Twitter, yet another reason not to write

I keep a digital timer by the computer to help me stay focused while I write, something I learned from Stephanie Bond. I was checking out my Facebook page night before last and realized that instead of the three minutes to read mail, I'd spent thirty minutes friending folks, catching up on their 25 answers (a meme that's still circulating), and otherwise not writing my book. I wondered how much time I actually spent checking up on my friends, or to be honest, checking up on who was thinking about me. I used my handy timer, and every time I checked Facebook, Myspace, my email or Twitter, my latest favorite time waster, I noted the total time.

Don't be shocked: TWO HOURS AND FIFTEEN MINUTES. Holy cow. In two hours I can easily write five pages. More than five, but let's keep at that for experiment's sake.

So if I didn't write five pages that night, nor any other night that week, in a month I would not have written 150 pages. Two months later, that equals a book, folks.

I know that not every night is productive, and that I usually write my five pages as well as check my social networks, but it was disturbing. I'm thinking of a solution. Maybe I'll tweet about it.