If I didn’t have Attention Deficit Disorder before, I have it now. For instance, after writing that sentence I grabbed my phone to find a Bernie Sanders meme that I saw last night (the one of him with David Bowie from Labyrinth). Why? I don’t know. Does one need an excuse to look for pictures of Bernie Sanders in situations? But I think the problem lies deeper than that.

I was once able to sit down and write for hours. It was the one thing I could do for long periods of time besides sleep. In the summer between the 8th and 9th grade, I spent most of my time sitting on my bedroom floor writing a book on loose-leaf paper. I would write for hours and hours, listening to music with my door closed.

Now I have a phone that follows me into every room and constantly asks me to hold it. It wants to tell me things. I’ll be writing and my phone will say, “What was the name of that movie with Liza Minnelli and Dudley Moore that you watched when you were a kid?” and I’ll say “I don’t know” and my phone will say “YOU MUST KNOW RIGHT NOW” and I’ll dive for the phone to Google the answer, and then I’ll find out, and then I’ll remember scenes that were funny, and then I’ll remember that Dudley Moore is dead, and then I’ll become sad, and then I’ll go eat ice cream.

And that’s how books are written.

Actually, that’s how books take forever to write. It’s a terribly ineffective creative process but I’d be lying if I were to tell you that it’s been any different lately. It’s a bitch to let go of.

“What part is hard to let go of?” you ask. “The phone?”

All of it. I’ve gotten so used to checking the news to see if everything is okay that I find myself doing it periodically in the middle of something else.

Scenario from any given point in the last two weeks: I’m cleaning the litter box. I think, “Are we under attack again?” I drop the scoop. I check the news. I see that we’re fine, except that the COVID rate is up. I breathe a sigh of relief.

Living in a world where I turn on the news and think “Oh good, it’s just COVID” has made me a twitchy mess.

Is my ADD solely the fault of global shenanigans over the last year? Good God, no. I’ve developed sooooooo many bad habits since I was thirteen. Like a full time job and loved ones. Okay, and phone games and information at my finger tips at all times. These days it takes much more discipline to prevent distraction than it did in 1989.

So how does one focus in this day and age? Let’s say you want to write a book. “Genevieve,” you say, “why in Bernie Sander’s name would I ever want to write a book?” Okay, let’s say you want to write Schitt’s Creek fan fiction. How do you accomplish that with so many phones talking, people posting, pets demanding to be walked, and bill collectors calling? I realize that I just made a whole bunch of assumptions about your life so let’s just say you have a social media scrolling addiction. What do you do?

Stop that.

Hahaha, I made it sound easy, didn’t I? I know that it’s not. I know that it’s difficult to not pick up the phone every few minutes. Sometimes I get so many notifications all at once, I forget to reply to really important ones like a text that says, “Call me when you can.” What did that person want? I don’t know, I got that text five days ago at the same time that I was on a group message with nineteen people about carpet cleaning recommendations.

Right now my phone is across the room and on silent. I can’t turn it off because I can’t emotionally handle it being off. Across the room and silent is the best I can do. People will have to wait for my carpet cleaning recommendations (rip it up – get tile), whatever is on the news now will be on later, and I can write down whatever questions I have for Google and look them up after I write. I’ve broken enough habits to know that it’s small changes like this that will get me back to happily writing for hours at a time.

The name of the movie with Liza Minelli and Dudley Moore was Arthur. I looked it up and found lots of pictures of Dudley Moore wearing a top hat in a bubble bath. As much as I want you to get back to writing, take some time to add Bernie Sanders to this picture: