Many of you know that I fell in love with Serena Chase- I mean her writing – last year. Ever since I’ve been daily practicing patience. Okay, so maybe some days I have to sit on my hands to keep from begging her to tell me a story!

So, possibly some days I’m not as virtuous at patience as I should be and you, my dear readers have lucked out because she agreed to stop by 😉

Here’s a bit of Serena’s personality to tide you over until you can have The Seahorse Legacy in your hands:

10 Ways to Derail a Writing Day

by Serena Chase

I will be the first to tell you that I am easily distracted—especially when working on the first draft of a project. Here are just a few of the things that can attack my plans for a productive writing day and send me off the tracks.

1. The expectation that I will still shower and get dressed when a deadline is closing in. Gross, right? But there are days every now and then when I know that pausing even to throw on “real” clothes, let alone shower, could possibly send my writing train over the bridge. I do, however, attempt a mad personal hygiene dash about 20 minutes before the kids are scheduled to come home from school . . . usually. Okay, sometimes I just find a bra and put on a fresh t-shirt and yoga pants, but it’s an effort, right?
2. Out of nibblies—specifically, nibblies drenched in chocolate. A cupboard lacking quality chocolate is a travesty that shall not be allowed to remain uncorrected! But if I’m going to the store anyway, I better make a grocery list, right? Ba-da-bing! An entire day is lost to modern hunting and gathering.
3. Bad weather. Lightning, wind, ice, and excessive heat can all cause power outages here in Iowa. On these days, I unplug to avoid frying my computer and then type like the laptop battery is the only oxygen left on planet earth and I must finish the current scene or suffocate. But after only a few hours, I’m out of battery steam power and too paranoid to plug the laptop back in, even with a surge protector. Chug-a-lug-a-chuuug-aaa-luuuuug. Done.
4. The Irresistible Cuteness of Albus. When my dog is feeling neglected and he wants to play, he is really insistent. And really, really cute. I mean, how do you combat cute? Writing train, meet ditch (but at least it’s a cute, fluffy ditch that loves me.)
5. Playlist creation. I generally stick to instrumental soundtracks while writing and editing, but whenever I’m engaged in non-writing activities, I like to listen to lyric-driven music that reflects my characters. It keeps the inspiration flowing. So I fool myself into believing the use of “desk time” to create these playlists is a productive activity, but in reality, it steals time from the actual writing of the stinking book.
   Just for funzies, here’s a link to one of my Spotify playlists for The Seahorse Legacy! The Seahorse Legacy Spotify Playlists
6. Pinterest “Inspiration” boards. As with my playlists, I excuse this colossal time-eater as something that will fuel future productivity, but *ducks head* it’s mostly just me messing around.
   Feel like wasting some time? Here’s a link to my inspiration board for The Seahorse Legacy. http://www.pinterest.com/serenachase/the-seahorse-legacy-eyes-of-everia-book-3/
7. Clutter beyond the norm. No one who knows me would ever accuse me of being a neat freak. In fact, my office is so scary most of the time that I do most of my writing at the dining room table! But I hit a point, about every 7-10 days, when I simply cannot handle the level of clutter sharing space with me. When I hit this point, I can’t even FIND the inspiration train, let alone board it for Awesometown, until the problem has been fixed and my calm restored.
8. Horrormones. You know the ones I’m talking about. Being a girl is hard. We’re obsessive and critical of ourselves on a good day, but a few choice days out of each month send those traits into a psychotic sort of hyper-awareness. When an author sits down to work during this “special time” she can easily become convinced that she will never again produce another worthy sentence, let alone an entire book worth reading. Hormones, aka: horrormones, can derail a writing day like no other force would dare.
9. Oooh, idea! For an author, this particular form of Attention Deficit Derailment comes in the form of inspiration for a new story; something exciting and fresh that, in that moment, the author believes could probably become her “breakout novel.” These new ideas alter our focus and tempt us to abandon our current trajectory and jump on a shiny new story train.
10. Accidental decaf. (’nuf said.)

So there you have it: ten of the myriad ways Serena Chase’s best tracking writing trains can be derailed. But authors aren’t the only ones whose plans for productivity can become a train wreck of distraction and dismay. What are some of the common ways your plans get derailed?

THE SEAHORSE LEGACY

Author Bio:

Serena Chase lives in Iowa with her husband, two teen daughters, and one very spoiled (but really adorable) dog, Albus. A frequent contributor to USA Today’s Happy Ever After blog, she also writes for Edgy Inspirational Romance. Serena has served as a youth leader for high school students at her church, coaches her local high school’s Color Guard, and drinks entirely too much coffee between these and her daughters’ activities.

Readers, find more about Serena Chase by visiting her website www.serenachase.com She is also on Twitter @Serena_Chase and you can “like” her official author page on Facebook to keep up to date on contests, news, giveaways, and upcoming releases.

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