How movement influences creativity
“All creative activity begins with movement.” —Joseph C. Zinker
We all know exercise is good for us. It can stave off depression, improve memory, help you maintain a healthy body weight, boost the quality of your sleep, and best of all, it makes you feel great immediately (thanks, endorphins!). I can’t start my day without some kind of movement—whether that’s yoga, a workout video, or a simple walk around the block. Besides doing it for the obvious health benefits, I often work through creative challenges on jogs and have gotten story ideas while in motion.
Creatives have been using the power of movement for decades, or more accurately, centuries. From Aristotle and Virginia Woolf, to Steve Jobs and J.K. Rowling, creatives have known the power of moving to help elicit new ideas, even if they weren’t aware of why it helped them. Jobs was known for his walking meetings, and believed his most creative ideas came while walking. Woolf’s 1927 essay “Street Haunting,” describes the joys of nighttime walking to escape the self, an idea which Alejandro Chacoff expands on in a New Yorker piece, connecting this idea of the power of physical to mental wandering.
Author Anne Lamott leaves index cards in places throughout her home, so she can draft ideas and even novels on these tiny cards, allowing her to capture ideas while moving about her life.
For creatives, movement is a superpower—I promise it’s better than a stiff drink, cigarette, or (dare, I say it) caffeine. There’s more than just anecdotal experiences to back this up. When we’re moving we experience significantly more brain activity than when we’re sedentary. Below is a brain scan taken from a 2009 study out of the University of Illinois:
Recent research also confirms this with walking specifically helping to reshape the white matter in our brain, which is directly connected to memory and our ability to think. Before the 1990s the consensus from scientists was that the brain wasn’t malleable, but thankfully they’ve successfully squashed that theory and now have evidence to show the brain can rewire itself in a process called neuroplasticity. With exercise enhancing the brain’s ability to change, it’s no surprise that it’s also directly connected to creative ideas, with a 2020 study published in Scientific Reports, confirming this (although research still doesn't totally understand the mechanisms of why).
Another interesting study that looked at the connection between walking and creativity is one that came out of Stanford University, in which college students were put through different tests so the researchers could measure how walking impacted creativity. For example, one of the tests had the students think of an analogy, then come up with a unique but more creative option. Those who did this while walking had a 95% success rate, and those who never stood up only were 50% successful.
Does this mean a brisk walk will lead you to genius ideas? Yes and no. The benefits appear to start at 8-minutes, with other studies showing additional benefits (like happiness) happen during a 20- to 30-minute walk. Walking without any distractions, will enhance the creative benefits, since mental chatter prevents your brain from making those unexpected connections. I’ve done both, and find either music that I’m not focusing on or silence to be the best at helping me achieve creative ideas.
There’s also research that suggests being in nature enhances creativity. Berkeley University interviewed David Strayer, a professor from the University of Utah, who believes that nature restores depleted attention circuits, which can open people up to creativity and problem-solving.
One of my antidotes to writer’s block is to talk a nice long, silent walk in nature. You don’t have to be “blocked” to get benefits either. Sometimes, when I’m working out how to proceed with a scene or if I’m thinking about a few ideas but aren’t sure which one to pick, I almost always get those “a-ha” moments while moving. The best part is, it’s free to do and is available to almost everyone. So the next time you’re feeling blah, uninspired, or completely stuck, put those ideas in motion.
Perseverance trumps talent
“The highest creative expression of a human is to create something new in the face of adversity” —Phil Stutz
It’s hard to keep going. That’s why 97% of people who plan to write a book never finish it*. They get lost in the “messy middle” or maybe don’t even get past the first few chapters. The stats I came across for those who do finish and then go on to get a book deal is even more dismal.
Does that mean the people who get book deals are more talented than everybody else? Some might be, sure. But there are plenty of talented people who don’t write more than one page. Talent, like beauty, is fleeting. In itself is useless. Grit is what separates those who want from those who do.
The reality is most people won’t get a book deal from the first book they write. That means, out of those 3% of people who finish writing one book, many, many will need to write two, three or possibly a fourth (or more) before they’ll see their book on a shelf. Those are hard truths to swallow.
We’ve all heard those stories from actors standing on the podium, accepting an award. They were rejected for this or that. Spent years, possibly decades, doing small roles before they got their breakout gig. It’s hard to persevere.
What makes people successful
Angela Duckworth, author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, did a TedTalk on her research into what makes people successful. It wasn’t social IQ, intelligence, or looks, but grit, a concept she defines as passion and perseverance. It’s about sticking to something long-term—not days or months, but years. One interesting finding she uncovered is that grit is actually inversely related to talent, reinforcing this idea that it’s not talent that leads people to succeed.
The question is: how do you persevere in the face of adversity? How do you develop grit? According to Duckworth, it’s about having a growth mindset, a theory developed by Carol Dweck, a professor from Stanford University. A growth mindset is believing that with effort, perseverance, and drive, you can develop your unique skills and talent, while simultaneously using feedback and mistakes as an opportunity to improve. In her work, Dweck also builds on the theory of neuroplasticity, which is the brain’s ability to change and form new connections based on repetitive practices, meaning your brain and beliefs are not set in stone, but malleable.
Keep doing the work
I watched the documentary Stutz on Netflix, about renowned psychiatrist Phil Stutz, who offered insights that come directly from his practices. He says there are three aspects of reality that are unavoidable: pain, uncertainty, and work. I briefly touched on pain in a previous post about rejection, a reality of being any sort of creative.
That means, it doesn’t matter what you choose to do—whether that’s to write, paint, climb the corporate ladder—you’re destined to face adversity along the way. The good news is, if your goal is to, say, write a book, you don’t have to be the most talented writer out there. All you need to be able to do is, keep doing the work, and keep learning from your mistakes. Knowing you’ll face pain and rejection along the way is unfortunately unavoidable, and why embracing the process is the key to happiness.
Whatever it is that you really want, like truly really want, is not impossible. Most people will give up, but it’s perseverance that paves the real road to success.
*This is a common stat that floats around the internet, but I think this stat is lower—maybe 80-90% based on the querying action I see on Twitter. A 2021 survey conducted by ThriftBooks of 2,000 Americans found 8% of those polled had completed their novel.
The power of rewards
That gold star on your homework or treating yourself to a fancy dinner out after completing a particularly arduous work project—rewards can be seen as a nice-to-have when accomplishing something. Should we only luxuriate in the satisfaction of the task itself? Are rewards frivolous and indulgent? You’ll be happy to learn there’s science to back up that rewarding yourself is a good habit to get into.
Rewards are essentially positive reinforcement
Dog owners and parents are familiar with positive reinforcement, which is essentially pairing a desirable or pleasant stimulus after a behavior. Examples include, a parent giving their child an allowance after doing chores or a manager praising her employee after exceeding her sales targets. There’s a biological component to this connection, with dopamine playing a huge role in reward reinforcement. Dopamine is that feel-good brain chemical that we crave, which is why you’ll likely continue a behavior that results in a release of it. Social media beautifully illustrates this dopamine/reward cycle and why we’re all so addicted to it.
Why mini-successes are worth celebrating too
Last month I completed the draft of my novel (86K yay!) and one of the first questions a writer friend asked me was, “How are you going to reward yourself?” Although I’m not one to shy away from rewards, part of me felt a bit guilty about treating myself with something since it wasn’t like I had gotten an agent or made the New York Times bestseller list. Then I realized how much time and effort went into writing my draft, and decided to take the day off from all writing projects and visit this Nordic spa I’d been wanting to check out for the past year (definitely worth it).
It’s not just the “big” events that deserve celebrating, those mini milestones warrant pick-me-ups too. Even along the way, I found small ways to reward myself with the daily grind of writing. For example after a 45-min writing stretch I would reward myself with a 10-minute break on social media without feeling guilty that I was wasting time.
Effectively reward yourself
While it’s a good idea to continually reward yourself to perpetuate behaviors you want to keep eliciting, there are ways to not let your rewards slow down your progress and find rewards that actually motivate you.
Consider the effort you put in. Rewarding myself with a trip to the spa after writing a chapter isn’t really proportional to the effort I put into the task. It made much more sense to reward myself after completing the entire draft, which took me months to complete.
Don’t let it cancel your efforts. Just like you probably wouldn’t reward yourself with a pint of ice cream after losing a pound, if I rewarded myself with an hour of Netflix for every hour of writing, it kind of negates the effort.
Non-materialistic rewards. It’s pretty easy to come up with material rewards for yourself, but there are many free rewards you can give yourself such as: a extra hour of sleep, free time on social media, or something experiential like visiting an art gallery when it's free for guests.
Pick a reward that you value. It goes without saying that you need to pick a reward that you can appreciate and enjoy. If it doesn’t entice you then it’s probably not a good choice.
What procrastination is really about
Whether it’s cleaning out your closet or finally writing that book you’ve promised yourself you’d start, we’ve all procrastinated doing something. But why? If you asked me a few years ago, I’d probably say it’s due to laziness or time management, but according to this 2019 piece published in the New York Times procrastination has nothing to do with either of those things, procrastination is actually an emotional regulation problem.
You’re avoiding a particular task because of the difficult emotions (anxiety, insecurity, frustration, etc) that get triggered from the specific task. Procrastinating a relatively simple task, saying cleaning out your cat’s litter box might be about the unpleasant nature of the task itself (like it smells gross), but getting stuck finishing writing your 80,000-word novel is likely related to deeper feelings surrounding it. For example, maybe you’re doubting your skills as a writer or you don’t know where to take your story but are afraid of having to ask someone for help.
What to do about your procrastination
After you’ve identified that maybe there are some deeper reasons why you’re avoiding a task, how do you overcome it and just start? In Episode 210 of the Speaking of Psychology podcast put out by the American Psychological Association, guest Fuschia Sirois, a professor of the department of psychology at Durham University in the UK says, “Finding ways to manage those negative emotions, especially if they're really intense, is key. And some very simple ways that the research has borne out and that takes the edge off them is forgiveness and self-compassion.”
It sounds counterintuitive – shouldn’t you just get out the whip and start cracking? Sirois’ research has found the opposite. “Students who forgave themselves for procrastinating on academic work were found two weeks later to actually procrastinate less.” The irony is that people who are prone to procrastination tend to have lower levels of self-compassion and higher levels of stress, revealed in a 2013 US study published by Sirois.
How do you give yourself self-compassion?
Self-compassion is the act of treating yourself with kindness and understanding the same way you’d do to a friend. Kristen Neff, a pioneer in the self-compassion space defines the term on her site saying, “Self-compassion involves responding in the same supportive and understanding way you would with a good friend when you have a difficult time, fail, or notice something you don’t like about yourself.”
It’s important to note that self-compassion is not self-pity. Self-pity removes you from the collective, thinking you’re the only one suffering and is a very ego-centric viewpoint.
A couple examples of giving yourself self-compassion around procrastination in finishing your novel could be saying things to yourself like:
“Writing a novel is no small feat! I’m proud of what I’ve been able to accomplish so far. All writers struggle with productivity at times.”
“I have a full-time job and a family to care for and I’ve already managed to get some words down, which I should be proud of. New writers like me have faced similar challenges with finishing, maybe I should reach out to a writer friend to see if she has any tips on moving the rest of my novel forward.”
Neff ties mindfulness and meditation into her self-compassion work and offers a handful of free meditations you might want to try out, especially if you find self-compassion difficult (it’s totally normal if you do!). The first time I ever did a self-compassion meditation, I had difficulty accepting the positive messages I was sending to myself.
The health consequences of procrastination
I was surprised to learn there are real health consequences related to procrastination, including higher rates of depression, anxiety and stress, as one 2023 study out of Sweden reported. It’s not just mental health that’s impacted, but physical health including immune function and heart health. If you’re someone who deals with chronic procrastination to the point it’s negatively affecting your day-to-day life, then seeking professional help is a good place to start. For example, there is a strong connection between having ADHD and procrastination.
Other ways to manage procrastination
Self-compassion is an excellent place to start, but there are other practical ways to overcome procrastination including:
Break down tasks. If you still need to write 40,000 words and can’t even fathom where to start, start with something that feels manageable, like writing 300 words in a session. Do that a few dozen times and the next thing you know you’ve written a few thousand words.
Reward yourself. A simple way to boost motivation is by giving yourself rewards along the way. Maybe every 10,000 words you treat yourself to a latte and when you finish the entire draft you book yourself a massage. Rewards help to create a positive association between the activity and the goal of the activity.
Remove distractions. I’ve talked about how distractions can easily get you out of a flow state, but they also increase the probability of procrastination. This might mean turning off the TV or silencing your phone. Personally, I use do not disturb and work in a room with the door closed.
Processing writing feedback
Unless you plan to keep all of your writing hidden inside a drawer, eventually someone is going to read it. And if you plan on having that work published professionally, that work will be read by multiple people including an editor, who is going to give you feedback on said work.
I’ll never forget the first time I got real feedback on my writing (at least the first time I remember getting it). I was in third year journalism and my professor who taught feature writing assigned us to write a profile on someone of our choosing (I wrote about a transgendered politician running for mayor of Toronto). After we handed in our work, he spent the next few classes putting our stories up on a screen, and picking apart what worked and what didn’t. When he finally got to my piece, it was the equivalent of standing naked in front of the class. I felt horribly exposed. About a thousand things went through my head and none of them were, “Wow, I can’t wait to make my work better.” I didn’t know how to process what he was telling me, consider it, and then adjust my writing. All I heard was this sucks and so you do.
You might think I hated him, but I actually loved the class and him as a teacher. He taught me many core lessons, ranging from craft to prose. But I also walked away with the ability to handle feedback, which can be difficult to learn if you haven’t experienced it. This isn’t to say I haven’t been frustrated with feedback I’ve received or had a hard time accepting it. It’s that I’ve learned it’s all part of the process.
But why is feedback so hard for most of us to receive, even if we know it’s not about us. Is it that all writers/artists are self-conscious and insecure? And how can you become more flexible and receptive to feedback without retreating and debasing your work, or worse, completely abandon it for fear it means you are terrible and shouldn’t continue?
We’re hardwired to avoid things that hurt us (physical or emotional)
In a previous post I wrote about the pain of rejection and how we’re hardwired to seek connection and receive approval from our peers. Critical feedback has similar effects as we try to protect ourselves from perceived threats.
In an article in Harvard Business Review, one theory about why people have difficulty with hearing critical feedback is it’s associated with feedback received from teachers and parents at a young age. Either way, the difficult emotions appear to stem from our deep subconscious and primal instincts.
Not all feedback is created equal
Before I offer some suggestions on what to do after you get feedback on your writing project, the first very important caveat is: it matters who the feedback is coming from. Is the feedback coming from a trusted editor or a person from your writing group who doesn’t see merit in sci-fi (and that’s what you write)? I believe selecting a handful of people who can appreciate your vision and what you hope to accomplish makes a difference to the quality of the feedback you receive.
What to do when you get feedback on your work
Now you’ve found the right people to review your work and their notes are ready for your review. Your heart races, you’re certain they’ve torn it all to shreds, and you have a strong resistance to reading their comments. What do you do next?
Set aside space and time to review. Once I’m in the right headspace to know I’m going to be getting critical feedback, I give myself space and time to properly review what is being said. That way I can actually take it in and consider it, versus brushing it off as unhelpful or getting emotional about it.
Note patterns. One person might love a scene, another person might hate it (likely subjective unless they give specifics as to why), but if a few people have issues with a specific spot in your book you might want to consider making changes.
You are not your work. This is arguably the most important, but most difficult part of the process for many writers. The reason we ask for feedback in the first place is to improve our work. Unless you’re Donna Tartt, your work likely needs some polishing, so remember the feedback is about the work you produced, not you as a human.
In the end follow your vision and instincts
I saw a really funny meme that showed a picture of a pizza with candy, an entire turkey, sprinkles and cheese on top with the caption, “When you incorporate all the feedback from every critique.” In the end, your work is your unique vision, which nobody but you knows. If you don’t like what someone says — even if they’re a well-read, accomplished writer — don’t take it. There are plenty of real-world examples of people with conflicting views and the author went with their gut and ended up with a hit.
One example is Bret Easton Ellis and his 1985 debut novel Less Than Zero. In episode 11 of the podcast Once Upon a Time… At Bennington College, one of Ellis’ writer friends, David Lipsky, read his novel and told Ellis he’d be “embarrassed” if he published it. Needless to say, he published it and it became a sensation (including being turned into a movie with Robert Downey Jr.).
Writing feedback can be difficult to process, but if you take it from the perspective of, it’s for the greater good of my work, then you might find it’s easier to take.
Where does creativity come from?
There’s a common perception most people have, which is: you’re either born with a creative gene or not. But all you need to do is watch small children at play to realize that’s not the case. We’re all creative. In fact, almost all of us are born creative geniuses.
In George Land’s TEDXTucson talk titled, “The Failure of Success,” he shared an imaginative thinking test conducted by NASA, which gathered 1,600 children and asked them to look at a problem and come up with new and innovative ways to solve it. The results were astonishing. A whooping 98% of children between the ages of 4 and 5 fell into the genius category of imagination. They followed this group and tested them again when they were 10 years of age and then again at age 15, and the numbers continued to fall dramatically, eventually reaching 2% for adults (average age of 31).
So why is this?
According to Dr. Land, the greatest obstacles to creativity are judgment, criticism and censoring. Our brains have two ways of thinking: divergent and convergent thinking. Convergent thinking is when we’re in analyzing mode. We’re dissecting problems, assessing and making decisions. On the flip side, divergent thinking is the process of idea generation, which requires openness and flow (see my blog post on getting into a flow state).
The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that helps us to effectively engage in executive functioning (this includes things like analyzing, decision making, and judgment). But the prefrontal cortex isn’t fully developed in humans until age 25. You could then argue that because the part of a young child’s brain that acts as an obstacle to creative thinking isn’t developed yet, that’s why young children are so creative. It’s likely not that simple.
Outspoken author and educator Sir Ken Robinson, believes that the school system diminishes children’s creativity, which he spoke humorously and eloquently about in his 2006 TED Talk on this topic, viewed more than 74 million times. He believed schools overemphasize standardized testing and subjects like math and science over arts.
In his talk, Robinson said, being wrong doesn’t make you creative, but:
“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.”
This is a powerful idea. He goes on to say that companies stigmatize mistakes made by its workers and in school, mistakes are the worst thing you can make, essentially teaching children out of their creative capacities.
But where exactly does creativity come from?
Some people like Julia Cameron, author of the iconic book on honing creativity, The Artist’s Way, believe there is a spiritual aspect to channeling your art. She writes in the book, “The heart of creativity is an experience of the mystical union.”
Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Big Magic, also believes in creativity being a mystical process. She wrote, “I believe that creativity is a force of enchantment, not entirely human in its origins.” She goes on to respectfully disagree with a neurologist who she read in an interview as saying, the creative process might seem magical, but it’s not.
We live in a world that values science over art, and the material plane over the non-physical, so I’m hardly surprised a neurologist doesn’t believe there’s any magic to the creative process. Ask any artist and I’m sure they’d have a different answer. It sounds far-fetched but I think creative ideas can come from an unknown or divine realm. The only way to channel that energy is to clear your mind from all of the junk that’s cluttering it up (one of the many reasons I like meditating before I write).
If you are scared you’ve “lost” your creativity or want to evoke more creative ideas, just remember that it’s in you. It’s been there all the time.
I’ll leave you with a quote from Picasso:
“All children are born artists, the problem is to remain an artist as we grow up.”
Writing when you don’t feel like it
I’m currently on a writing streak—21 days a counting. I have given myself some lofty (but in my opinion achievable) goals on finishing my new novel, since I love a good deadline and work well under a little bit of pressure.
I gave myself goals because I don’t have a contract, an agent or anything but my own intrinsic motivation pushing me to finish. A (loose) end date gives me a sign post, something to aspire to. It’s also helping me to create healthy writing habits that I can continue when I do have a contract deadline or an editor requesting to see changes.
My goal wasn’t to write everyday and to be honest, I actually don’t believe in the need to write everyday. For many, this can be harmful for your mental health, falling under the guise of toxic productivity. There’s also a lot of b.s. out there about how being a writer means you have to write everyday. Lies!
James Clear, author of Atomic Habits has a different perspective on goals. He writes, "Goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results." Using that theory, it's the systems I've put in place that are helping me to achieve my goal, not the goal itself. Although I still think goals are a useful focal point, but as Clear very well articulates in his book, a well-designed system is best for making progress.
Although I’ve written straight for a few weeks, some days I’ve written 300 words and other days I’ve written 1,000. Both are equally fair because I don’t think it’s realistic to measure creative output. I also don’t judge my writing days or non-writing days, since they both have value. Even when you aren’t writing, things are happening in the background (aka your subconscious)—your brain is synthesizing ideas, making connections, filing away details—that’s work too even if it doesn’t equate to word count.
I wanted to talk about writing when you don’t feel like it, not as a negative, like don’t listen to your needs or write when you’re sick. That’s garbage. What I am saying is, there are often times we avoid the work. We avoid work because it’s hard. We avoid it because we’re scared. We avoid it because if we are to finish, we then have to face even harder things like rejection, and criticism.
Elise Loehan talks about this beautifully in a blog post on her website titled: Finishing Things where she discusses ideas in the book The Tools: 5 Tools to Help You Find Courage, Creativity and Willpower—And Inspire you to Live Live in Forward Motion. The authors Phil Stutz and Barry Michaels talk about the Reversal of Desire, which Loehan writes, “It is through the practice of pain—effectively doing things that you don’t want to do and experiencing the results—that you build momentum and put yourself in motion.”
I completely agree. Writing can be painful. You have to re-read your sentences and fix them. You have to come up with creative solutions to difficult problems. You have to delve into your own memory bank of emotions and then feel them on the page. It’s hard work. But when you’ve completed that thing, the pleasure derived from that creates this wonderful internal momentum. I feel like I’m experiencing that now with my current writing streak.
So, what do you do when you’re consciously aware that you’re avoiding the work? Maybe you’re procrastinating or making up excuses that your work isn’t important. I think there are two important tools you can try and use:
Self-Compassion. Instead of bullying yourself to write, why not be nice to your writer self? Tell her she’s going to do her best today. Tell her, it’s OK if you only write a few sentences, you came and you tried. Try being a friend to yourself and see what happens. Toxic productivity isn’t wanted here.
Just Write. The dreaded blank page is every writer’s nightmare. In journalism school one of my professors said when you’re faced with a blank page, just start writing. You can always go back and fix it, but once you get something on the page, the work suddenly feels less intimidating. Even if you write the worst sentence of your life, you can always edit it later.
I would argue there are many, many times when we as creatives don’t “feel” like creating. We’d rather distract ourselves to feel good—maybe with TV, social media, learning, or something else we think is more important. The truth is there is no substitute for the work, so get to it.
How meditation can help get you into a flow state
You’ve probably heard about getting into the “flow” or being “in the zone.” This state is commonly attributed to athletes, but whether you do sports or not, I can almost guarantee you’ve been in a flow state before.
In his research around happiness, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was one of the first people to identify and research flow. He formulated a theory on flow state and in his bestselling book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, he describes flow as, “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”
Csikszentmihalyi pinpoints 8 characteristics of flow:
Clarity of goals and immediate feedback
A high level of concentration on the task
Balance between skills and challenge
Effortlessness
Feeling on control over the task
Perception of time is altered (fast/slow)
Action and awareness are merged
Intrinsic reward
From a neurological perspective what researchers have found is that when your brain goes into a flow state your prefrontal cortex rests, as outlined in this 2020 review from the NIH. Your prefrontal cortex is considered your “higher” brain function, which is the part of your brain that helps you plan, make decisions and critically think.
As a writer, getting into this state of flow can be critical to getting a project done. I’m currently working on writing a novel (book #1 I had to set aside) and have some pretty aggressive targets to finish my first draft, not to mention not a lot of time to devote to this project daily. I might have a consecutive hour or two to write if I’m lucky, so getting into a flow state to actually get words on a page is critical.
In a post by Headspace, they liken a flow state to “a very active, moving meditation.” It’s important to note that meditation is a distinct mental state from flow, but by cultivating mindfulness through meditation, you can increase your chances of experiencing flow.
There are also other key conditions that will help prime you to get into a flow state which include:
Eliminating distractions. This includes things like your phone, the TV, screaming children and for some people, music. Consider using website blockers, putting your phone on “do not disturb,” or even writing with pen and paper. Distractions impact our focus, which takes you out of flow.
Creating a ritual. Like athletes who have rituals before an event or competition to prime them for performance, creating a writing ritual, like lighting a candle or making a cup of tea, can prepare you for a state of flow.
Working during peak creativity. In a perfect world, you could test various times and write when you know you’re functioning at your most productive hours of the day. If you can adjust your schedule to do this great, if not, then focus on the things you can control.
When it comes to selecting a meditation to prepare you for flow, what’s best? In an episode titled: The Science of Creativity & How to Enhance Creative Innovation from the Huberman Lab podcast, Dr. Andrew Huberman goes into great detail about how various conditions, substances and tools can help you engage in creative thinking. The episode is over two hours and covers a lot of ground (I’d recommend listening to it if you have the time), but with respect to meditation, if you’re looking to specifically write a novel let’s say, I would personally do a meditation that is half focused attention and half open monitoring (I currently do this now).
You don’t need any special app or device to do this. All you need is a timer. I personally find 10 minutes to be effective and that’s really all I can slash out of my schedule. First, I set my timer for five minutes and then do a focused attention meditation (FAM) by either doing a body scan or focusing on my breath, then continually bringing my attention back to the breath or my body when it wanders. When the five minutes is up, I switch to an open monitoring meditation (OMM), which is a more expansive type of meditation where you notice a thought and then let it go.
Because there are slight differences in the neural pathways and what type of thinking they help to access, these two meditations will both help with convergent and divergent thinking—both required for a task like writing a novel.
I’ve been thinking about creating some free meditations to help you on your writing journey. Let me know if you think they’d be helpful!
Accepting (& embracing) your writing process
As I’m a third into drafting novel number two, a lot of feelings came up for me around my process. In the writing group I’m a part of, one woman is able to zip through a first draft in a matter of weeks, another managed to write 10,000 words of a new draft in less than a month. Me — I technically started this draft back in February, with a goal of finishing my first draft by my birthday (the end of August). Obviously that didn’t happen.
What did happen, might have been better. I came to accept my unique writing process.
One of my favourite writing podcasts is The Shit No One Tells You About Writing, hosted by author Bianca Marais. She frequently interviews other authors and asks them about their writing process (among other things). I happened to listen to two episodes back-to-back — one with Susie Yang (author of White Ivy) and Jeffrey Archer (Britain's top selling novelist). Yang talked about how she edits as she goes, and she’s an extreme perfectionist. She admits she could “spend two years writing the first 50 pages a thousand times,” but if she can get it to a place where she can’t possibly think of another way to write it, then “the last 80% of the book comes really quickly.”
Archer has a completely different process. He tells Marais, “I still do 14 drafts of each book and I wish there was a shortcut, but until I find one I will keep going to the latest draft again, and again, and again.”
There’s also pantsers vs plotters (aka do you just write and see what happens or do you plot it out) — both with their own advocates for each method. Some writers swear by writing by hand — which does have scientific merit — while others love using the writing program Scrivener.
In case you haven’t figured it out yet, there is no “right” way to write a book or do anything creative. The problem is, we might read about a way we should do something or we hear our favourite author talk about their process and think, “Oh if that’s how they do it, I need to do the same thing.” What you really need to do is find out what works for you.
As I’m knee deep into book number two, I feel like I’m only starting to figure out what works for me. I know I’m never going to be that person who finishes a first draft in a month. Similar to Yang, I need to get that first act to a place that feels like solid ground, before I can continue on. I personally can’t build a house on a shaky foundation. For other writers, it’s essential they pour out every thought onto the page before they can look at a word they’ve written.
Once you discover your unique process — which you can only truly find out from testing different methods and using your intuition — is to accept it. Your process is yours. One way isn’t better or worse than another. It’s just another way to achieve the same end goal. What happens when you not only accept but embrace your process, you can lean into it. For example, I’m accepting my need to have a solid Act One before I can move on. Instead of beating myself up about it, I can pursue that fully without wasting time second guessing myself. Same with the speed at which I write. How fast I write is how fast I write and that’s OK. Maybe it will change in the future and that’s OK too. I expect some things about my process to evolve as I write more books and some things will likely stay the same.
If you’re not sure what process works best for you, try a bunch of things out and see how it feels. Push yourself to write without any self-editing and see if that makes you feel good. Try writing a few scenes by hand and see what unfolds. Just like there are endless ways to write a story, there are endless ways to get there. All you need to do is find your unique way.
Why rejection is so painful
Writing and rejection go hand-in-hand like Netflix and chilling or stress and breakouts. If you think being a writer will make you immune to rejection, I’m sorry to say, it’s inevitable. Like most writers, I started taking a pencil to paper when I was young. Around eight years old I wrote my first “story” — an unremarkable, unoriginal piece about a wizard named Merlin. I kept writing here and there, mostly poems and in my journal. Part-way through Grade 7, I moved across the city, which also meant going to another school. I kept in touch with my old friends and wished I didn’t have to make new ones. When I inched closer to high school, I decided to follow in the footsteps of two of my besties and applied to a specialized arts school, which had a creative writing stream. I sent in my grades and an essay, attended the in-person testing (all I remember is fervently writing a short story), followed by an in-person interview. No pressure for a pre-teen, right?
A few weeks later, I got the news in the mail (it was the ‘90s) — I wasn’t accepted. I know exactly the reason why (save the details for a future post). I was crushed. Demolished. A failed writer at the ripe age of twelve. But it was a good lesson for me to learn early on.
Rejection in writing comes in all forms. Whether it’s not getting into a school or program, a “no, thanks” from a potential agent or publisher, or criticism from readers. Being brave enough to create some form of art in itself is a bold act. Most writers will tell you they have an innate desire to write. It can be difficult to articulate. It might feel like a calling or an itch to make sense of the world through story.
But if creativity is a human need (maybe after breathing or eating), why is rejection so painful? Like feels like its physically ripping you from the inside out, painful.
According to science, our reptilian brains are hardwired to seek connection and receive approval from our peers. It literally helped us survive. If the group rejected us, then there was a higher probability we’d end up dead aka roaming the wilderness alone to try and find shelter and food, and hope to not get eaten by a saber-toothed tiger.
What’s interesting is researchers have found that the pain of rejection triggers the same neural pathways to that of real, physical pain. It’s so real that Tylenol was found to be an effective form of relief. So if you’re a writer who just got a big, fat “no” from someone (insert: agent, editor, publisher, etc), then popping an acetaminophen might help you feel a bit better.
It’s impossible to live in this world without experiencing some kind of pain. To be alive is to feel and writing is an instant path to feeling alive, even if that feeling is rejection. Next time you’re afraid to hit the “send” button, apply for a program or even finish that book you’ve been working on, remember, you’re not alone. Every writer has been rejected at least once in their life (probably many more times, otherwise they’re either a complete genius or a total liar). And two, it’s your job to create and release, not to stay attached to your creation because once it’s out there, it’s not yours anymore.
What I’m hoping you’ll take away from this is, while rejection is a painful part of the process, don’t let it stop you from writing. We’re going to hurt anyways, so why not create something while we’re at it.