Tag: writing high

Coupling

It’s been three joyous writing (and editing) days. Having one such day always energizes and intoxicates me. Returning to life’s normal routines and patterns afterward is deflating.

But then, coupling three days together feeds the highs, giving me a sensation of feeling invincible and omnipotent. It’s empowering but frightening because it must be kept in context for what it is.

That energy can’t help but spill over into other things. It stirs something that’s deeper and more primal in me. The short and long of it is that I’m accomplishing, creating something tangible from my mind’s energy and my physical exertion, and that is rewarding. I set a goal, and I’m working toward accomplishing that goal. When successful progress and its accompanying energy continues over three days, this sense parlays into a belief that I can do anything, because, hey, look how good the writing and editing is progressing. Woo-hoo.

Common sense helps ground me. Writing (and editing) and the rest of life aren’t the same. Thinking of this reminds me of some hotel chain’s commercials. They went along the lines of, “Let me operate.”

“You’re a doctor?”

“No, but I got a great night of rest.”

It’s all about how you feel, and the self-confidence that it stirs. I think the chain was Holiday Inn Express.

Meanwhile, however, some of my mind views all this with deep suspicion. “Maybe you’re fooling yourself,” at least one advisor whispers. “You’re probably not that good.”

It’s an amusing proposition because it demands that I hold two contrary ideas in mind, that I am that good, and that I’m not that good. Parts of my writing is probably amazing, and parts are probably crap. This is a draft, and I’m the writer, and I wrote it for me, so if I enjoy it as a reader, mission accomplished. It’s natural that others will dislike it, not get it, enjoy it or not, decide that it’s, “Okay,” (shudder), or love it. None of that’s within my control except that I wrote it for me, and I enjoy it.

Am I conning myself? You bet! But I think I’m also being realistic. I know, too, that I’ll probably encounter days when I feel sick about reading what I wrote because it needs a lot of work.

Accepting that I must stop now is a reluctant choice. I love the immersion of writing and editing my novels. I know myself, though, and my writing process, and its capricious nature. I know that going out on a high helps sustain progress because I feed off expectations created by past success.  It at least makes it easier to get to the document the next day.

So, sadly, but joyously, time to stop writing editing like crazy, one more time.

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Kick-ass Writing

I’ve been writing well. When I say that, I mean that word counts are okay, and I’m satisfied with the general flow and output.

But I’ve been feeling my way through the dark. I’m at a pivot point. Exciting stuff has happened. Tension has been created. Now I’m pivoting to a new part of the arc to bridge what has happened with what’s going to happen. I was forced to pause to come up with minor characters’ names, define them, and address a few plot issues. So it was slow writing, like traffic out of L.A. on Labor Day weekend slow.

Then there is today. Walking along, thinking about where I’d stopped writing, and where I wanted to resume, the writing issues I’ve been working on all broke free. My writing exploded with a geyser of words that would make Old Faithful proud. I had to rush into the coffee shop, set up and get going with mind-blowing intensity. As always, my typing speed and thinking speed struggled to keep up with my writing speed. I end up typing as fast as I can, and then pausing, fixing some matters, reviewing what’s been written, and then jumping back onto the word train.

I’ve been doing small chores around the home, like repairing and painting posts, and repairing crawl space vents. I believe this manual labor freed and stimulated my creative side. I’ve always noticed that when I need to think more deeply to resolve something, I achieve more success by working on things that don’t take much thinking.

Done writing like crazy for today. What a session. It’s days like these that make writing so addictive. What a drug. The rest of the world seems so mundane as I come down from my high.

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The Flow

I’m in that writing flow, a preternatural existence where the writing process works exceptionally well for me. Permitting it to suck me in, I sit and read, edit, revise, and type. When I’m off the computer, I write in my head, making notes to myself. Sometimes I slip over to the computer, open the doc, make a few quick changes, and save it and close. I see the book as a completed whole. I feel its heft. Its shape fills my hands. I’m just refining the digital presence to match what I see and feel, what I know to be real.

Slipping back into the real world reminds me of being high. Colors are sharper and more vibrant. I feel more aware and in-tune, balanced and at peace. I think, I’m on a writing high, stoned on creativity. I’m sure there are some bio-chemical components released when I feel like this that reinforce the sensations, driving me to seek this experience again, itself developing into and generating a wheel of expectation.

Of course, it’s daunting and dismaying when that damn wheel tumbles over or freezes. If we’re good with coping with it, we develop approaches to fix it, oil the wheel and get it all turning again. Reading an two-year-old article posted to HuffPost, “Eighteen Things Highly Creative People Do Differently,” I’m surprised that I have all but three of these habits structured into my existence.

One area where I divert from those eighteen things is that I do like habits. I use habits to protect the creativity. Setting myself up to write at about the same time, with the same drink, at the same place, creates intentions and expectations for me, and frees me from others’ expectations for what’s going to happen during that time; they know I’ll be off writing. Then again, as the article suggests, I’m structuring my day to take advantage of my most creative and productive periods.

The second is that I’m not a risk-taker. I’ve taken risks, and I’ve broken bones, and gotten hurt and lost in all manner of ways. That, and my wife’s predisposition toward being cautious, has muted my risk-taking. Being honest with myself, though, I still have a huge self-confidence gap and remain insecure, another reason why I avoid risk-taking.

The other trait that I don’t do is surround myself with beauty, unless you can count my cats, wife and friends, and the natural beauty of southern Oregon that surrounds us.

In that HuffPost article, the author, Carolyn Gregoire, writes about the flow state that I wrote about, quoting Scott Barry Kaufman, who co-wrote a book about creativity. I didn’t know the flow state was actually a thing. I’d always known it existed, and that I can access it via deep thinking and concentration, not just in creative matters, but in other areas, too. It stands to reason that I’m not the first to experience it, but I’m embarrassed that I never sought more information about it.

Carolyn Gregoire and Scott Kaufman do a better job of describing the flow state than I did:

Creative types may find that when they’re writing, dancing, painting or expressing themselves in another way, they get “in the zone,” or what’s known as a flow state, which can help them to create at their highest level. Flow is a mental state when an individual transcends conscious thought to reach a heightened state of effortless concentration and calmness. When someone is in this state, they’re practically immune to any internal or external pressures and distractions that could hinder their performance.

You get into the flow state when you’re performing an activity you enjoy that you’re good at, but that also challenges you — as any good creative project does.

“[Creative people] have found the thing they love, but they’ve also built up the skill in it to be able to get into the flow state,” says Kaufman. “The flow state requires a match between your skill set and the task or activity you’re engaging in.”

The embedded link in Gregoire’s article will open an interesting TED Talk by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi about the flow state.

How about you, writers? Do you know this other-world experience in creating and being? Do you do these eighteen things like creatives do?

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