Give Up Flow, Ignore the Muse, Just Practice
Recently, the subjects of flow and the Muse came up in the Pages & Platforms writing sprint group, with several people bemoaning the difficulty of getting to that sweet spot, where you feel like you’re taking dictation, where time passes while your fingers fly, all sense of self temporarily forgotten. Everyone agreed it was an ongoing challenge and shared their ways to minimize distraction and create the best environment to help it happen. I stayed quiet, although I understood their frustration; in fact, I suffered from extreme writer’s block for ten years.
During that time, I read countless books and articles on writing, on routines and rituals to optimize for creativity, I took classes. My favorite coffee table book was filled with nothing but photos of famous author’s desks, and I would thumb through it, seeking inspiration, while nearby, my computer sat still, my notebooks mostly empty. I had almost given up, until I received a present, one I reeaallly didn’t want.
It was an improv class, given to me in spite of my complete lack of interest in theater. I went anyway and to my shock, loved it--the focus on supporting others, creative collaboration, and just having fun. Eventually, I experimented with applying improv exercises to writing and sure enough, bit by bit, I began to write again, small stuff first, eventually full-length novels. My writer’s block has been gone ever since.
But back to my sprint group. We have a Google spreadsheet where we have the option to note our daily word count and several members noticed mine was consistently high, so I shared a few of my improv exercises and those who tried them saw their own word counts rise. It was great to see them feeling more productive and I would have completely forgotten about the other key tool that made me a productive writer, until the day our group talked about flow, and the Muse.
To be clear — I believe in both of these things and I’ve experienced them, but I have found that I waste my creative energy when I focus on the pursuit of feeling creative. It is one of resistance’s best tricks—equating quality work with feeling good about it while you’re doing it. Even after I cured my writer’s block, I didn’t become consistently productive until I embraced a crucial fact: Creative work usually doesn’t feel creative. It feels like all work feels; slogging, boring, nothing special, with the occasional great day thrown in. Don’t drive yourself crazy trying to replicate the conditions you had on that one great day.
Writing is work. Work is mundane. Writing is mundane work. This might sound like a bummer, but by putting in mundane, regular work, your skill will increase, your word count will add up. Put in the time, punch the clock, and you will develop as a writer. But how?
First, commit to the mundane. Stop trying to lure your Muse or optimize for flow. Instead, decide now what your practice will look like: How often will you write? When? For what duration? The temptation here is to look at what other writers do. Instead, pick a time that works with your schedule, for a duration you can commit to.
Second, commit to the idea of writing practice. Practice doesn’t come with the expectation of feeling great while doing it. When you practice piano, you know you are going to stumble your way through warm-ups, then make lots of mistakes while you practice the pieces you are learning. I don’t know anyone who expects to feel awesome during piano practice. Same with running. At the track, you’ve got tight calves , an uneven pace, and you do it to warm up, build stamina, increase speed. You don’t run laps expecting it to be amazing, only to put in the work.
Once you’ve settled on the specifics of your writing practice, write for quantity rather than quality. I once spoke to someone who drew a thousand portraits in one year. He said the toughest part was the last fifty, because he’d improved quite a bit and started expecting his portraits to be good. He had to remind himself his goal was just to draw, not to draw well. This is the right mindset for you as a writer. Put in the time, commit to your practice, remain present, but stay alert for expectations of quality. It will be one of the hardest things to do—knowing that by practicing you are getting better and better, yet not wasting any of your vital creative energy on that expectation.
This approach has a name: Production-oriented. You have probably done it: Natalie Goldberg’s free writing exercises in Writing Down the Bones; Julia Cameron’s morning pages, NaNoWriMo 50k words in thirty days. These are examples of production-oriented writing. The difference between them and practice is applying that same don’t-stop-your-hands-moving mindset into your daily work rather than as just a warm-up or temporary challenge.
To help you keep your hand moving during your practice, here are the tools I use:
Start your writing answering the question What comes first? Follow this with, What comes next? If you falter, return to What comes next?
Feeling extra blocked at the beginning of a project? Ask, What comes last? You can reverse engineer an entire draft this way.
Use Kenn Adams’s Story Spine. A staple in improv classes across the globe & popularized by a story development artist at Pixar, it is perfect for generating story arcs. Just fill in the following blanks:
Once Upon a Time…
And Every Day…
Until One Day…
And Because of That…
And Because of That…
Until Finally…
And Ever Since That Day…`
If you get stuck, look at the last sentence you wrote and say to yourself, ‘Yes, because…’ then just write whatever pops into your mind. Don’t worry about making your answer logical, or fitting it into your existing material. Trust your brain to give you what you need and keep your hand moving.
To sharpen narrative or plot, write the same scene twice — once limiting yourself to narrative & eliminating forward plot movement; then again, focusing on plot alone, limiting description as much as possible. You can also do this for dialogue, or sensory detail.
Now you are writing tons of raw content, you will want to know how to refine it into a finished draft. You will do it in your practice, from a plan. To create a plan, turn to experts and peers. You probably already have favorite books, podcasts, and blogs exploring plot structure, character development, etc., all to be used to formulate next steps. Pages and Platforms is a great resource for developing a plan specific to your needs.
I’ll leave you with a final warning. Practice time is for writing. It isn’t for reading books, listening to podcasts, getting lost in the internet. You don’t peruse Amazon for musical theory books during piano practice and you don’t read internet articles about improving your stride during track practice. Instead, let your writing practice be simple, boring, and free from the weight of expectation. Just sit down and write. If you do, the Muse may hover over your shoulder because she sees you are busy writing. Flow might just appear. Like cats, both are most attracted to those who aren’t trying to coax them onto their laps.
Oona Cava is a freelance editor and writing coach. Before becoming an editor, she was the education director and a mainstage performer at the Upfront Theatre, owned by Ryan Stiles of Whose Line Is It Anyway. Oona uses improv exercises with her clients to help them break through writers block, enhance creativity, and increase their productivity. When she isn’t working with writers, she is working on her own YA series, playing with her miniature dachshund Momo, and growing dahlias.