Triggering the Zone
Slipping into the zone is not easy. It takes practice. When I was practicing piano, playing now and then, performing now and then, speaking in front of an audience now and then, and practicing Tae Kwon Do, slipping into the zone was second nature.
Flip a switch and there.
Or, as Michael Jordan said, “I know the Zone. I can put it on like an overcoat.”
But the further I get away from piano and Tae Kwon Do, the more difficult this becomes. The snap-boom-on doesn’t happen at command anymore.
I never thought I’d lose that.
Getting into the zone takes triggers. Sit at the piano, there. Bow, there. That’s the problem with computers: they are multi-purpose machines. Sitting at the computer can’t be an instant there, because sometimes you’re watching Hulu, sometimes you’re playing Facebook, sometimes you’re chatting with friends, sometimes you’re writing emails, and sometimes you’re writing.
Add into the fact that when you’re writing for hours a day, you need a little mental break every hour. So even if you were to snap into the zone at your desk, you need to snap in and out of it every hour.
So how to trigger it? That’s the question. Opening the document seems obvious, but doesn’t quite work. Sometimes going into a full-screen editor helps, like Q10, where all you can see is the words you write. (Sorry about the colors in the preview picture; the colors are customizable.) Other than that?
I’m looking for ideas: What snaps you into the zone? Or, should we brainstorm? What triggers could we use to snap ourselves into the zone?
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Natasha Fondren is a writer traveling the U.S. in a camper with her four cats and husband. She spends summers camped near her niece, because, well, her niece is her favorite girl on the planet.
I wish I knew what triggered my zone. For some reason, the faucet in the brain opens at rare times, and the words pour out through my fingers. I can’t type fast enough. But usually I bleed out the words, all the while frantically thinking “What’s the point of this scene?”
LOL, Edie! I’m like a trickle-drip, then BAM! I used to get the faucet effect so much more often than I do now.
Perhaps you ought to give this a shot (even if only to start out and “get in the zone”——a starting point from which you can jump to the computer?):
“Dear Writer,
Reconsider your hand. Reconsider writing by hand. There is a kind of story that comes from hand. Writing which is different from a tapping-on-a-keyboard-kind-of-story. For one thing, there is no delete button, making the experience more life like right away. You can’t delete the things you feel unsure about and because of this, the things you feel unsure about have a much better chance of being able to exist long enough to reveal themselves. And the physical activity of writing by hand involves many parts of the brain which are used in story making such as time, place, action, characters, relationships, and moving forward across an entire connected gesture. And that’s just what goes on when we write a single letter by hand.
Although word count goals may be harder to reach, your body will not feel as tired as it does after a day spent tapping buttons and staring at a lit screen, especially if you write a bit longer than you usually do.
Another thing to reconsider is reading over what you have written. If you can stand to wait 24 hours before you decide the fate of what you have written —either good or bad—you’re more likely to see that invisible thing that is invisible for the first few days in any new writing. We just can’t know what all is in a sentence until there are several sentences to follow it. Pages of writing need more pages in order to be known, chapters need more chapters. The 24 hour period will give you time to create more of the things the writing needs. 48 hours is even better, and a week is ideal.
Can you keep your story going for a week without reading anything over? You’ll find you can. You’ll find that being able to rely on this ability will help you let one word follow the next without fussing as much as you do when you believe it’s the thinking and planning part of your mind that is writing the story. There is another part of the mind which has an ability for stories, for holding all the parts and presenting them bit by bit, but it’s not the same as the planning part of the mind. Nor is it the thing called ‘unconscious ‘—it is without a doubt quite conscious when we are engaged in the physical activity which allows it to be active. This something is what deep playing contains when we are children and fully engaged by rolling a toy car and all who are inside of it toward the table edge. The word imagination isn’t quite right for it either because it also leaves out the need for moving an object—a toy, a pen or pencil tip—across an area in the physical world. It’s a very old, human thing, using physical activity along with thing ‘thing’ that is neither all the way inside of us nor all the way outside of us. Stories happen in that place between the two. The Image world isn’t anywhere else. A computer can give you a neat looking page, higher word count and delete and copy and past abilities, but they are poor producers of the thing the hand brings about much more easily: Right here, right now, the pane of paper that the paper windows and walls require to give is the inside view, the vista.
You can’t know what a book is about until the very end. This is true of a book we’re reading or writing.
Writing by hand is like walking instead of riding in a car. It’s slower, to be sure, but you’ll smell the smoke if you’re near a house that is about to burst into flame. You’ll hear the shouting from a fight about to break out in a back yard. You’ll be able to help the dog who comes running by with his leash attached and dragging behind him, and be able to help the person who has lost him calling his name. This will make writing more like living and less like watching television.
When writing by hand, when the story dries up temporarily—as it always does, try keeping your pen in motion anyway by writing the alphabet a b c d e f g in the middle of the sentence a b c d e f g h i j k until the sentence rolls forward again on its own. Just keep your pen steadily rolling along through time, for a good time.
Best! Love!
Lynda Barry”
Joey, I read that! I can’t write on paper, no seriously, really can’t, but brainstorming on paper rocks! It sure did today.
(PS: I am convinced if I had been writing before computers, I wouldn’t be a writer, LOL.)
For me it often comes down to discipline. I have to make myself focus and prevent myself from giving in to internal distractions. Then the zone is likely to come.
Charles, that makes sense. I have to watch what I eat better. That helps with my focus a lot.
Right now, I’ll settle for a touch of inspiration…when one has a vision then the zone comes.
Bernita, I’m waving the magic inspiration wand at you! I could use some more vision, though.
Triggering the zone. I think you’ve see my treadmill desk. That slow walking helps put me in the zone. Something about the whole body movement, I think.
But I also think being in the zone has to do with how you are feeling about your story, how lost (in a good way) you are in it. How it won’t leave your head.
For me, leaving the internet alone helps. Sometimes I wear noise cancelling headphones. Sometimes I have a little phrase posted to help me focus or a mantra in my head.
And like Lynda, above, I’ve had some great zone experiences when I write long hand.
Ooh, Paul, that’s cool! I’ve wanted a treadmill desk forever, but our camping lifestyle doesn’t allow it. If I could find a board, though, the clubhouse here has a treadmill that would work, and I’ve been dying to try.
I listen to this beta or theta or something white noise stuff. Really helps me focus.
Lately I’ve needed to step away from the computer for half an hour to switch gears. After reading blogs & the news and playing on facebook, I need to get my head out of the real world and into MY world, and that means clearing it of the clutter of information.
I made a mix for my two teenage MCs so I’ve started playing that while I putter around the house, then I sit down to my wip. My husband came home the other day while I was in the middle of this process and couldn’t figure out why I got upset when he wanted to talk.
Melanie, I do that all the time! I’ve learned how to phrase “I can’t talk now!” so as not to offend hubby. I mean, I know it looks like I’m staring out the window with nothing to do, but I’m actually so hard at work I can’t be interrupted!
What snaps you into the zone is what you said yourself, in slightly different words: practice being in the zone. If the path is familiar, the feet can walk it in the dark, ya know?
Written, what’s funny is my first title for this post was Practicing the Zone. I was wondering if you needed to practice the zone in more than one activity to keep it in shape. Hmm…
Of course you’re distracted. You were in the same house, doing the same old thing for several years, routine routine. Now you’re in a whole new place, with new sights and smells and experiences. You want to investigate and discover and learn. Maybe you need this to re-invigorate or something.
I am confident your zone is still there. It just may need a tweak.
Elizabeth, I seem to have the focus, and a surprising amount of determination, more than I ever thought I had, but the words won’t flow like they used to. Maybe tomorrow.
I have a playlist “soundtrack” on my Ipod for each of my works-in-progress. The first song is a trigger for my mind to go into that particular project. I put on my soundtrack when I want to think about my writing as well. It’s very effective for me, since I have to write in small patches of time. I can’t afford extra time to get myself into the mood.
I do like to write by hand from time to time.
I love that, Heather! I’ve been trying to write to movie soundtracks, and that helps.
I’m a big fan of self-hypnosis, Natasha. Once you get it down, you can auto-initialize yourself into the zone.
Of course, I’ve hypnotized myself into believing I’m talle- now if I can just hypnotize the mirror!
Oh that’s cool, Rick! You should do a series on that, after the final dragon installment. (I can’t wait.)
I don’t know. You’ve hit on something that’s a big problem for me. I can force myself to sit down and mechanicaly write. No problem. Except when I do that, and I’m not, as you put it, in the zone, nothing interesting happens. And I find it hard to get into my writing zone when I only have brief bits of time to write in, or when my mind is occupied by some non-fiction project. I’ve wrestled with this ever since I started to write fiction seriously and still haven’t found an answer except to try to free up fairly large chunks of time for fiction.
Eric, I need large chunks, too. I mean, even going to the grocery store will cause a setback. I’m embarrassed, but I’m really that ridiculous. My brain just doesn’t have the capacity to do more than one thing, lol.
I rely on discipline, as well as getting my Other Stuff done to make room in my brain and my day. I know I have to write a certain amount every day for sanity’s sake, but that can be taken care of by blogging. So I have to focus on what’s important and realize it’s Internet or Other Stuff, not Internet or Writing.
Right now it’s Other Stuff and Writing. Mostly. But I haven’t really written in four days and the shakes are starting…
Bets, I know those shakes, lol! I hate other stuff. Errands are what I hate most of all!