Make sure your family and loved ones don’t interrupt you during your_x000D_ writing time. If you’re a lawyer or doctor, friends don’t just stop by the office to chat or interrupt you from your work. But for some reason, people think writing is different. It isn’t, and you need to make clear that this is sacred time.
Interpretation
Writing, like any profession, requires undisturbed time to be productive and should be respected as such.
In this quote, Douglas Preston emphasizes the importance of protecting one's writing time from interruptions, akin to how professions like law or medicine are respected. He argues that writing is a serious endeavor deserving of the same level of respect and focus, highlighting the need for boundaries to foster creativity and productivity.
In practice
In a writing workshop, I shared a quote by Douglas Preston to stress the importance of focused writing time.
A human being creates complexity by writing a novel on the surface of paper; a weather system creates complexity by writing waves on the surface of an ocean. What is the difference between the information carried in the words of a novel and the information carried on the waves of the sea? Listen, and the waves will speak, and someday, I tell you, you will write your thoughts on the surface of the sea.
I am saying that I was able to mold those hours around the needs of my family, and that matters. And I really encourage other people at Facebook to mold hours around themselves.
I would look at a dog and when our eyes met, I realized that the dog and all creatures are my family. They're like you and me.
When you have a daughter, you want to protect her from the things that I've seen out there, you know, the things that's out there that ain't good for her. It's a crazy world we live in.
What motivates me more than money are God and my family.
Every child needs at least one adult who is irrationally crazy about him or her.
I can't go back. The past won't go away in this family.
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