Chapter 7

Fire Up Your Writing Brain

Buckle Down and Write

“If you concentrate on writing three or four hours a day and feel tired after a week of this, you’re not going to be able to write a long work. What’s needed of the writer of fiction—at least one who hopes to write a novel—is the energy to focus every day for half a year, or a year, or two years. Fortunately, these two disciplines—focus and endurance—are different from talent, since they can be acquired and sharpened through training.”

—Haruki Murakami

Now that you’ve engaged your brainpower—to sort out the details, envision the story, understand your characters and themes—and you have fired up the world’s most magnificent writing machine, it’s time to open the floodgates, buckle down, and get words on the page.

Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, the author quoted above, who has run in thirty or so marathons and written a dozen novels, attributes these impressive accomplishments to his ability to focus. He calls the focus needed for writing “the ability to concentrate all your limited talents on whatever’s critical at the moment.” Without that, he says, you can’t accomplish anything of value. According to Murakami, he spends three to four hours each morning, at his desk, focused totally on what he is writing. “I don’t see anything else, I don’t think about anything else,” he says.

Even in the best of circumstances, focusing for long periods of time is a challenge. Staying alert, keeping your mind razor sharp, generating new ideas, and writing at your peak capacity requires energy and discipline. In this chapter, we’ll discuss specific ways you can fire up your brain and keep it focused on writing the best work you are capable of writing.

Create the Best Setting to Write

Even if it’s a corner of the kitchen table, the place where you write should be treated like a sacred space—a place where you focus only on writing, minimize distractions, and honor the craft you are perfecting. Having a space that is readily available will help you transition from “daily life” to your “writing life,” and a space in which you can create the ideal working environment for you—whether it’s absolute quiet or close to the hum of everyday life or sparsely decorated and clean or lived in and cluttered with books—should feel sacrosanct. It is useful to give thought to your ideal writing environment and to make being in the space enjoyable and rewarding. The more you connect pleasure with writing, the more your brain will be motivated to fire on all pistons, in that space, when you most need it. Loving your sacred writing space also helps conquer writing resistance because you’ve created a place in which you want to be.

Create the Best Environment

Some writers like noise; others prefer quiet. Some writers write in marathon stretches; others prefer daily, two-hour windows of opportunity. Some writers like to write before the sun rises; some like to write well into the nighttime hours. The point is that whatever works for you is fine. If you’re productive and find writing rewarding, then flow with it.

However, if finding time to be truly productive proves difficult, it’s important to figure out what isn’t working and what will work for you. Consider all variables. Your needs may differ for various stages in the process (brainstorming in silence, firing up with loud music, writing with soft music in the background). Don’t assume you already know what will work best. Experiment. Notice when things go well and then create more of that environment, situation, and experience. Focus on the positive as much as possible, linking pleasure to writing. The more you enjoy the time you spend writing and the more you feel that your writing sessions are productive, the more you’ll want to write every chance you get.

Scientific studies have found that working in a warm environment (ideal temperature around 77 degrees) and working in a well-lit environment (natural daylight is best, even light is also important) is conducive to productive thinking. The gist of it is keep yourself comfortably warm and don’t work in a rabbit hole that’s dark, repressive, cluttered, and claustrophobic—unless, of course, that’s what lights up your brain.

Clear Brain Space for Writing

Substantial research suggests that having a clean work space increases your ability to concentrate. Many writers find it hard to work if their house isn’t fairly clean and the laundry mostly done. Yes, doing chores can be a way to procrastinate, but, for many, it’s easier to focus on creativity when everyday, real-life things are pretty much in order. It’s fine to put things in order before you begin writing, as long as you get around to writing. If this type of fussing becomes procrastination, then you have to stop deluding yourself and either breeze through whatever it is (give yourself thirty minutes to deal with life) or learn to compartmentalize long enough to focus on what comes first—which should always be writing.

Also, it’s good to take a break once an hour to stand or, even better, to move around and do something physical. That’s the perfect time to vacuum the rug, throw in a load of laundry, pick up the family room, or wash the dishes in your sink. Just remember to keep these breaks short and focused on one task, which will help your brain shift from one task back to the original task of writing.

One way to block the urge to put other things before writing is to create a physical “must-do” list and then prioritize the items on the list by determining what has to be done and what can wait. By the time you’ve created the list, you will know the tasks you need to do to clear your mind, and which ones can wait, which will help your brain feel in control and confident that everything on the list will be addressed—later.

Enter With Intention

Just settling into your writing space should signal that it’s time for the real work to begin. The space needs to be at least marginally functional and advantageous to the kind of concentration required to write. Do whatever it takes to create a space and create the kind of ambiance that separates you from your everyday life, whether it’s burning scented candles or incense (which many love as a way to “cleanse or refresh energy” and/or create sensual stimulation), softly playing classical music (a gentle way to ease into writing) or rock music (stimulating, at least to get fired up), and the proximity of favorite items, such as a certain pen, a signed, first-edition novel you love, a miniature statue of Shakespeare—whatever you love.

Here’s a brief list of what setting a clear intention to write can do for your brain:

• It gives your brain a sense of purpose, perks up receptors and boosts neuronal connections related to writing, which improves clarity, focus, insights, and flow.
• It narrows down the field of awareness and helps your brain dismiss disruptive thoughts, which increases productivity.
• It bolsters purposeful self-observation, helps your unconscious become conscious, and helps you see and address your resistance.
• It helps you notice when you go off task and feel a sense of accomplishment when you stay focused and productive.

Setting an intention doesn’t imply anything woo-woo mystical, it’s merely taking a moment to connect your mind with your brain, thereby uniting them in the sole purpose of focusing only on writing, committing both to whatever mental concentration or power it takes to get into the flow and get words “on paper.” It’s as easy as speaking aloud one sentence: “I am entering my writing space with the intention of focusing solely on the writing work planned for today—everything else will wait until I [write one thousand words, write two scenes, finish the chapter I was working on yesterday].” Your mind is announcing to your brain that you will now want all of its writing resources to coalesce. It also helps to set a specific time allotment and goal, such as writing two scenes in the three-hour morning writing session.

Use Meditation to Fire Up Your Neuronal Network

Meditation serves as a gateway between the everyday lives we lead and our innermost selves, that which makes us unique and feels most authentic to who we are—in life, and in art. The more access we have to the innermost, sacred parts of our self, the more we are able to express what matters most to us in our work. Meditation can bring clarity, commitment, and calm. Any type of meditation has discernable, positive effects for your brain, but mindfulness meditation has been shown to be particularly effective.

Basically all you need to meditate is a quiet place to sit for ten to twenty minutes. Start with ten and work your way up to twenty minutes; the more you meditate the more you’re likely to find those twenty minutes crucial to your sanity—and your writing focus.

Here’s how you do it:

• Sit in a comfortable position. If you cross your legs to sit on the floor, perhaps place a pillow under your spine, or sit on a chair with your feet flat on the floor. As you settle in, imagine that a string is gently lifting each vertebra of your spine until your back is straight and your shoulders squared (yet relaxed). The idea is to more fully inhabit your body, to feel your mind, body, brain, and spirit as one.
• Close your eyes and purposefully slow your breathing, noticing your breaths as you gently and slowly draw air deep into your lungs (and down into your belly) and then slowly expel the air. If you prefer, you can also keep your eyes open and use an object as a “soft” focal point.
• When your thoughts wander, bring them back to your breathing. If you like, you can use a ticking sound or soft music in the background to increase relaxation and improve focus—to keep your mind focused only on being fully present in your body.
• If you like, you can softly chant or draw out the sound of “om,” noticing how the sound begins to resonate more deeply as your breathing slows. Some people like to use guided meditation, and you can find a wealth of options online.
• As thoughts arise, gently dismiss them. Some imagine placing their thoughts in imaginary balloons and releasing them. Whatever works, use it to bring your “focus” back to your breath, to the focal point, to the sound of “om,” or to the guided meditation. Thoughts will arise, particularly as you remain quietly seated, but the more you practice meditation, the better you’ll get at dismissing them.
• Continue meditating until your mind has quieted, your breathing is slow, regular, nourishing, and you feel relaxed. Your mind and brain should feel rejuvenated and free of clamoring thoughts and distractions. When ready, slowly bring your consciousness back to the room. Some like to breathe in deeply and blow it out in a cleansing manner, shake their fingers and hands, open their eyes, or place their hands together in a prayerful way.

While it may feel like you haven’t accomplished much, meditating actually provides amazing benefits for your brain. You are training your brain to detach from distracting thoughts and emotions, to let them come and go without latching onto them. This training will help you transition from the demands of your daily life to achieving the mindset to write. The following goes into specific brain benefits, which may help encourage you to embrace daily meditation.

Meditation Bolsters Insights, Ideas, and Connections

Meditation has been widely shown to increase our abilities to be more perceptive and insightful, which is crucial for writing. The more you practice meditation, the stronger those sensory muscles will become. Also, practicing meditation quiets the brain chatter that makes it hard to concentrate and fosters the brain circuits that use a steady gaze to look within. Studies have shown that meditation reduces anxiety by calming the amygdala, which is where our brains process fear. During meditation, our brain shifts from the stress-prone right frontal cortex to the calmer left frontal cortex, which facilities greater insights, ideas, and connections.

Meditation Quiets Distracting Thoughts

Meditation is a testament to focus; it’s training your mind to quiet itself, ignore distracting thoughts, and focus all attention on the “here and now,” what’s happening in the present, and how your mind and body are responding to it. Practiced meditators are able to experience the joy of writing in the moment, without attaching expectations or worrying thoughts to the process of writing. They generally experience more moments of flow, that precious time when all sense of time fades and one gets lost in the art of writing. Now that’s something well worth pursuing.

Meditation Helps You Bridge the Gap

Meditation bridges the gap between observations—what we see, hear, smell, taste, and touch—and what we can dream, imagine, or create while “in the writing zone” because it does the following:

• creates a receptive state for insights, revelations, and intuition, all of which will add depth to your writing;
• calms an agitated mind and reduces anxiety in general;
• boosts access to your innermost self—what makes you unique in the world—and helps you feel more confident writing from that place;
• helps you move smoothly between three levels of awareness: intellectual/ego, emotional/intuitive, and imaginative/inspirational;
• quiets brain chatter, soothes rattled feelings, and improves the ability to live “in the moment;”
• helps you enjoy the writing process as it happens, by focusing thoughts on the present rather than dwelling on the past or worrying about the future;
• improves attention and concentration (The more you meditate, the better you’ll become at focusing and concentrating.);
• induces the desirable state of flow, when ideas and words seem to magically appear.

In addition to helping you transition from paying attention to something (or everything) else to paying attention to writing, meditation has amazing long-term benefits for your brain.

Meditation’s Long-Term Benefits

Meditation has been shown to provide many health benefits for mind, body, brain, and spirit. Researchers using functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) imaging scans on both experienced and novice meditators found that those who regularly practiced meditation had less anxiety in the “default mode” network of the brain (consisting of the medial prefrontal and posterior cingulated cortex), which has been linked to distraction, anxiety, attention deficit, and hyperactivity. It’s also been associated with the buildup of amyloid plagues in the brain that may lead to the development Alzheimer’s disease. They found that those who meditated on a regular basis gained the following specific benefits:

• There was a decrease in activity in this default mode network—no matter which type of meditation was being practiced
• When the default mode activated, brain regions associated with self-monitoring and cognitive control were concurrently activated in experienced meditators, helping them suppress “me” thoughts and keep their minds more focused.
• Their brains remained more alert and may develop a “new default mode” in which they maintain more present-centered awareness and less self-centered focus (fewer disruptive thoughts and distractions).

What this implies, of course, is that meditation helps you train your brain to “default” in a way that is more calm, aware, open, and capable of focus. This training could be particularly useful if you’re the type of person whose brain defaults to anxiety or scattered thoughts that create an inability to focus on the work at hand. Over time, regularly practicing meditation has been shown to provide the following benefits:

• increase the volume of gray matter in the insula (an emotional center), hippocampus (your memory center), and prefrontal cortex (executive functioning), all of which benefit writing (Increases in grey matter mean increases in the amount of connections each cell is receiving, so you have thus increased your area for creating yet more writing frameworks.);
• boost attention, compassion, and empathy; reduce anxiety, phobias, and insomnia;
• increase the power and reach of fast gamma-range brainwaves, supercharging large numbers of neurons to fire rhythmically;
• reduce cortical thinning due to aging; decrease the amount of stress-related cortisol, which is also aging.

And it doesn’t matter what type of meditation you pursue—they’re all good for your brain.

Make Writing a Meditation

The word meditation is derived from the Latin verb meditari, which means “to think, contemplate, devise, or ponder,” which is exactly what one does when writing—or preparing to write. In fact, writing itself can become your mediation, particularly if you sit quietly, slow your breathing, chase away distracting thoughts, and give yourself a prompt, which could be any of the following:

• When it comes to writing, I feel ...
• What matters most to me today is ...
• My character’s next move will be to ...

Then, using a prompt, “freewrite” (allow ideas to flow without censure) for at least ten uninterrupted minutes. This will allow surprisingly focused thoughts on your prompt to flow from your mind onto the page. If you find this helpful, buy yourself a notebook and a pen you really like to use as your “meditative writing tools.” It is good to handwrite writing meditations, as it helps synchronize body, mind, and brain.

Explore Your Writing Process

You could also set up a series of writing meditations for yourself, such as choosing a topic that will explore your progression, in regards to writing in general, and your current work in progress. Try the following ideas for prompts:

• why I have always loved writing;
• what I love most about novels/screenplays/plays/poems/songs;
• qualities I share with my favorite novelist/screenwriter/playwright/songwriter;
• what I most want to express in this novel/screenplay/play/poem/memoir;
• why I love my protagonist and my readers will, too;
• what my protagonist most needs to learn;
• what my antagonist’s most hateful qualities are and why he is also sympathetic;
• why my writing is going well;
• why my writing is falling short of my expectations.

Those ten minutes spent freewriting on meaningful topics could be the place where you clarify thoughts, achieve original thoughts, smooth over frustrations, discover solutions, inspire yourself to new heights, affirm the value of your work, calm and reassure the skeptic inside, and so on. Writing meditations can be whatever you want them to be, but ideally this kind of “soft focusing” on your work as a writer would become a source of renewal and regeneration, which, if reinforced on a regular basis, would bolster self-confidence and make writing more pleasurable and fulfilling.

Make Writing Meditation a Practice

The most important thing you need to know about meditation is that practicing it regularly will provide amazing benefits. Obviously short-term benefits include quieting the mind, focusing on the present, and sharpening focus; long-term benefits would be the ability to more easily transition from a distracted state to a creative space in which ideas flow. Meditating on a regular basis is like building muscle strength: The more you train your brain to meditate on your writing process, the better you will be able to use writing meditation as a way to transition into each writing session—focused like a laser.

Employ Mindfulness to Improve Your Focus

A recent Harvard study found that our minds wander almost half of our waking hours, and this wandering is usually due to self-referential worrying: Which bills can I afford to pay this week? When can I finally afford the new computer I need? Will I finish the book on time? Will my editor ask me for a full revision?

When your mind wanders, your brain actually transitions into your default mode network, which does not occur when the brain is focused on specific tasks. Researchers at Yale University found that mindfulness meditation is effective in limiting activity in the default mode network, and in the medial prefrontal cortex, which governs those inward, self-referential “me” thoughts.

How to Mindfully Meditate

Mindfulness-based meditation is basically choosing to sit quietly for a period of ten to thirty minutes, fostering a nonjudgmental, present-moment awareness; it is accomplished by using objects (or mantras or thoughts) to keep one’s attention on the present, on the here and now, while dismissing other, distracting thoughts. When your mind wanders, you intentionally bring it back to what’s happening in terms of your breathing, or emotions, or thoughts of the present as you sit in meditation. Instead of thinking about six ways you could put your hero in peril, you sit quietly and focus on the way your breath elevates your chest or how soothing it feels as you breathe out, or even how your thoughts are constantly vying for your attention. Mindfulness-based meditation works by dismissing all incoming thoughts and bringing your mind back to the process of being in the here and now, as opposed to letting your mind and thoughts rehash the past, or worry about the future.

Mindfulness-based meditation, in particular, seems to quiet the mind by training it to acknowledge thoughts (sans judgment) and then relinquish negative, inward thoughts (rather than obsessing about unhappy or stress-inducing thoughts).

How It Helps You Write

Mindfulness-based meditation as a practice has been scientifically proven to:

• Improve function in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), which translates into improved self-regulation, the ability to purposefully direct attention, suppress knee-jerk responses, and seamlessly switch strategies. This will help you resist distractions when writing, learn from past mistakes, and make better decisions.
• Improve function in the hippocampus, which translates into stress reduction, emotional balance, improved outlooks, and memory. This helps you be in more control as you write, have a more balanced perception, and remember and replicate what has worked best in the past.

Neuroscientists have also shown that practicing mindfulness-based meditation affects brain areas related to perception, body awareness, pain tolerance, emotion regulation, introspection, complex thinking, and sense of self. It also improves your brain’s ability to screen out distractions and thereby increase productivity and bolster the ability to rapidly remember and incorporate new facts, dramatically improving the ability to mine your memory. Some studies have reflected a growth in gray matter, which bolsters your ability to become a more creative, productive, and successful writer.

Mindfulness Becomes Automatic

Other studies found that those who regularly meditated developed the capability to concurrently activate areas important to self-monitoring (to reduce mind wandering that leads to worry about “me” problems) and cognitive control (to direct the brain’s attention back to what’s happening in the present moment). What’s even better is that they seemed to do it without consciously meditating or even thinking about it.

Researchers who studied the brain activity of meditating monks and praying nuns found that they were significantly more adept at activating concentration and attention, while simultaneously deactivating brain areas focused on the self as a distinct entity in an external world. In other words, their thoughts focused less on “me, me, me” and more on the connection between themselves and the world.

The Many Benefits of Mindfulness

Nothing heightens your senses and sharpens your focus more than mindfulness! It helps you remain calm, shed bad habits, improve sleep habits, and feel more in charge of your perceptions, feelings, actions, and so on. Plus mindfulness increases social awareness, attention, appreciation, and affection, which helps you feel more connected with the world. The more connected you feel to the world, the happier and more mentally healthy you will be. Also, mindfulness helps you transition from primarily reactive to more creative. Writing gifts that mindfulness provides are insight, intuition, choice, and creativity.

Use Music to Fire Up Your Writing Brain

The brain depends on neurons, and whenever we process new stimuli—via our senses—those neurons communicate by firing off electrical impulses known as brainwaves. Processing music and speech is similar because they share three common denominators—pitch, timing, and timbre—and the brain uses the same circuitry to make sense of them all.

Without question, music has an amazing effect on your mood. If you associate it with certain times in your life and emotions that were simultaneously occurring, it stimulates memory in your hippocampus, which can play an important role when it comes to writing about experiences similar to what you’ve lived.

Because everyone on the planet loves and is often moved by music, the effects music has on the brain has been widely studied, and some of the results illustrate specific ways music can bolster your writing skills.

1. Music bolsters your verbal IQ: A study of eight- to eleven-year-olds found that those who had extracurricular music classes developed higher verbal IQs and increased visual abilities, in comparison to those with no musical training.
2. Music fosters an openness to experience: People who score highly in one of the five personality dimensions called “openness to experience” are likely to feel stronger emotions while listening to music. In one study, people high in openness to experience were more likely to play a musical instrument and more likely to rate music as important to them.
3. Music amps up happiness: Researchers found that participants who listened to upbeat classical compositions by Aaron Copland, while actively making an effort to lift their spirits, felt their moods lift more than those who passively listened to the music.
4. Music has health benefits: A review of twenty-three studies involving approximately 1,500 patients found that listening to music reduced heart rate, blood pressure, and anxiety in heart disease patients—and what’s good for your heart is good for your brain.
5. Music may help restore vision. Studies have found that when stroke patients whose vision became impaired listen to their favorite music, the “visual neglect” that occurred post-stroke seems to improve.

All in all, few activities you could do would beat out the positive effects of music. If you play a musical instrument, obviously, that’s a fabulous workout for your brain; but listening to music can perk up your brain in fantastic ways as well.

Use Music to Reinforce Motivation

I have a friend, also a writer, who creates playlists for whatever mood or need she wants to assuage or fire up. If she needs motivation to write, she’ll download thirty to fifty songs that fire up her writing energy and inspire her to tell the story she wishes to tell; and if she wants to reward herself for accomplishing goals, she’ll download an equal number of songs that she associates with love and happiness.

There’s a method to her madness. For instance, if you want to write about a sad time in your life, creating a playlist of songs that were popular during that time, and specifically songs that magnified your sadness when it occurred, stimulates emotional memory in your brain, which will help you make those scenes even more dramatic. Memories will come flooding back, replete with the emotional context, as if it were happening all over again. While you don’t want to drown yourself in the same misery, you can mine those emotions.

When you need to feel sad, pick five to ten songs that were popular at the time that focused on sadness, heartbreak, disappointment, grief, and so on; and then pick five to ten epic songs that evoke that same emotion in you. We each have songs that have significant meaning, whether it was songs our mothers loved, songs that were “our song,” songs popular when our love was still new, songs that pierced our hearts when that same love came to an abrupt end and we felt lost, confused, hurt, angry, abandoned, and a hundred other emotions. Mine the emotional context of music and use it to add depth to your writing.

Mine the Complexity in Music

Because music is such a personal medium, some musical performances have a multilayered complexity that I call “cross-fire,” because the singer’s personality and/or the singer’s interpretation stir deeper, more complex emotions—firing on more than one piston, if you will.

Which songs become cross-fire songs is completely subjective, but, for me, two examples are Bette Davis singing “I Wish You Love” and Leonard Cohen singing “Hallelujah,” of which I own at least three versions. In the case of Bette Davis, her entire persona as a spitfire, a brilliant and unforgettable actress, and someone who appeared to have missed out on a happy love life make her rendition of “I Wish You Love” haunting and sad. It’s global in the sense that the mournful wail in the lyrics and her delivery reflect the broken hearts of all those who never found love—trust me, it’s fabulously sad.

Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” is such a reverent, prayerful, and sagacious song that many other artists have recorded it, but it’s Cohen’s song and the way he sings it—with that time-worn voice resonating deeply in his chest—that makes it like no other. When you particularly love a song, you may or may not consciously know why it moves you so. All you need to know is that, if it evokes a memory, listening to it opens your heart and allows feelings to rush in. There are multiple versions of “Over the Rainbow,” but Judy Garland’s version seems bittersweet, while Doris Day’s version sounds cheerful, so much so one wonders if Doris was capable of being anything but cheerful.

While you don’t want to wallow in sadness, music has the ability to stimulate your brain, evoking personal memories, improving moods, deepening thought, soothing feelings, and also serving as a gateway to more philosophical thinking. Listening to—or preferably creating—music helps you feel the despair, the hope, the passion that thousands of human souls feel when buffeted by tragedy, or uplifted by joy, as they progress in their journey through life. Can you see how this can be incredibly helpful to writing?

Try Symphonic Writing

Learning to synthesize all the components that go into writing a work—whether it’s a short story, an essay, a feature story, a novel, or a script—may feel overwhelming. Let’s break it down by including some, but not all, of the steps involved:

• developing an original idea or a unique point of view
• gathering and organizing thoughts to support and refine the idea
• envisioning multiple ways to develop the idea and then narrowing the choices
• researching historical facts, background material, and related topics
• choosing which thoughts or findings or ideas are worth incorporating
• identifying how each element will propel the story forward
• deciding where and how to begin
• getting those first words written

The act of bringing all those elements together comes easier for some, but it is possible to train your brain to perform all of the required skills far more efficiently and creatively. One great way to do that is to break down the various storytelling components into manageable tasks, and then envision all the elements flowing together, as if you were the composer of a symphony, conducting a symphonic performance of your work. Listening to symphonic music may mirror your brain’s efforts to bring all the various aspects together, in a cohesive way, building slowly and surely to a symphonic crescendo.

Try Listening to a Symphonic Performance

To further bolster your brain’s affinity to symphonic music, try listening to a symphonic performance while brainstorming and while writing, keeping the volume low. Whether you stop consciously listening or not, your brain will continue listening and may begin to synch itself to the swelling music. If it seems too distracting to listen while writing, try listening before writing, as a way to warm up and synch your brain to the task ahead. Experiment and you may just find that symphonic music speaks your brain’s language. Some more recent and some very classic symphonies to sample follow (note that you can easily find these online for free listening):

• Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd
• Aaron Copland’s Symphony No. 3
• Rachmaninov’s Symphony No. 2
• Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring
• Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana
• Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique
• Mahler’s Symphony No. 4
• Franz Liszt’s Faust
• Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9
• Mozart’s Symphony No. 35
• Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique

It doesn’t have to be classical music; jazz may inspire improvisation or encourage your brain to find connections in the piece you’re writing; rock music may fire up your emotions and boost your energy level; lullabies or prayers are soothing and some like to bolster the sacredness of writing by listening to hymns, prayers, gospel music, or other soulful music. Experiment to find what perks you up, touches something in your soul, adds to your pleasure and your productivity.

Use Music to Help You Embody Feelings

Composer Franz Liszt felt the true power of music was that it could do something much more elemental than simply represent or stand metaphorically for ideas or emotions—it could actually embody them as experiences. He believed that music possessed a magical power that could transcend other artistic creations by becoming the sublime, otherworldly, and transcendent encounters that painting or literature could only symbolize. Scientists have recently found that reading literary fiction can replicate the same experience for the reader, and perhaps, bringing some of the fervor of music into your writing will help you strike those lightning moments when your creativity infuses your work with genius.

Time to Write

Now that you’ve done a lot of the prep, including priming your writing pump via meditation and/or music or whatever works for you, it’s time to write those opening pages. You’ll likely encounter resistance, but push through it in whatever manner works for you because opening pages always change, and the writer who focuses on writing the perfect opening pages may very well become stuck before he’s out of the gate. The important thing is to begin and to build momentum, giving your unconscious free rein as much as possible.

There’s a time for researching, a time for dreaming, planning, and preparing, a time for writing—and a time for editing. Of those phases, writing and editing are the two best kept separate. Many a writer has been thwarted when her editor (the one in her mind) chimes in at the wrong time, inducing self-doubt when unrestrained creativity is needed. Every writer I know who tries to edit while also writing, writes slower and tends to hamper rather than unleash her genius.

Time for Your Editor to Depart

When it’s time to write, first and foremost, kick your editor out of the room until you call for him (or her, however you envision the great scrutinizer who helps you craft your work). Your editor is likely to resist, insisting he plays a critical role in the process—and he does—but not now. When writing, the editor is apt to cripple writing flow by niggling over small details or worrying about something that may be insignificant rather than staying focused on what you’re writing at the moment, in the moment. Using your cognitive skills to think hard before you begin writing plays a functional role, but once you’re ready to write, thinking hard can interrupt flow. Now it’s time to feel confident that you’ve programmed your supercomputer and you’ve done your prep work. It is time to unleash your subconscious.

I’ve known writers who literally don a baseball cap (backwards) when they’re editing, giving their editor a costume that denotes importance and a specific role to play. Whatever mental trickery you need to resist editing while writing, do it.

At this point you’re ready to begin; your brain is fired up and focused. In the next chapter, I’ll discuss ways to keep your momentum going as you edge into “the middle.”

Writers on Craft

“I want to work in revelations, not just spin silly tales for money. I want to fish as deep down as possible into my own subconscious in the belief that once that far down, everyone will understand because they are the same that far down.”

—Jack Kerouac, in a letter to Ed White

“Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”

—Gustave Flaubert

“I never listen to music when I’m working. I haven’t that kind of attentiveness, and I wouldn’t like it at all. On the other hand, I’m able to work fairly well among ordinary distractions. My house has a living room that is at the core of everything that goes on: it is a passageway to the cellar, to the kitchen, to the closet where the phone lives. There’s a lot of traffic. But it’s a bright, cheerful room, and I often use it as a room to write in, despite the carnival that is going on all around me.”

—E.B. White