With three days off in a row, I plan for lots of writing. Here’s wishing that I follow my heart and keep the ass to the seat, and the fingers to the keyboard.

A rock solid week of writing turned cold mid-week. Unforseen extracurricular activities and the job swallowed way more time than I anticipated. Tomorrow the tide reverses.

Seriously though, how often does one need a tux fitting so he can serve as a best man? Or resolve two Internet connectivity issues, one of which idled the entire campus, and killed a business day. Plus convince a CFO that spending 20k is saving money. Then spend 20k.

Got The Stash to a few people for comments and feedback. This will be an interesting exercise, because I’m at a loss as to how I feel about the story myself. Horror and me might work.

Some claim one sign of a solid story is whether or not it interests the author. Translated, is this a story the author has to read? If so, maybe the piece has that special quality that sets it apart. I might be too old and jaded, but I know that my personal tastes are darker and more technical than to serve as any kind of indicator.

Oh, I know what I like. I like 1,200 page biographies and books on network design or application development.Then a Helen Fielding, James Patterson and Robert Parker chaser. Very different genres and kinds of entertainment, that stimulate different areas of the brain, and which draw very different readers. And yet I have no interest writing in any of those genres. All right, I would like to write mysteries like Parker, or thrillers like Patterson.

Bottom line: I distrust my judgment over whether a manuscript delivers the goods. Maybe that makes me try harder at my own writing. It might.

In the past two weeks, I have tried a number of techniques to improve productivity and increase focus while writing. I have learned one important lesson. By far the most effective technique is the simplest.

When I write now, I power up a laptop without inserting the wireless networking card. All writing happens on this one laptop. This combination allows me to work in anywhere, free of wires, and far from the call of the Internet. Ah, so elementary, yet so powerful.

Sure web research starts harmlessly enough. Perhaps a quick peek at websters.com for the online thesaurus or dictionary. Maybe pop over to cnn.com or foxnews.com for the latest headline. Current events matter, after all. And I want my howstuffworks.com, because the writers need intimate knowledge of engineering concepts. But all too often, what is a brief diversion snowballs into a twenty minute distraction.

And Internet borne distractions are more intrusive than life distractions. If the phone rings, I can pick it up and chat for a few minutes and return to a project in about the same place. If Buddhapuss jumps on on my lap, I pat him. But if I’m writing and start surfing, it breaks the spell that keeps the words flowing out of me and onto the screen. Double plus ungood.

Maybe someday I’ll have more discipline to manage my Internet intake. But for now, I’m working it Koontz style.

The Stash passes the morning after test. In other words, the story reads as it did when I finished writing.

Made a few quick tune-ups, but basically a very light edit. After I hear back from a few people who agreed to read it, I’ll consult with someone who knows a lot more about horror markets than myself and find it a home.