Janet Fitch Quotes

When you find yourself on the Internet when you're supposed to be writing, you've already lost. It's even beyond procrastination when you end up on the Internet.

I can write pretty much anywhere if you give me time and some quiet. The home is not usually the best place because I have four children. It's usually pandemonium around here!

I write in a noisy, distracting world so the books can be read there.

My house in Connecticut is very quiet, and when I'm trying to concentrate, I don't even allow the cat inside my second-floor study.

Teens think listening to music helps them concentrate. It doesn't. It relieves them of the boredom that concentration on homework induces.

I do occasionally get into that 'checking Twitter every five minutes' state - 'Please, help me avoid my work.' I have a writing room for when I get completely out of control, so I can put myself out of the Internet's reach.

I get 0.5 seconds to react to a ball, sometimes even less than that. I can't be thinking of what XYZ has said about me. I need to surrender myself to my natural instincts. My subconscious mind knows exactly what to do. It is trained to react. At home, my family doesn't discuss media coverage.

During my long study sessions in the library, I found myself watching YouTube videos during study breaks.

I set a goal for myself everyday when I write - 10 pages a day - and it's much harder because I'm too dumb to turn off my Twitter and everything so it's always on and it's a real distraction. It's a major distraction.

You can write any time people will leave you alone and not interrupt you. Or, rather, you can if you will be ruthless enough about it. But the best writing is certainly when you are in love.

I spent most of my time playing pool instead of studying.

The Web forces me to be disciplined and not to waste time - but before the Web was invented, there were plenty of opportunities to do that anyway.

I should be concentrating on writing pages.

I have to avoid things like 'World of Warcraft' or 'Minecraft', otherwise I'd never get any work done.

I have a short attention span, so when one book isn't working out, I just work on another.

If you react to every barking dog, if you stop for every barking dog, you're never getting home.

When I work on stories, I tend to lose sight of everything else. I forget to pay bills or to shave. I don't change my clothes as often as I should.

There's no writer's block; there's only distraction.

The biggest challenge is to stay focused. It's to have the discipline when there are so many competing things.

Training, and every morning I have to take my dogs out into the forest. That's all I'm doing. I'm staying out of everything else. All other things that can take out my concentration and my energy from the training.

I write in cafes, never at home. I cannot focus at home, am forever getting off my chair to do other things. In a cafe, I have to sit still, or I'll look a bit unhinged.

When I write, I try to turn my Internet off so I can't procrastinate through the Internet, but then I just get deeply involved in whatever I have just on my computer.

My biggest hurdle usually has to do with concentration. I have a tendency to kind of start working on something, and then, all of a sudden, I'll totally divert and do something totally different.

Cruising the Internet doesn't count as writing. Neither does answering e-mail. Before you check Twitter & FB and do other similar tasks that get in the way of writing, write first. (I really need to take my own advice here!)

The library was like a second home. Or maybe more like a real home, more than the place I lived in. By going every day I got to know all the lady librarians who worked there. They knew my name and always said hi. I was painfully shy, though, and could barely reply.