Shiny Object Syndrome: When Distractions Try to Derail Your Progress

Dug, the dog from the Disney/Pixar film Up, is easily distracted.

You’re writing along, making excellent progress on your draft or your revision, and then wham!

You get the most stunning idea for a novel! It demands your attention. It keeps you from falling asleep at night. It dances around in front of you when you’re trying to work on your current work-in-progress.

This is shiny object syndrome.

Or, to put it in dog terms, it’s a squirrel.

A distraction.

It feels like a trick your mind is playing on you. Like some part of you is afraid to complete your current project because … what if it isn’t good enough?

What if you’ve spent all this time working on yet another novel that won’t find an agent, won’t find a publisher, won’t ever, ever, ever get into the hands of kid readers?

First, breathe. Just breathe.

Your fears are real.

You can’t control how others will perceive your work. You can’t control a fickle book market.

But you can control where you put your time, effort, and attention.

As I mentioned in my last post, I was hit by shiny object syndrome recently. I think it is no coincidence that it popped up when I’m about three-fourths of the way through the first draft of my middle grade mystery novel.

I know how it ends and I have the major plot points mapped out. But I don’t know some of the big details, like how the kid detective figures out who perpetrated the major crime.

My uncertainty is very likely why I’ve been susceptible to shiny object syndrome.

But I’m not letting that uncertainty get the better of me. I’m not letting it undermine my confidence in this story.

I’ve been showing up for this story and getting the work done on it for months now. My goal is to finish a draft of it by March 31.

How can you manage shiny object syndrome?

Here’s what’s been working for me:

• I acknowledged what’s going on—that another book idea is trying to get my attention.

• I journaled briefly about the idea so that it knows I’m taking it seriously.

• Then I checked out some books from the library to test my potential interest in the idea. In particular I read Mary Karr’s The Art of Memoir, which got me thinking, but not in a frenetic, I-need-to-stop-working-on-my-WIP-and-do-this-instead kind of way.

After two tough days of making little or no progress on my MG novel, I was able to get back into it and move forward again.

Whew. I can do this.

So can you.