Falling Into – And Out of – Writing

February 9, 2012

In an interview with The Paris Review, James Thurber said, “I never quite know when I’m not writing.

“Sometimes my wife comes up to me at a party and says, ‘Dammit Thurber, stop writing.’ She usually catches me in the middle of a paragraph. Or my daughter will look up from the dinner table and ask, ‘Is he sick?’ ‘No,’ my wife says, ‘he’s writing something.’”

We can “write” in our heads while we’re driving, working out, at the dinner table or lying in bed drifting off to sleep. We can work out a piece’s structure or imagine a crisper specific detail while we’re doing the dishes, knitting, playing with clay or shoveling snow. It’s said that everything is grist for the writer’s mill, so in a sense, we’re always doing research. It seems that writers can work anytime, anywhere.

Potato, Potahto, Tomato, Tomahto

This is one reason I use the phrase “Product Time” instead of “writing time.” Despite the portability of a writer’s true office – her or his brain – the image most associated with “writing time” involves fingers on a keyboard or pen on paper, and there is so much more to it than that.

I define Product Time as time you invest in moving a writing project forward. What activities will be most effective for you to do during your Product Time depends on which stage of the creative process you’re in. (I explain the stages of the creative process in depth in Around the Writer’s Block; if you don’t want to wait until August to get a copy of the book, we also discuss this in my Writing Habit class which starts March 12.)

Sometimes Product Time is staring out the window, wondering “What if…” and “Why not…” Sometimes Product Time is brainstorming, freewriting, mind mapping or making collages (of characters, setting, plot, images, etc.). Sometimes it’s doing research – in a library, online, with an expert in person or via telephone or Skype, or even riding a mule into the layered depths of the Grand Canyon if you end up writing about the Grand Canyon. Sometimes Product Time is even drafting, revising and editing. This list isn’t complete; Product Time (what Thurber called “writing”) can be so much more diverse.

So When Are You Not Writing?

This makes it difficult to distinguish when you actually are and are not, in Thurber’s sense of the word, “writing.” Especially when you can’t always tell in the moment whether you’re just living life or doing research. For example, snorkeling scenes are significant in my novella, but when I was snorkeling in Hawaii four years ago, I had no idea I was doing research. Is it right to call that snorkeling trip research? Or was my later recall and recollection of the experience (via notes I made in my fish spotter’s journal) the real research?

If we can fall into “writing” in a Thurberesque way – while we’re driving, pretending to listen, walking the dog or vacuuming the living room – how do we know when we’re writing/doing Product Time and when we’re not? And if we can fall into writing/Product Time, can we also fall out?

We’ll explore this further in my next post, but until then, consider these questions:

  • When and how do you fall into writing/Product Time?
  • When and how do you fall out?

4 Comments | Overcoming Resistance, Recommended Practices (Proces Self-Care and Product Time), Writing Life | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by rosannebane

Process is Pretty Much Piddling

January 27, 2012

What do you do when there's nothing to do?

Pam McAlister, my friend, fellow writer and former student, sent an article from Southern Living with this observation;

“I thought you might enjoy this little piece on piddling. Reminds me of my wrestling with what IS process and   what ain’t…”

Because the author of the article, Rick Bragg, gives such a charming description of the attitude that is at the heart of Process, today’s post consists of the intro above and an enthusiastic invitation to read The Fine Art of Piddling.

After you read the article, I invite you to go piddle yourself. Or if that phrase makes you think you need to invest in Depends, go play with Process.

Here’s my usual invitation to comment: What you do when you’re piddling? Is that the same as Process for you?

2 Comments | Recommended Practices (Proces Self-Care and Product Time) | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by rosannebane

Even More Hands-on Solution to Writer’s Block

January 22, 2012

Sometimes you need an even more hands-on solution to writing resistance than picking up a pen. Sometimes you need to back away, not just from the keyboard, but from words themselves, at least for a while.

Borrowing from the storyboarding technique screenwriters use, Edwidge Danticat starts her novels with collages. After creating several collages, she uses “blue book” college exam notebooks to draft a novel before touching a computer keyboard.

Danticat says “I like the tactile process. There’s something old-fashioned about it, but what we do is kind of old-fashioned.”

Recent brain science explains why the old-fashioned tactile approach can be so effective. Sharon Begley observes “Although most of us think of motor skills and cognitive skills as like oil and water, in fact a number of studies have found that refining your sensory-motor skills can bolster cognitive ones. No one knows exactly why, but it may be that the two brain systems are more interconnected than we realize. So learn to knit, or listen to classical music, or master juggling and you might be raising your IQ.”

Almost any kind of creative play (what I call Process) can have the effect of increasing creativity and other cognitive functions. Take your pick from collage-making, doodling, painting, coloring, dancing, fooling around with a musical instrument, playing with clay or Play-Doh, making models, gardening, photography, quilting, etc.

This as-of-yet-unexplained connection between sensory-motor skills and cognitive abilities can also help explain why clustering and mind-mapping break through mental blocks to deliver creative insight. Sometimes you need the image or the sensory-motor experience before you’re ready to make words flow into sentences and paragraphs.

Stop thinking about your writing problem straight-on and sidle up to it instead. Get your body moving so your mind can wander. Let your hands move of their own volition; sometimes another part of the body has wisdom the brain hasn’t clued into yet.

The next time you’re facing writing resistance, pick up your pen or your colored pencils, markers or crayons. Or your paintbrush, scissors, glue stick, harmonica or guitar, modeling clay, knitting needles or whatever activates your sensory-motor system and makes you happy.

My favorite ways to do Process are coloring and making collages. What’s yours?

Leave a Comment » | Neurology of Resistance, Overcoming Resistance, Recommended Practices (Proces Self-Care and Product Time) | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by rosannebane

Tricks of Tracking #4: Focus on Facts

December 29, 2011

Detective Joe Friday knew how to track: Focus on facts.

When you track Process, Self-Care and Product Time, keep your attention on two facts: “This is what I said I’d do. This is what I did.”

One of the benefits of tracking is that the feedback allows you to recognize changes in your patterns and decide what action to take to stay on track (or get back on track) and moving in the direction you want to go.

Judgment denies you this benefit. You can’t discern patterns and trends if you’ve leaped to judging the data. Judgments, either positive or negative, make it impossible to see what’s really happening.

Negative judgments include thoughts or comments like:

  • “I had a bad week (or a terrible week).”
  • “I’m disappointed (or frustrated, disgusted, etc.) with what I did this week.”
  • “I didn’t do well this week at all.”
  • “This was a tough week.”
  • “I was too busy and let other things get in the way.”
  • “I’m really bad at this.”
  • “I could have/should have done better.”

Positive judgments include:

  •  “I had a good week (or a great week).”
  • “I’m really happy (or satisfied, proud, etc.) with what I did this week.”
  • “I did really well this week.”
  • “This was a productive week.”
  • “It was easy to make time for my writing.”
  • “I’m really getting good at this.”

These positive judgements are fun to make and you can claim any of these LATER. But first, track your progress for the week. As you do that, make no evaluations. Make no excuses. Don’t go into long stories or explanations.

When you notice that you’re judging or making excuses (and you probably will continue to do this as you retrain your thinking), acknowledge the mistake, “Oops, that’s a judgement. That’s not what I need.” In other words, don’t judge yourself for judging. Redirect your attention to the facts: what you said you would do and what you actually did.

Once you’ve identified the facts, you can and should celebrate your accomplishments. Even if your judgement would be negative (if you were letting yourself judge), even if you need to make adjustments, the fact that you’re tracking is reason to celebrate. Give yourself credit for what you did, identify what action you want to take in the coming week to either correct the course or maintain your momentum, and keep going! And keep tracking where and how you go.

Leave a Comment » | Recommended Practices (Proces Self-Care and Product Time), Writing Life | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by rosannebane

Tricks of Tracking #3: Set, Ready, Go!

December 27, 2011

Your tracking system should highlight two questions: “What will I do?” (as you set your intention) and “What did I do?” (after you go into action).

Even though your tracking system may not highlight it, the “ready” between the “set” and the “go” is equally important.

Set Yourself!

At the beginning of the week, set your intentions in whatever tracking chart, table or tool you’re using. For each day of the coming week, record what you are committing to do (for Process, Self-Care or Product Time or some other activity).

Be sure to set zero intentions on your days off; for example, record “0 minutes for Process” on the days you don’t intend to do Process. That way when you do 0 minutes on that day, you know you’ve honored your intention (not “slacked off” or “missed” or any other pejorative phrase your Saboteur might try to use against you.)

Setting intention is vital. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but the road to limbo is paved with no intentions. As the Caterpillar tells Alice in Wonderland, “If you don’t know where you are going, it really doesn’t matter which road you take.”

Ready Yourself!

When you know where you want to go and what you intend to do, you need to prepare yourself to go there and do that. Make sure you have the resources you’ll need.

Reserve time in your calendar to do what you commit to.

Make sure you have the supplies – it’s pretty hard to honor your commitment to play with clay for 15 minutes for Process on Tuesday, for example, if you don’t have any clay to play with. You either need to get clay before Tuesday or change your intention to a Process activity you already have supplies for.

Give yourself enough options to be flexible, but not so many options you don’t know where to start. Have maybe three or four things to play with for Process, but don’t spend all your Process time wandering around trying to figure out what to play with. Keep in mind that if you’re sick or injured, what you do for Self-Care needs to change (from working out to taking a nap for example). Remember that any activity that needs to be done to complete a writing project counts as Product Time.

Go Track Yourself!

Ideally, your next step is to do what you intended to do (and as you develop and strengthen your habits, you will do what you intend more and more often). Whether you honor the commitment or not, record what you actually did right after you do it. If you don’t do anything, record “0 minutes” at the end of the day.

Be specific and factual. (“Tuesday: Played with clay for 15 minutes” for example or “Tuesday: Spent 5 minutes looking for clay, didn’t find any.”) As we’ll explore in the upcoming Tricks of Tracking #4, it’s vital to focus on facts and avoid judgment.

Leave a Comment » | General, Recommended Practices (Proces Self-Care and Product Time), Writing Life | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by rosannebane

Tricks of Tracking #2: KISS

December 23, 2011

The second trick of tracking is KISS: Keep It Simple and Seen. The system you use for tracking needs to be simple, quick, easy to use and readily accessible.

It could be a chart with gold stars on your office wall, a legal pad on your desk, a Moleskine notebook in your pocket (which admittedly is not seen so much as felt; the point is that it’s something you’ll notice.)

I use a table in Word that is always open on my computer desktop. If it takes you more than two clicks of the mouse or more than 30 seconds of searching your physical space to access your tracking system, it needs to be simplified.

I started tracking my Product Time in the Word table in April of 2010. I add rows every week and the table exceeds 60 pages now. Some people tell me that a table that big should really be an Excel spreadsheet, but frankly I’m not adept in Excel so spreadsheets are not quick and easy for me. Maybe I start a new table for 2012, but it will be the same format because that is what’s easy for me.

I know writers who have downloaded apps to their phones or i-Pads, but I also occasionally hear about these sophisticated systems failing for one reason or another.

Use whatever tracking tool works for you without you having to work too hard to make it work.

You’ll find both pdf and Word file versions of two tracking tables (one for tracking the three habits of Process, Self-Care and Product Time, the other for tracking more details about Product Time) on the Around the Writer’s Block Forms page of this blog.

Feel free to adapt these to suit your needs. If you don’t want to track as many details about Product Time as I do, don’t. If you want to track more, go ahead.

Just Keep It Simple and Seen.

Leave a Comment » | Recommended Practices (Proces Self-Care and Product Time), Writing Life | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by rosannebane

Avoid the Trap of Unrecognized Writing Resistance: Tricks of Tracking #1

December 20, 2011

If you’re surprised by how long it’s been since you spent time with your writing, you’ve fallen into the trap of unrecognized resistance.

It’s an easy trap to fall into – you don’t write for a day or two, so you don’t track your writing for those days. Two days stretch into three or four and since you’re still not recording your writing time (as zero minutes for the day), you start to get hazy about how long it’s been. You slowly sink into quicksand and don’t even notice.

The only way you can ensure you won’t get to the end of the week (or month, or longer) and suddenly realize the quicksand is up to your waist (or your neck, or higher) is to track what happens with your writing habits every day. Even on the days when you don’t do anything. Especially on the days you don’t do anything.

If you write “zero minutes” in the spot for Product Time (in whatever tracking system you use) on Tuesday and then again on Wednesday and Thursday, you can’t really be surprised when Sunday rolls around and you haven’t put in the five 15-minute sessions you intended.

I’m not telling you to do this to make you feel guilty; I’m telling you to do this so you will know what’s going on. If you notice when resistance is pushing you away, you are in a position to push back. You give yourself the awareness you need to do what you really want to do.

Track Every Day

I track every day and I track throughout the day. I write down what I did right after I complete a session. So if I spend an hour writing and posting a blog, I record “1 hour blog” as Product Time. If I spend 45 minutes reading while I’m on the treadmill at the Y, I record “45 minutes research” for Product Time and “45 minutes exercise” for Self-Care as soon as I get back to my office.

At the end of my work day, I think about what I’ve accomplished and what I need to focus on the next day. If I’ve had an unusually busy day and haven’t done at least 15 Magic Minutes for Product Time, I’ll notice it then and put in another 15 minutes before I quit for the day.

After years of consistently practicing Process and Self-Care and checking-in each week with the students in my Writing Habit class, these are deeply engrained habits. I no longer need to write down what I do for Process and Self-Care, but every weekday around 8:30 in the evening I think about whether I’ve done Process and Self-Care yet. If not, I do them then. But because I noticed I got hazy about Process the last time I was between Writing Habit classes, I’m tracking and will continue to track Process until my next Writing Habit class starts in March.

If you want engrained writing habits, you need to track what you do every day. You’ll find more Tricks of Tracking in my next post.

2 Comments | Overcoming Resistance, Recommended Practices (Proces Self-Care and Product Time), Writing Life | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by rosannebane

How to Play Today

December 6, 2011

Another way to do Christmas cards: Playing pinochle with my mom Lois and my sister Glendeen

Play invites us to pause the constant flurry of doing, which is so often a desperate search for meaning — and in that pausing, we remember our Being that is the true source of meaning.

Play opens the door to beauty, joy, imagination and gratitude because it opens our hearts and our minds.

Today is the day to play. Don’t wait until you finish some “important” task. Play now and you’ll discover that play is the important non-task that illuminates your life and your writing/art.

Start with what you enjoy and people you love.

Or start by playing this – trust me, this TED Talk with Louie Schwartzberg is worth your time and attention.

2 Comments | Recommended Practices (Proces Self-Care and Product Time), Writing Life | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by rosannebane

The Vital Work of Play

December 2, 2011

 

Back when I first started this series on Self-Care, you might wondered why “creative play” was in the list of things writers need to do for Self-Care when I’ve always promoted play as Process.

The great thing about Play is that it can be Process or Self-Care or even Product Time. When play is primarily imaginative and creative, I call it Process. When it’s playing around with words, ideas or characters, I call it Product Time. When play is primarily physical (running agility with Blue or geocaching and hiking for example) or friendly competition that’s really about relationships and connecting with friends and family, I call it Self-Care.

Writers need all three kinds of play, so when in doubt about what direction to take next or when you’re feeling resistant or blocked, play with something. You’ve got a 3 in 3 chance the play will do something good for you.

To remind you why play is so important, here’s a Top Ten list I posted awhile back.

1.  Play is fun! We are designed to play; that’s why it’s fun, so we naturally want to engage in it. This should be reason enough. But a lot of us have been scarred (and scared) by the Puritan stigma against play and the false belief that real adults don’t do such frivolous things. So here are nine more reasons to play.

2. Play is creative. We make new associations and connections, we imagine alternatives, we play with novelty, we see metaphors and solutions.

3. Play is essential for brain development and appears to be essential to maintaining a healthy brain.

4. Play keeps you young. A variety of different forms of both physical and mental play keep the brain and the rest of the body flexible and strong. People who play are not only less likely to develop dementia; they’re less likely to have heart disease.

5. Play prepares us to adapt to “a world continuously presenting unique challenges and ambiguity,” according to biologist and expert on animal play Bob Fagen (quoted in Play by Stuart Brown). Play is our opportunity to rehearse new behaviors in low-risk situations.

6. Play gives our big brains something to do. In fact, play gives us a big brain. Species with larger brains relative to their body size are more playful than species with smaller brains relative to their body size.

7. Play makes you smarter. Play, especially active play, stimulates BDNF (brain derived neurotrophic factor), which supports the growth of new neurons, encourages existing neurons to make new connections, and fights the effects of stress.

8. Play helps us figure out how to navigate our bodies through the physical world and how to navigate our psyches through the emotional and social world. We learn all kinds of important social skills in play: how to negotiate, argue constructively, act collaboratively, challenge ourselves to excel without trampling others and how to lose gracefully and persevere.

9, Play is a sign that we are okay. Stuart Brown writes “When we are in peril, play will disappear. But studies show that if they are well fed, safe and rested, all mammals will play spontaneously.”

10. Play keeps entropy at bay. As long as we play, we receive all the benefits of play. But when we stop playing, we stop developing, stop healing and recreating our bodies and brains, stop engaging with others, stop truly enjoying life.

So what are you waiting for? Go out and play.

Leave a Comment » | Creative Process, Recommended Practices (Proces Self-Care and Product Time), Writing Life | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by rosannebane

Focus Saves Creativity… and Goldfish!

November 30, 2011

Multitasking: the Cause of Mass Goldfish Murder

Save a goldfish – stop trying to multitask! You’ll preserve your creativity, too.

Multitasking is the antithesis of focus. I’ve listed my previous posts on multitasking below in case you haven’t read them all or want a refresher.

If you are tempted to try to multitask just this once or get so busy you accidentally slide into shifting your attention among multiple tasks, I recommend you pause to read one or two of these posts. (They all are entertaining and educational if I do say so myself, but I have to confess that my personal favorite is “Squirrel!” Let me know which one you like best. )

If you’re part of an organization (as an employee, volunteer or member) that still thinks multitasking is a virtue, let me first extend my sympathy and encouragement to buck the trend as much as you can.

Second, I offer you this ray of hope: I’ll be available in 2012 to deliver “The Myth of Multitasking.” This engaging, humorous and life-changing presentation will help your organization stop wasting time, burning people out and jeopardizing safety. Just email me (Rosanne@RosanneBane.com) if you’re interested.

And now without further ado, here’s the list of multitasking posts. Enjoy!

2 Comments | Recommended Practices (Proces Self-Care and Product Time), Writing Life | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by rosannebane

« Previous Entries
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 101 other followers