Environmental cues can condition the brain to easily engage in a specific task. People accustomed to working in an office can walk in the office door and be in “work mode,” because that’s what they do there.

For me, it’s a similar effect upon walking into the gym. My brain knows what’s up and even if I go in reluctantly, the environment quickly puts me into “workout mode” and things generally go well.

The same theory should hold for writing: show up at the same place everyday, sit down to the keyboard, and the brain should switch into “writing mode.” If only!

Personally, I usually have a very hard time settling into writing mode, and it can take me hours to immerse into the story. Maybe this is because I use my laptop for many things other than writing, i.e. webwork, social media, updating my books at the various vendors, etc. So the environmental cue — the presence of my laptop — is not specific to writing. There is always the possibility that I could or should be doing something other than working on my next book or story — and all of those things are easier to do than writing, and therefore tempting. As a rule, my mind starts off jumpy. I’m thinking of other tasks and am very distractible.

So lately I’ve tried a new tactic. I’ve adopted a particular song as a kind of ironic theme to the novel I’m currently working on. When I sit down for a writing session, I plug into my iPod, start the song, and start working. I replay the same song three or four or more times — as many as it takes to get me into the flow of the work at hand — and I don’t play it at any other time because for now at least, the purpose of this song is to cue my brain that it’s time to work on this particular book.

And it helps. It really does. I’m squandering a lot less time at the start of a writing session than in the past.

If you want to try this technique, a couple thoughts on making it work:

First, I started doing this during the brainstorming phase of the book, in sessions of nonstop, noncritical, stream-of-consciousness writing. So from the beginning I was actually writing as the music played, not contemplating writing.

Second — make sure you really like the song!

Posted on: Thursday, August 9th, 2012 at 7:42 am
Categories: Writing.
Tags: writing tip