Writer's Block vs. Farmville.

In the paper this week there was an article devoted to explaining the popularity of facebook games such as Farmville and Mafia Wars.  I am guilty as charged and with the slow death of newspapers across the country, I am probably in the minority of those users who would have read the article.  As a writer I have used various distractions to temper the enemy of all prose know as writer's block.

In the early days, when the perfect pen and the perfectly ratty notebook were the tools of my trade, I used a deck of cards.  I would play solitaire while considering all possibilities of how to begin or jump start a stalled tale.  As my tools advanced, and I began to use a pc, my deck of cards made way for tetras.  Tetras was self defeating as the games need for spacial thinking required too much of my conscious mind and I only became more blocked.  From their I discovered the wonderful games of solitaire and mine sweep.  The beauty of these gems was that in the early days most employers did not know to remove this function on the computer.  I played this in the background of phone calls and between emails.

Those addictions followed me home and became a very effective distraction from any editing or writing I tried to do at home.  Then my sister introduced me to facebook.  It was such a lovely way to procrastinate and feel connected at the same time.  I refused invitation after invitation and many gifts from both Farmville and Mafia wars.  Then late one sleepless night, curiosity won out.  I accepted the invitation to become someone's neighbor.  Suddenly I had a green pasture and four different crops I could plant with a simply click of the mouse.  It wasn't until a month later that a farmville devotee showed me a few simple strategies  to make my farm "pay."

My list of neighbors grew and their ideas for the ideal farm were many and varied.  I realized that during my days of scheduled editing and writing, that it was easy enough by out a few minutes to harvest, plow and plant new crops.  Suddenly I was spending as much time tending my virtual farm as I was writing.  During the editing sessions it was easy to watch the clock and toggle from my chapter to my farm.

The addiction was worse than solitaire, spider solitaire and mine sweep combined.  I could create designs in my fields.  I could earn enough to by a tool shed, a barn and even a house.  I obsessed about reaching higher levels, getting there faster than my neighbor and playing catch up to players who had been playing a lot longer than I have.

As for the writing?  Well I am happy to report that I managed to get the editing done.  Although starting something new was much harder.  I had to go to coffee shops with my laptop to get any real work done. The connection speed on the 5 year old machine is deplorable and my animals could not move their heads and the plowing was terrible.  Friends started to block me because they had seen enough of homeless pink cows and moving on up posts.

So I confess to being a full on addict.  I'd love to talk more but I have some black berries to harvest.