We've all done it: written and checked WhatsApp or Instagram every now and then.
Leave it.
You will be amazed at how productive you become.
Award-winning author Nathan Englander sums it up in one sentence:
“Turn off your cell phone.”
Nathan Englander
Skill #7: Murder and Strangle
Every author who has ever dealt with benin telegram screening editing – that is, revising a text – has heard this advice:
This means: cut out everything that does not serve your text – no matter how much you love the passage.
Good authors are therefore merciless with their own texts. No matter how long they have worked on a sentence, a chapter or a character – fillers that eat up the reader's time must die.
I have a simple rule of thumb: when you've finished your text, try to shorten it by at least 10 percent. There's always something to be found.
“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler's heart, kill your darlings.”
Stephen King
The crazy thing about this trait: you need a healthy dose of masochism.
Authors therefore constantly live in a world of love and hate: they have to love their texts for them to be good. And hate everything that doesn't help the text.