Day 110: Creative flow state, mindset shift about blocking
I woke up with another sinus headache and wasn't sure I'd get much writing done today, but the headache eventually went away and I got down to business. Intermittently, I was feeling a bit of discomfort from the IBS, so I wasn't quite as productive as I wanted to be and ran out of gas a bit early. When I nearly lost a monster battle because I was staring dazedly at the screen, I decided to stop for the day.
I listened to a podcast, which was talking about writing flow. It reminded me of what I'd blogged about yesterday about editing as I go because I simply don't want to have to do it later, which has led to lower stress and more enjoyment during the writing.
The problem is that what they were talking about with getting into writing flow and not allowing the critical left-brain stuff to interrupt actually makes a lot of sense, and I remember studying this kind of stuff back in my Psychology courses in college.
It bothered me that I might be crippling myself by editing as I go. What if I could be more creative and the writing would be more vibrant if I didn't edit and just did like I did before and laid down a messy first draft?
I'd still face the problem of high levels of resistance to doing my self-editing if Sprinting Camy gave Future Camy too many things to do, and after enjoying this easy pace the past few days (weeks?) and spitting out pretty clean copy, I don't really want to give that up.
Then in the shower, I had a sudden epiphany. Lately I've been doing my blocking before writing each scene. It has taken anywhere from 5 minutes up to 30, depending on the scene. My blocking can sometimes get very detailed since I will usually write down whatever comes to me, even if it's description or dialogue that should technically go in the rough draft, not the blocking stage.
But what if I treated my blocking stage like my rough draft stage? When I do the blocking, I'm essentially writing a very detailed synopsis of the scene. It's in present tense, just like in the Snowflake step 6 extended synopsis, but at some points, it can get almost as detailed as a rough draft.
Also, if I get stuck while I'm blocking, I will usually just start doing a freewrite to try to solve the problem, so it ends up being pretty messy sometimes, just like a rough draft.
Since I'm worried about not getting into that creative flow state if I edit as I write, I thought that it might be an interesting experiment for me to switch my mindset and treat the blocking as my rough draft instead. I can try to go into flow state as I do the blocking. When I start work on the actual scene, I'm using the blocking as a guide, so it doesn't bother me when the blocking is messy because in my head, the blocking is just part of the synopsis.
Then when I do the writing (what now is the rough draft), it'll actually be more like a first pass of editing, or even a second draft. (I think I will start calling it the "second draft" stage.)
For my previous books, when I self-edited a really rough draft like from dictation, it was usually a mix of left-brain stuff like looking up research and switching words, and right-brain writing of short passages to fill in gaps I'd missed or rework a transition.
I realized that my current easy-going, edit-as-I-go writing pace is remarkably similar. I'll look up research and change words (because I don't want to have to do it later) in between right-brain writing. There's more of the right-brain writing than when I self-edit, but the left-brain stuff is the same.
So why not treat it like a first editing pass instead? That way I can maybe get into flow state and come up with the really juicy creative stuff in the blocking/rough draft, and then for the first pass editing/second draft stage I'll essentially be reworking the blocking into prettier prose, fixing sentences, coming up with stronger words.
I suppose none of this is new. I'm just doing what the writing coaches say and writing a messy first draft.
But the difference is in my writer's process and how I'm viewing it. Also, my blocking will still be in present tense, just like a synopsis, and my "second draft" will be the same thing I'm doing now, which is writing in past tense and adding more detail.
I guess basically I'm trying to do everything--get into creative flow state by not editing as I go in my blocking stage, but still editing as I go in the writing stage in order to produce a clean copy, and therefore avoid my unreasonable, illogical aversion to self-editing a messy rough draft.
I'm not entirely sure if this will work, but I'm going to give it a shot!
Time spent writing: 3 hours, 39 minutes
Total number of words: 3295 words
Average writing speed: 1021 words per hour
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 1 hour, 16 minutes
My takeaway for today: Mindset shift: try doing some blocking as if it's a rough draft in order to get into creative flow state, and treat the writing like a first pass editing/second draft stage in order to still produce clean writing copy.
I listened to a podcast, which was talking about writing flow. It reminded me of what I'd blogged about yesterday about editing as I go because I simply don't want to have to do it later, which has led to lower stress and more enjoyment during the writing.
The problem is that what they were talking about with getting into writing flow and not allowing the critical left-brain stuff to interrupt actually makes a lot of sense, and I remember studying this kind of stuff back in my Psychology courses in college.
It bothered me that I might be crippling myself by editing as I go. What if I could be more creative and the writing would be more vibrant if I didn't edit and just did like I did before and laid down a messy first draft?
I'd still face the problem of high levels of resistance to doing my self-editing if Sprinting Camy gave Future Camy too many things to do, and after enjoying this easy pace the past few days (weeks?) and spitting out pretty clean copy, I don't really want to give that up.
Then in the shower, I had a sudden epiphany. Lately I've been doing my blocking before writing each scene. It has taken anywhere from 5 minutes up to 30, depending on the scene. My blocking can sometimes get very detailed since I will usually write down whatever comes to me, even if it's description or dialogue that should technically go in the rough draft, not the blocking stage.
But what if I treated my blocking stage like my rough draft stage? When I do the blocking, I'm essentially writing a very detailed synopsis of the scene. It's in present tense, just like in the Snowflake step 6 extended synopsis, but at some points, it can get almost as detailed as a rough draft.
Also, if I get stuck while I'm blocking, I will usually just start doing a freewrite to try to solve the problem, so it ends up being pretty messy sometimes, just like a rough draft.
Since I'm worried about not getting into that creative flow state if I edit as I write, I thought that it might be an interesting experiment for me to switch my mindset and treat the blocking as my rough draft instead. I can try to go into flow state as I do the blocking. When I start work on the actual scene, I'm using the blocking as a guide, so it doesn't bother me when the blocking is messy because in my head, the blocking is just part of the synopsis.
Then when I do the writing (what now is the rough draft), it'll actually be more like a first pass of editing, or even a second draft. (I think I will start calling it the "second draft" stage.)
For my previous books, when I self-edited a really rough draft like from dictation, it was usually a mix of left-brain stuff like looking up research and switching words, and right-brain writing of short passages to fill in gaps I'd missed or rework a transition.
I realized that my current easy-going, edit-as-I-go writing pace is remarkably similar. I'll look up research and change words (because I don't want to have to do it later) in between right-brain writing. There's more of the right-brain writing than when I self-edit, but the left-brain stuff is the same.
So why not treat it like a first editing pass instead? That way I can maybe get into flow state and come up with the really juicy creative stuff in the blocking/rough draft, and then for the first pass editing/second draft stage I'll essentially be reworking the blocking into prettier prose, fixing sentences, coming up with stronger words.
I suppose none of this is new. I'm just doing what the writing coaches say and writing a messy first draft.
But the difference is in my writer's process and how I'm viewing it. Also, my blocking will still be in present tense, just like a synopsis, and my "second draft" will be the same thing I'm doing now, which is writing in past tense and adding more detail.
I guess basically I'm trying to do everything--get into creative flow state by not editing as I go in my blocking stage, but still editing as I go in the writing stage in order to produce a clean copy, and therefore avoid my unreasonable, illogical aversion to self-editing a messy rough draft.
I'm not entirely sure if this will work, but I'm going to give it a shot!
Time spent writing: 3 hours, 39 minutes
Total number of words: 3295 words
Average writing speed: 1021 words per hour
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 1 hour, 16 minutes
My takeaway for today: Mindset shift: try doing some blocking as if it's a rough draft in order to get into creative flow state, and treat the writing like a first pass editing/second draft stage in order to still produce clean writing copy.
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