Turn Off Your Brain
We writers know how it is.
If you sit down to write in the morning, your thoughts are filled with what is coming up that day. If you write in the evening, your thoughts are filled with what happened that day. Either way, when you sit down to write, it’s most likely you aren’t thinking about writing.
When your head is swirling with the thoughts of the day and your life, it’s hard to think about the lives of your characters. Whether you’re focused mostly on one character or juggling dozens, it’s hard to write about others when you want to think about yourself.
Here are some quick tips to help shut off your brain to other things and focus on your writing:
*Make your to-do list - quickly, don’t use it as a stall - before you start writing. That way you don’t have to worry about trying to remember all you have to do along with all your characters have to do, where your plot is going, etc.
*Get all your other things done at another time. This is your writing time, whether you like it or not. Don’t “take a break” to go web surfing or to answer emails. Do those things at a different time. This is your time to write, so write.
*Multi-task. Laundry, believe it or not, is not all that complicated a procedure. When your hands are busy doing something you don’t necessarily need your full mind engaged to do, use that time to be thinking about your next move in your story. If you do your laundry at the laundromat like I do, then make yourself stuck. Don’t drive away, don’t walk down the street (unless it’s hot in there), don’t do anything but be stuck where you are with your pencil and notebook to entertain yourself with when you aren’t transferring things from the washer to the dryer.
Apply or change these tips to help suit you, but use them. Using your time wisely is something that, if you didn’t learn it in school, you should start learning now.
February 21st, 2007 at 5:11 pm
I seem to think best while doing household chores, so I carry a notebook with me. Now, if only I could come up with some way to take notes in the shower…
February 21st, 2007 at 5:38 pm
I can’t seem to turn off my brain lately.
I guess I should do my planning ahead of time since I usually write stories without an outline and only the vaguest notion of what I want. The positive about doing this is I can come up some great ideas, but the negative is that it is time consuming and a lot of patience is required, which in turn make it tough, and which in turn makes it difficult to get into a zone, which in turn makes it hard to stay focused, which in turn leads to aimlessly surfing the web or playing on line poker or something that’s writing, which in turn leads me to getting nothing down.
February 21st, 2007 at 6:34 pm
Elisa - What you do is get those tubby-crayons for kids (wipes off easy) and write on the shower walls.
Richard - I know how that is. If possible, try picking out a time each day. Also if possible, handwrite or type on a computer with no internet access. Also, outlining is something I only do when I get truly, truly stuck, so don’t worry about that aspect.
Don’t forget to carry a notepad and paper everywhere. Try to think about your story as often as possible. In the shower, on the bus, in the library. It may be hard to keep focused, but shove those other thoughts away. If they persist, carry two notepads, one for story stuff, one for the annoying stuff you can’t stop thinking about.
February 21st, 2007 at 7:50 pm
You know how it is that when you finally, finally get yourself to sit down and write, and that’s when you remember your sister-in-law’s birthday is coming up in a week, and also that you really didn’t truly scrub the bathtub this morning, and Safeway is having a big sale on Cheez Whiz? Also, you’re hot and hungry and your shoes are too tight. It always happens, right? Nine times out of ten I’m out of my chair in no time–off to buy a birthday card, scrub the tub, and get some Cheez Whiz, eat lunch, buy some new shoes, get an iced drink. I HAVE to! The fate of the free world depends upon it. But a friend of mine has come up with a great solution to this: she keeps a pad of paper next to her computer, and she just writes down what she wants to be doing instead. One day I looked over and she’d written a little list: 1. Hungry. 2. Pick up clothes at cleaners. 3. Call Mom. She says that just by acknowledging the impulse, giving it the validity it craves by writing it down, she’s able to push it aside and get right back to her work. It even works with hunger, she claims–especially that hunger that comes when the words won’t.
February 21st, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Haha! Cleaning is never as interesting or “fun” as when you’re supposed to be writing.
That’s a great idea, and I do the same thing. I have quite a few notepads scattered around what’s currently my writing area.
March 5th, 2008 at 12:03 am
[...] more on time management, check out Turn Off Your Brain and Time Management Part One, Two and Three. Did You Enjoy this Post? Subscribe to Fiction Scribe. [...]