Sometimes it takes me awhile to get momentum going, and it takes the entire time alloted to get anything written. Any day I start tweeting and posting on Facebook takes precious writing time away. And don’t get me started on trying to create e-books — I know I have to figure it out, but it’s been a tedious and time-consuming process that’s taken much of my writing time.

But it’s so much easier to click link after link–to chat on newsgroups and Twitter–than to write. I could spend all day every day online and still not follow every interesting person, read every interesting blog, discover and explore every interesting and informative website.

So I have to limit myself, especially at certain points during the progress of a book. I fall into your novel-writing-selling-7-days-a-week writer category (well, not ALWAYS 7 days a week…but six at least.) Today, for instance, I’m working on copy edits–not one of my favorite chores. And found myself watching the Shuttle launch (OK–last Endeavor launch–worthwhile), then switching to a NYT columnist, then checking Twitter, then reading a NATURE article on the meltdown in one of the Japanese reactors, then, then checking email, then Twitter, then listservs…until I stomped on the Lazy and started to work. Lost at least two hours. (And I’m here, only because I’ve done half my self-assigned daily load of copy edit coping. About to disappear again.)

For me, non-internet things enrich the writing more than internet-hopping: gardening, photography, a visit with real live people, even a walk on the land. And the horrible times when I have to force myself to sit there, hour after hour, struggling with a knot in the book…untangle the knot much better than surfing or social networking.

That being said–people, including writers, vary. (But for me–there’s a limit to how much I can be online and still produce at the rate I need to.)