Drinking Ron Carlson's Kool-Aid

While at Squaw Valley Writers Workshop in August, Ron Carlson, one of our fiction workshop leaders, encouraged us to lay off the email until after 4:00 p.m., and to forgo blogging altogether. He's no Luddite, but he's got a point: all things technology are time suckers -- and he never even mentioned Facebook, which I confess is an all-out addiction.

The point is that there are too many distractions for writers, most having to do with eating, coffee drinking, and excuse-making in general, and if we're "working" on anything other than fiction, we're simply goofing off.

So I'm taking a sabbatical from blogging, and limiting myself to two Facebook visits per day -- before 9:00 a.m., and after 4:00 p.m., when I'll also check email.

Can I do it? Heck if I know, but I'm gonna try. I gotta try. I've got a deadline for the first draft of my new novel, and if I'm going to nail it, I've got to drink Ron's Kool-Aid.

See you April 1?