook debates, even reading the daily news and getting depressed about some awful event you have no control over in some place you'll never go.

Our goal is to cordon off and dramatically reduce the productive time we waste each day with undirected or unproductive internet use, and redirect that time towards our work. So, get out your calendar, pick a day to start (how about today?), and for the next 30 days, do the following:

1) Start each day with a session of writing and creative work. Don't begin your day with undirected websurfing or social media.

2) Identify a specific time you intend to allocate to undirected internet use, set a 30 minute timer, and when the timer goes off, that's it. That's your mental candy for the day. No more email, Facebook, Twitter, news, Pinterest, games, nothing. Stop and go back to work.

This trial might seem incomprehensible to you at first, but after a few days, you'll get more and more used to the idea of cordoning off your websurfing time. Of course, the most important part of this trial is start each day with creative work, not with internet use. That first decision you make each day--to dedicate each day's first moments to your work, not someone else's--is the first big leap in this trial. Attend to your own stuff first.

TV, Consumerism and Lifestyle Copying

We already know television distracts us with mindless, creativity-sapping "entertainment." But there's another enormous problem with TV, one that wastes an enormous amount of creative time.

That stupid flickering screen teaches us to buy stuff. Television induces consumerism. And quite often it does so in laughably unsubtle ways. Who hasn't watched young kids see a toy on TV and instantly demand it?

Have you ever witnessed a child do this? Did you chuckle inside, and gratefully thank your stars that you've grown up and are no longer so easily manipulated? Thank goodness this kind of thing never happens with adults.

I'm kidding. The same exact thing happens with adults. In fact, we're more easily manipulated because television works on us in more subtle and subversive ways. It frames a reality for us. It shows idealized ways to live, and we find ourselves copying aspects of this reality without really thinking about it.

How does this waste our creativity? Because it takes energy--creative energy--to copy someone else's ideas on how to live. Imagine if we directed this energy at producing our own ideas.

Four-Fifths the Words, Four Times the Clarity

Our muscles slaked their lactic acids and we stopped our thirst with long draughts of sweet water still almost as cold as the mountain stream from which we had drawn it at lunchtime.

The sentence above, one of several doozies from Paul Gruchow's book The Necessity of Empty Places, tripped me so badly that I decided to write an entire post about it.

Nobody's perfect. If one or two sentences like this survives in your manuscript, fine. You'll confuse your readers, but they'll forgive you. However, if you leave a few dozen sentences like this in your book, your readers won't forgive you. This kind of writing--sloppy, wordy, convoluted--communicates active disdain for your audience.

Let's fix it.

Our muscles slaked their lactic acids: Let's start with the obvious mistake here: lactic acid is a mass noun. It isn't pluralized.

Less obvious: this clause dangles without context. The reader must contemplate entire the sentence to understand what Gruchow means by Our muscles slaked. Which means the reader has to read the sentence twice to understand it. Yes, nature writing is supposed to be relaxed and meandering, but this goes too far.

draughts: This word grows more and more archaic by the day. Use drinks.

still almost as cold as: Omit needless words. Replace with as cold as.

the mountain stream from which we had drawn it at lunchtime: This author is trying to obey the rule to never end a sentence in a preposition--when his sentence doesn't end in a preposition! Replace with the mountain stream we'd drawn it from at lunchtime.

Finally, please add a comma somewhere--anywhere--to allow your readers to breathe.

Here's a tighter version of the sentence, with four-fifths the words and four times the clarity:

We stopped our thirst and slaked our muscles with long drinks of sweet water, as cold as the mountain stream from which we'd drawn it at lunchtime.

Four Excellent Books on Writing

If you're serious about improving your writing craft, read each of the following four books:

The Curious Case of the Misplaced Modifier by Bonnie Trenga

One of the most witty and useful books you'll ever find on common grammar and style errors.

Effective Writing by Bruce Ross-Larson

Rhetorical techniques, phrasing ideas and other verbal flourishes you can use to punch up your writing and convey your message with flair.

The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White

I've read and reread this tiny book several times over the course of my life, each time finding new and valuable ideas in it. A must-read for any serious writer.

Wild Mind by Natalie Goldberg

An immensely freeing book that gives you courage with every page. Contains an enormous collection of writing prompts (see for example the I don't remember prompt) to take your mind to new levels of creativity.

How To Fix Convoluted Writing

Readers: take a look at the following sentence from Paul Gruchow's book The Necessity of Empty Places:

Without warning you will suddenly, at Chamberlain, South Dakota, encounter the Missouri River, fat and lazy behind its succession of dams and tucked into a deep and narrow valley beneath dramatic bluffs as naked in their thin raiment of short grasses as newborn bear cubs.

What's wrong with this sentence? The short answer: lots.

1) It's too long.
This sentence contains 45 words, a simile, a conjunction, two prepositional phrases and two parenthetical clauses. It's too long and too complicated. Don't bury your readers under ten pound sentences, it's cruel.

2) It's convoluted.
This sentence contains two excellent examples of convoluted writing. First:

...you will suddenly, at Chamberlain, South Dakota, encounter

This throws readers for a full loop. Why? Because the parenthetical clause at Chamberlain, South Dakota is illogically placed. Better to say:

Without warning, at Chamberlain, South Dakota, you will suddenly encounter the Missouri River.

Bonus points for omitting the needless word suddenly. The preposition Without warning renders it redundant.

Let's examine the second half of the sentence for an even better example of convoluted writing. See words in bold below:

...fat and lazy behind its succession of dams and tucked into a deep and narrow valley beneath dramatic bluffs as naked in their thin raiment of short grasses as newborn bear cubs.

It's odd to say the least to place the distracting phrase in their thin raiment of short grasses between the first and second parts of a simile. This is terrible style.

3) Note the split verb/adverb pair.
Okay. Let's return to the phrase you will suddenly, at Chamberlain, South Dakota, encounter.

This phrase isn't just convoluted. It contains a high school level grammatical error: a split verb/adverb pair. For whatever reason, this author slapped the parenthetical clause at Chamberlain, South Dakota between the adverb/verb pair suddenly and encounter. This doesn't just confuse readers--it also ruins the sentence's cadence.

4) Punctuation helps.
Yes, there are some desultory commas in the first portion of this sentence, but once you get to the phrase fat and lazy you're on your own. There's no punctuation at all to help you identify clauses, breaks or pauses. The reader gets the privilege of untangling the author's ideas.

Two places where commas would help: after Without warning (to help the reader identify this as a prepositional phrase) and after succession of dams (to give the reader a chance to breathe). Punctuation helps readers. Use it once in a while.

The fix.
Is it possible to fix a sentence like this? Here's my attempt to repair it, while honoring and maintaining the author's style and voice:

Without warning, at Chamberlain, South Dakota, you will suddenly encounter the Missouri River, fat and lazy behind its succession of dams, and tucked into a deep and narrow valley beneath dramatic bluffs as naked as newborn bear cubs in their thin raiment of short grasses.

Look, The Necessity of Empty Places is not a bad book, at least in the context of conservation and environmental literature. (Hey, I love the environment too, but let's be honest: this genre tends to gush purple meandering prose). But please, be careful flinging sentences like this at your readers--they might harm the environment still more by throwing your book away. Once again, simple writing is almost always the best writing.

One final thought. This is a professionally published book written by a well-regarded author. And yet you can write better than this. Get going.

Your First, Most Important Choice of the Day

In the morning, when you first sit down to begin writing, you have a choice. An incredibly important choice.

Will you start with your work? Or with a quick browse of your email and a few different sites?

Oh, man, that second choice is so tempting, isn't it?

It'll only take a few minutes to check my email. I'll delete a few things and then I'll get right back to writing. Yeah, and maybe I'll quickly check Facebook too, but just for a second. It won't take that long. Then I can get started with my creative work.

And just like that, before you know it, you've wasted, at a minimum, the first half hour of your day. Perhaps much more. You've distracted yourself and you've hurt your productivity. Worst of all, you're unlikely to remember anything of what you just wasted your time on.

This is not what you're here on Earth to do.

Start with your creative work first. Then reward yourself with a quick browse of the internet.

Criticizers, Dream Zappers and Put-er Down-ers

I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.
--Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity

The phrase "dream zappers" didn't exist back when Ray Bradbury was writing this book, but clearly he understood the concept.

Get away from those who criticize you, who drag you down and distract you from your goals, who mock you for the things that interest you. Find room in your life for people who support your creative pursuits. They're out there. Keep putting your work out there and you'll find them.

In short, don't indulge negative people, get away from them. Pack up your dinosaurs and leave.