Hi there. My name is Scott Duffy, and welcome to my book writing log. I have documented the process of writing my last two books on this site, and have started my third. This book will be called Visual Studio Team System In Action, and should be available in 2005.

OK, I think I'm finally hitting some kind of reasonable stride. I'm up to 4100 words, and I have only worked on the chapter for 2 hours so far today.

If I were to boil the science of book writing down to one key ingredient, it would be "focus". It is far to easy to stare at the blank page, at a loss for what to say or where to begin, and decide to put the book aside for a few minutes. Go check email. Get a bite to eat from the fridge. Check out what's on TV. Surf over to your favorite web site. There are a ton of temptations, and believe me, the book isn't going to be much easier to write when you eventually come around to getting back to it.

Oh, don't get me wrong. There are times (like when I update this blog) when a distraction can be helpful. You're not going to be able to focus when you have a headache for instance, so that would be a good time to stop. Or if you're getting too tired. Or too hungry. Breaks are good for the mind, so take them. But when the number of breaks outnumber the number of pages you've written, you should figure out how to focus more on the task at hand.

I once read (sorry, I don't have a reference to the source), that humans function most effectively two hours at a time. Any more than two straight hours produces a serious drop in productivity. Worker A was asked to work from 10am-Noon, and 2pm-4pm. Worker B worked from 8am-Noon, and 1pm to 5pm. Guess who produced more work. Well, actually they produced the same amount of work. But our friend Worker A did it in half the time (4 hours instead of 8 hours).

Anyways, that's all for now. My writing break is over. ;)
Scott