Writers: How to Avoid Constantly Being Interrupted—And When to Embrace It
Disruptions, from phone alerts to sick days, can derail our writing. Four authors talk about how they manage to (mostly) maintain the flow, with the help of timers, candles and compartmentalizing.
You’ve done what feels like the hardest part of writing: You’ve sat down to actually do the thing, gotten through those first sticky words and finally your writing is flowing. Then your phone buzzes, the leaf blower next door starts up, you remember you need to make that doctor’s appointment. Or an interruption takes even more of your focus: a sick family member, a move, even something wonderful like a wedding or a promotion. If you’re a writer of any kind, you’re probably familiar with this pattern. I’ve been there myself many times, only to come back to the page minutes or months later, unable to remember how to get started, what I was working on and sometimes even why I was writing in the first place.
Over the years, I’ve tried many things to ward off the interruptions I can prevent. I’ve worn construction headphones to muffle street noise; other times, I’ve used internet-blocking productivity apps like Freedom and Pomodoro timers to keep me on track. I even ordered a time-sensitive lockbox for my cell phone once, but I hardly used it: Locking my phone away entirely felt too extreme. As I put the lockbox in a bag for the thrift store, I started wondering whether it was worthwhile to go to such lengths to avoid interruptions. Is it really possible to do, and if yes, what are some of the best practices and tools you can use to stay focused? (For me, turning off text alerts and those headphones do work… sometimes.) On the other hand, do some writers find ways to accept interruptions, and even incorporate them into their writing and their lives?
With these questions in mind, I asked four authors how their writing lives have been shaped by interruptions big and small, how they guard against them and how they’ve moved forward despite — and sometimes, because of — something that’s paused their writing practice.
Bruna Dantas Lobato
Book: Blue Light Hours
To avoid interruptions, I tend to write late at night, when I know no one else will bother me and I don’t have to worry about checking my emails. I’ve also gotten into the habit of lighting a candle every time I want focused writing time, as a reminder to slow down and stay on task. If I get distracted and go online, I always feel like I’m forsaking the candle, like I’m wasting wax or something, even though they’re just cheap candles I buy in bulk at Ikea. There’s something very peaceful about watching the flame burn and the candle get smaller, and it’s easier for me to lose track of time and keep writing than when I’m using a timer.
I have a hard time moving from project to project, so I often block off entire weeks for each one and try to be fully immersed. I need that immersion to be able to come up with the right voice, the right language, the right mood. I’m jealous of writers who can multitask and work on multiple novels at once. Instead, I have writing days and translation days, mornings when I only focus on teaching and afternoons when I do all my admin work.
Writing residencies are an essential part of my practice, too. I apply to a handful every year and do a lot of planning ahead of time, so I can take time off all paying gigs. I also did a couple of DIY residencies when I was getting closer to the finish line with my book and felt that doing my own would push me over.
The past few years have been insanely busy for me. I worked a lot, moved several times, went through a long immigration process in the U.S. and struggled with migraines and anxiety. To finish my novel, I often felt like I had to aggressively ignore any interruption that could possibly be ignored (including pesky shoulder pain and finally learning how to drive) so I could address what couldn’t be ignored and still have some time left to write. My plan from now on is to keep ignoring the small stuff when I can and to continue doing a residency every year, but to take better care of myself, be a little kinder to my body, make peace with some of the interruptions.
Halley Sutton
Books: The Lady Upstairs and The Hurricane Blonde
I’ve recently been experimenting with different ways that help me to be my most productive, in-flow self. I have noticed that I’m best at dropping into writing when I time myself for an hour, versus giving myself a word count goal, because the latter is easy for me to game. With a timer, if I’m writing for an hour and I get interrupted, I’ll pause my timer and then pick up where I’ve left off until the time is up.
I use a timer on my phone, which is dangerous, but I really try to just check the timer and then put the phone right back down. I keep it face down next to me, on top of my journal, which I also think is valuable — it’s right on top of the place where I do some of my writing.
I also ritualize my writing process for the most part, which helps with interruptions. I try to keep my desk uncluttered. When I come to my desk, I light a little candle, set my timer for one hour, one minute — I give myself a minute to set up — I say an incantation and then I put my headphones on. I listen to music when I write, and that also gives me a sense of time, because I tend to listen to the same playlist as a cue for my brain — I know approximately what song I’m on after an hour.
I have noticed once or twice in the last couple of weeks, I’ve drifted away from writing and thought, “I’ll just check my email quickly.” But as soon as I catch myself doing it, I go back and pause my timer, close my email and then start my timer back up again. It just reinforces for me that this is not the moment for email, it’s the moment for writing.
Amy Stuber
Book: Sad Grownups
My writing life has been defined as much by interruptions as by periods of sustained productivity. I started writing in my 20s in college and grad school, stopped almost completely when I began a time-intensive full-time job outside of academia in 2002, wrote very little for many years after having my kids in 2005 and 2008, when I was very much struggling with postpartum depression and then just regular depression. I didn’t get back to writing in a real way until probably 2018, at which point I went into an almost panic mode and was hyper-productive for a few years, writing many stories, flash fictions, two novel drafts and who knows how many novel false starts.
Currently, on a micro level, I work full-time and edit on the side. My kids are both teenagers now and one is in college, but they still need things. So, like so many people I know, I am rarely sitting down and writing for hours at a time. I might write for 10 minutes during a work break or for 30 minutes early in the morning before taking my younger kid to school.
Because of this, pretty much all of the stories in my new short story collection, Sad Grownups, were written around small-scale daily interruptions. The story “Day Hike” stands out as one really affected by interruption, mainly because it has two narrative threads. I wrote one thread maybe a month or two before the other thread. Then it took me a year to really see how they actually went together and should be intertwined. If I had sat down and written in one concentrated period, these two different narratives coming together as this one story probably would not have occurred to me. [Author’s note: An example of how interruption can sometimes be a good thing, even though it might not feel like it in the abstract!]
The “writing for hours” method is just not how I operate, and I’m not sure if — given the time and money — I could or would work that way. I think I’d still want to write for an hour, go take a walk, read, clean, run errands and then write some more.
Katherine Standefer
Book: Lightning Flowers: My Journey to Uncover the Cost of Saving a Life
My book came out of a giant interruption: getting shocked to the heart by my implanted cardiac defibrillator. I was three months into my M.F.A., and I was working on another project. When I took those three shocks to the heart, I became obsessed with the question of whether or not what was inside me was going to save me or possibly harm me. This massive interruption — in my physical health, in my sense of safety — really pivoted things and gave me this framework to start working on Lightning Flowers.
I do think there can be divine timing or divine interruption, where we have a calcified sense of what we are doing — and then the interruption actually reveals the story. The interruptions that really stymie me are the daily necessities, like having to exist in capitalism. I am always hovering in the balance between what it takes to run classes and mentor people, and then what it takes to really disappear into the world of my own work. Not everybody writes like that — some people can drop in for a few hours — but when I’m writing, I’m really swimming for the treasure in the deep, deep dark.
These interviews have been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Writers: What do you do to avoid being interrupted while you work? Let us know in the comments! We’d love to benefit from your tips. 😀
Cameron Walker is a writer based in California. Her debut short story collection, How to Capture Carbon, was published by What Books Press in October 2024.
Love the candle thing!
This perspective is so helpful. I write in spurts. I'm disabled. I care for my adult disabled son. I relabeled the interruptions a few years ago and, instead, call them intersections, like pausing at a stoplight.
I also light a candle. A fig candle, which works like Pavlov's dog. Fig is now so specific, I'll start writing at first scent.
Thanks for this. I feel less alone.