Writing When You’re Not Writing by Andromeda Romano-Lax

If you don’t have enough time or focus to write—who does?—read this.

Do you have a “portable process?” That’s what prolific author Juliana Baggott calls it. Funny how the right label helps. Her advice resonates with something I’ve done on and off for years but underutilized until I made the process more deliberate.

“Portable process” doesn’t mean learning to work in cafes instead of at home, even though that helps, too. It means learning how to keep your mind creating and revising even when you don’t have time to sit in front of a keyboard, at all.

Have kids, family, or other demands on your time? A day job or two, plus a million household chores and some enticing hobbies as well as endless distractions? Don’t let that erode the world of the novel or memoir you are desperately trying to build. Find ways to continue planning, imagining, pondering, and most importantly, actively “seeing” the scenes unfold in your head, so that when you finally find the next chunk of time—two hours or twenty minutes—you’re not starting where you left off or worse, back at square one.

Perhaps you’ve found yourself doing this unintentionally. You were doing the dishes and your mind turned to a moment in your story, and you began to hear dialogue or envisioned the next event that should follow. Perfect: that’s how creativity works. A problem worked upon, then stepped away from, invites new solutions, especially when you have that daydreamy “three B” time that creativity experts have talked about (bed, bathroom, riding on the bus, or any environment that is relaxing and even somewhat dull).

Good but not good enough. Baggott’s advice—and mine, too—is to make this, like any other meditation-type process, intentional.

HOW TO WRITE WHEN YOU’RE NOT WRITING

Part of the intentionality is realizing how powerful this tool really is. It’s not just a crutch or sad side-effect of not getting enough focused time at the desk. It’s an engine, one you can build and claim and power up at will. Baggott claims that by spending lots of associative time pre-imagining her scenes, she is already “on draft four” by the time she sits down to write a scene the first time. It’s made her a more visual and efficient writer who is—added benefit—less afraid of facing the blank page.

Here’s one caveat I’ll add. For me, the physical act of writing itself helps generate words, ideas, the next beats of action. As Annie Dillard put it, “When you write, you lay out a line of words. The line of words is a miner’s pick, a woodcarver’s gouge, a surgeon’s probe. You wield it, and it digs a path you follow.”

In other words, a “portable process” that doesn’t involve committing one humble word at a time to paper isn’t everything, at least for me. I don’t insist on mentally rehearsing every scene before I sit down. But I have been using mental rehearsal for working out thorny plotting or characterization problems.

I start the movie playing in my head and think, “how else could this go?” When my mind wanders away to solve a non-book-related problem, such as planning tonight’s dinner or answering an email, I gently pull it back and start the movie playing again. That’s the part that’s similar to meditation. The key in meditation isn’t the ability to have an empty mind without trying. It’s developing the non-judgmental ability—a sort of mental muscle that needs training—to gently pull your mind back.

In the case of this pre-drafting or plot-problem-solving “portable process,” you’re not lasso-ing your mind and yanking it back to keep it from wandering at all. You’re only pulling it back when it wanders in the wrong direction (away from the book you’re trying to write) and then nudging it, with love and optimism, down the correct daydreaming or incubating path.

Revisit the world you’ve created. Keep it fresh in your mind. Even if you’re not writing for days or weeks at a time, even if you only have a few minutes, there’s no reason not to skim over recent pages; in fact, it may be essential to keeping the world of the story alive.

Long ago, physicians realized that bedrest was terrible for the body. Within a single sedentary day, our systems start failing. Likewise, don’t give your story unnecessary bedrest. At least make sure it’s gotten to roll over, sit up, stretch for a few minutes and have a sip of water before it gets tucked into again, returned to its cozy incubating place in your head and on your computer.

Here’s one more key. Don’t be too quick to think this process isn’t working if your conscious attempt to daydream/muse/brainstorm while driving or taking a shower doesn’t generate genius. Similarly, don’t think you’re doing it wrong if, at bedtime, you gently guide your mind to your story problem and promptly fall asleep.

The goal is not to produce immediate results, or not every time. The goal is to stoke the fires of creativity just beneath the threshold of attention, to spur the process of divergent thinking, by which associations are made and less-obvious solutions found. The new idea or fragment of dialogue or essential plot turn may come to you suddenly or only later, in a dream or while you’re walking the dog or even when you’re reading someone else’s book.

When it does, revel in that musing but also…take some notes! Even if you can’t write out a scene, at least jot down snippets or bullet points. Don’t count on the beautiful mind that just gave you great new stuff to also remember the details!

 

 

Andromeda Romano-Lax is a developmental editor, writing coach, and the author of six novels, including The Deepest Lake.

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