A closed door gathers no distractions

Back in 2006 I read Stephen King On Writing. I took a lot away from it, including the concept of writing with the door closed. I did that. Literally. I took the spare computer out to the garage, set up a desk near the punching bag and each morning I would come out shut the door, do an hours work out on with the swiss ball and the punching bag and then I would sit and I would write as I munched away on seaweed rice crackers and drank water. In six weeks I wrote 115,000 words approx. and I also dropped a dress size.

But now, now I don’t write with the door closed, heck I don’t even hold off on sharing writing all that much anymore. My partner Sam gets to see everything pretty much, raw and in all its glory. Is this a good or bad thing? Often I will post things up on the character in question’s tumblr, or maybe share it with my other friends and writing people. I didn’t do that with Nyssa, still haven’t. Sam has read it but there is another person I am dying to show it to but I am resisting, I am keeping it closed to the world as I go through and edit it. Now this is hard for me, I’m a Leo, I thrive on praise and knowing that people like what I’ve written and getting feedback. (So if you haven’t already go and read Babypire and tell me that you like it, do it now, yes right now, this post will wait, I promise I won’t write anymore until you are back. Are you back? Good, we can continue.) Now it’s not exactly closed door writing for Nyssa but it’s the closest I’ve done in a long time, and what happened. On my holiday I knocked out nearly 40,000 words in just shy of two weeks and finished the story. This is a good thing. So I’m wondering if I should do that more. Stop just writing in spurts for my own personal writing, take one solo project on and run with it. Keep from showing all in sundry until it is finished. I am thinking that I might just set myself a goal for November, write Babypire. No word count to meet, nothing like that, just a deadline, to take Babypire and finish it. I’m assuming at this stage it’s going to be a very long short story or a novella, it doesn’t seem to have the complete substance for a full blown novel. So I won’t be doing NaNo as such, but I will be taking the chance to set myself a goal and achieve it in that month. After all according to the pagan calendar that will be the first month of the new year so why not take the chance to make it a good month. I just need to focus again and keep the door closed. But don’t worry Sam, I plan on locking you in the room with me *winks*