Follow The Inspiration, But Don't Get Distracted

So four days and not very much writing (or at least not very much writing that didn't make me frustrated, but more on that further on) later, I've learned two things:  1) follow the inspiration, 2) don't get distracted.

Okay, so Follow The Inspiration.  That's simple enough, write what you're inspired to write.  If you've got to work on something that you can't seem to get started, work on something else.  Hopefully, something that you're inspired to write.  That actually worked really well for me, because once I got on a writing roll, I was able to seamlessly transition from what I started writing to what I needed to write.  So that's the good news.  The bad news is that it took me four days.  Why did it take me four days instead of one?  That brings me to:

Don't Get Distracted.  Now, when I say, "don't get distracted," I don't mean by the television or youtube or whatever (though that's pretty distracting, I covered that one in The Sound of Silence).  I mean by writing.  What?  How can you get distracted by writing when you're writing?  Isn't that an oxymoron?  Yes, and like an oxymoron, it works.  Okay, so a little bit of background:  I read news online.  Sometimes I read about politics online.  That's a mistake.  Don't read about politics online, it'll just make you mad.  And, occasionally, when I'm mad, I read the comments.  That's also a mistake.  Never read the comments.  They'll just make you furious.  On the plus side, when I'm furious, I'm inspired to write.  On the down side, I'm inspired to write comments on political news articles (yes, I become one of those people).  And that doesn't help me to write anything else.  In fact, it does the opposite.  It inspires me to continue writing comments and I have trouble calming down enough to write other stuff.  It doesn't help that the people who I'm commenting to are equally furious and respond back to whatever point I've made, which I feel obliged to respond to, and so on.  It really is a vicious circle.  And four days later, you stop checking your inbox for responses and finally get around to writing what you should have been writing four days ago before you got distracted by political news articles.

So really, you can't always follow your inspiration.  Because sometimes it just takes you in a furious circle, like a dog chasing it's tail.  The important part is knowing when your inspiration is going to take you in a horrible mobius strip of rage and when it's going to lead you to where you want to go.