The Author Wheel Podcast
The Author Wheel Podcast
NaNoWriMo Productivity: Unlocking the 'Flow State'
Ever wondered about that magical state where words flow unrestricted, time seems suspended, and the world around you ceases to exist?
To help you through NaNoWriMo this November, we're giving you practical tips to increase your productivity and get the words on the page. What better place to start than getting into the flow?
Tip 1: Build a ritual to teach your brain it's writing time.
Tip 2: Try the "brain dump" technique - visualize the scene before you start "officially" writing.
We'll guide you through the ins and outs of these two tips in today's quick NaNoWriMo episode.
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Hi everyone and welcome to the Author Wheel Between Soad, number three. I'm award-winning fantasy author, megan Haskell.
Speaker 2:And I'm Greta Boris, usa Today Bestselling Mystery Thriller Author. Together we are the Author Wheel.
Speaker 1:So today we are going to talk about getting into the flow so that your Nano-Rymo project runs smoothly. When you sit down at the computer, you can write and be in that zone. But before we give our tips, why don't we talk a little bit about what flow actually is? Because we actually did a little bit of research on this.
Speaker 2:We did and we actually also talked to Becca Seim about it and she mentioned the name of the scientist who wrote about it, researched it, did the first research projects around it. His name starts with an M and it's really hard to say, so I'm not going to try and I can't remember what it is, but you can get in the flow in lots of things. Writing is just one of them.
Speaker 1:Right. So that flow state is that zone where the ideas just seem to come to you. You lose track of time and you get so involved in your project that the rest of the world seems to kind of disappear for a period of time. And it's kind of a magical state of being. And a lot of runners feel that when they're running, after you run for a while, you kind of get into this like Runners high.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the runners high and you get the same thing when you're really in a zone, when you're writing, there are lots of things. Music players, musicians often enter the flow state. Any kind of creative thing can be flow state, but it's yeah, it's that kind of like magical state of being where you just everything else disappears. You don't think about anything but your project and it's like the muse is just speaking through you. It's kind of amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you kind of know intuitively what to do next without your. It's like your logical brain fades away and you're kind of working on intuition and working from that place of you know, stephen King calls the boys in the basement or your muse, whatever right.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly. So, since Nana Rymel has just started, when this episode actually airs it should be November 2. So you've just started, so we're going to assume you are highly motivated, that you are ready to get working, that you have your idea and you're just raring to go, and so we're going to help you get into the flow with our two tips from today. So the first tip is to create a ritual around your writing. So what does that mean? What does that look like? It's a little different for everybody. Some writers will light a candle or they'll have essential oils that they like that really stimulate their creativity. So it can be like the flame of the candle or the scent of the candle or the essential oils, the smell. That sensory repetition can really help you.
Speaker 1:I personally like to use an app called Brain FM, which helps with white noise kind of music that's designed to fade into the background but stimulate your brain in certain ways to help you get into that flow state as well. It's a very cool app actually. They not only do flow state for creativity, but also for sleep or for taking a nap or all these different things, and so it helps change your brain waves or something like that. I don't know, I just like it for the white noise and the fact that it runs on a timer, but it works for me. But there's also you can create special spaces in your house.
Speaker 1:I think we were talking to Shell Hanukkah about her writing ritual and how she goes into a separate space in her house for creative writing versus doing her business work, and that really helps her get into that mental headspace for writing. So, creating that ritual, creating the space, creating the sequence of events that lead you into your manuscript, so that once you get there, you go through that process, you actually are ready to write and your brain, the meat of your brain, knows that this is what we're doing now, and so you don't have to change gears quite so frequently. It just helps you get right into it.
Speaker 2:Right, and that's a really good one. Another tip is that it is much easier to get in a flow state when you know what you're going to write. So the less decisions you have to make, because the decision making part of your brain is a different part of your brain than the intuitive flow state part of your brain. So in order to stay there, you want to make as few decisions as possible, and so a great way to do that is what is called brain dumps. So what a brain dump is is it's just sort of what it sounds like.
Speaker 2:You're ready to write a chapter or a scene and you envision it in your mind and you sort of dump that what you see in your mind on the page. So, technically, the way you're supposed to do it which I don't do it, exactly the way you're supposed to do it, but technically the way you're supposed to do it you can close your eyes, open your chapter. You can close your eyes if you can type with your eyes shut, but if you can't, don't worry, you can look at your keyboard and then you just imagine the scene and it's like you're taking snapshots with your words. So you don't worry about punctuation, you don't worry about spelling the only punctuation you might use as a comma between words or phrases. So it could be something like walks into room, smells apple pie, stomach growls, mother sitting at table Curtains blowing in breeze, apples on curtains, whatever the details of the thing you see, and let your brain kind of go through the scene. You don't want to write all the dialogue, but you might write a word or two of dialogue to trigger you, to let you know what the conversations are going to be about, if there are conversations in the scene and so on, and it shouldn't take longer than maybe one to five minutes tops.
Speaker 2:And then when you're done, you can now different people do this different ways. You can get up, take a break, go get a drink of water, whatever, and then when you come back, write that scene, or you can go directly into writing it. Or another way I use it is at the end of a day of writing, when I know I'm done. I have all these ideas now for the next chapter or two, because I'm so in the flow and in the story. I might do a brain dump, open a new page for a new chapter and do a brain dump for the next day, or even to brain dumps for the next day, so I know what I'm going to write when I get there.
Speaker 1:Thank you, yeah, and the the brain dump to the way I use it is usually at the beginning, before I write the scene, but making sure I get all that sensory detail. So it's like I'm imagining a movie, but in, you know, for 4d or whatever they call it the movie.
Speaker 1:You know you get all the other sensations too, but you imagine you're actually there. That way, when you're writing the scene, you can already feel all the things that your character is feeling, and that really helps Bring life to the scene when you write it, which I think. I don't know, I have no proof to say this but I think that ultimately reduces your revisions later as well, because you've already Brought in a lot of that sensory detail that you might have to layer in later otherwise so, yeah, and I also think that helps you get in the flow, because You're not just in your analytical, logical brain, mm-hmm, because you're, you're, you're, you're moving into the sensory aspects of your brain.
Speaker 2:You know the smells, the feelings, the emotions, senses on your skin Cold, hot, all of those kinds of things you know, you're, you're, you're talking to a different part, your brain is talking to a different part of your body. And Also, interestingly, something I learned is that the memory center of your brain and the scent or Smell center of your brain are very closely entwined, which is why when you walk, you know you maybe walk into a shop and you get the whiff of a candle or a perfume or something and immediately you're three years old again, you know, at your beach house with your parents or whatever. It's that kind of the thing. So getting into those Century places and memories and all of those kinds of things are great for getting in the flow.
Speaker 1:Absolutely All right. Well, so I think that's it for today's betweeny. So to get into the flow. We hope this will help you Achieve that flow state in your writing and get off on the right foot for nano-rymo. Don't forget, if you want to get see these tips every week and you want to hear them, make sure you subscribe to the podcast on your favorite podcast players that you don't miss anything. Until next time, keep your stories rolling you.
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