Happy 2024, Everyone!
I hope your holidays were restful and bright. This week still doesn’t feel quite like a work week, but I’m told that agents and editors are back on the job, so writers must be, too!
It’s been awhile since we did a Write On! Roundup, so this seems like a good way to kick off the year, especially since a recent question from zeroed in on the elusive Zone that all creative people crave— the state of mind “where everything around you is transformed into grist for your creative mill. We all know the feeling. It's a particular form of inspiration where you can find treasure in the streets and people around you. They propel your writing and find their way onto the page.”
As we transition out of the holidays and back to our writing routines, I thought one resolution we all might share would be to spend more time in the Zone this year. With that in mind, I thought I’d devote this Roundup to Ancestory’s main concern:
”Because I have a job and a family it's hard to get into the writing Zone. Have you found any good ways to access it?”
What happens in the Zone?
The first order of business here is to clarify what we’re talking about when we talk about the Zone. In particular, I want to distinguish it from Flow, because both of these mindsets are essential for writers to cultivate, and they’re easily confused but very different.
Flow deserves a whole post or two to itself, as it’s your direct conduit to productivity. When you’re in flow, you are transported inside your work, as if by magic and away from the external world. First identified in 1990 by the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow is the state of total immersion that makes creativity a reward in itself. It’s not unique to writers, but every serious writer knows the joy of slipping into Flow and emerging several hours — and pages of new work — later, feeling as if no time has passed at all. And while there are no guarantees, the quality of work produced in Flow often soars above anything you will write while gritting your teeth and watching the clock.
The Zone, in contrast, infuses your external life with your writing mind. When you’re in the Zone, you’re wide open to inspiration. You can be in the Zone at the grocery store, waiting in the pick-up line for your kids, or swimming, jogging, showering, or sleeping. What happens in the Zone juices your writing by generating ideas and observations, even when no actual composition takes place. In essence, the Zone is your gateway to Flow.
Together, the Zone and Flow can fill most of a writing life. I have a few friends, especially poets, who are almost always in the Zone, except when they’re in Flow! But the rising tide of 21st- century distractions, from pandemic hangover and political menace to the sirens of social media, make it harder and harder to sustain the creative focus that these mindsets require, even for those without young children or competing jobs. So, let’s consider some strategies for securing this focus.
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