The underneath

Today, I wrote.

Yes, I write every day of the working week. I take weekends off. I allocate myself a target of 2000 words a day at the moment.

I’ve been working on Memory and Thought for a few days. Today was the first time it started to come together. The first time the characters started doing their own thing. I had a characters waltz onto the stage who I only just met today. I have no idea if she’s going to be important down the track – I guess she’ll tell me.

It’s not that I was blocked. I wasn’t. I was still writing the last little while, but it was like pulling teeth. Nothing flowed, nothing connected.

What did I do to make things connect? Simple. I went and did something else.

As I said in my last post, my subconscious is the most powerful writing tool I have. The men in the basement are always working. It’s at the oddest times – in the shower, at 3am in the morning, waiting in line at the supermarket, that the connections are made. And those Eureka moments happen.

I didn’t do it consciously this time. I’ve recently converted to veganism – both for health and ethical reasons – and I’ve been heavily researching everything to do with it. I’ve been spending time on message boards, reading blogs, hunting recipes. It’s been consuming my waking mind.

And it’s only when the waking mind is thoroughly occupied that the men in the basement really get to work.

I don’t know why it works that way for me. I don’t usually get the ideas when I’m reading (be it fiction or non-fiction) – it’s like my mind needs to digest all those bits of information, fitting them together like a jigsaw puzzle until something new is created.

This morning, I had a eureka moment while stepping out of the shower. It’s times like this that I really know that I’m not meant to do anything in this life other than write.

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.

The underneath

Today, I wrote.

Yes, I write every day of the working week. I take weekends off. I allocate myself a target of 2000 words a day at the moment.

I’ve been working on Memory and Thought for a few days. Today was the first time it started to come together. The first time the characters started doing their own thing. I had a characters waltz onto the stage who I only just met today. I have no idea if she’s going to be important down the track – I guess she’ll tell me.

It’s not that I was blocked. I wasn’t. I was still writing the last little while, but it was like pulling teeth. Nothing flowed, nothing connected.

What did I do to make things connect? Simple. I went and did something else.

As I said in my last post, my subconscious is the most powerful writing tool I have. The men in the basement are always working. It’s at the oddest times – in the shower, at 3am in the morning, waiting in line at the supermarket, that the connections are made. And those Eureka moments happen.

I didn’t do it consciously this time. I’ve recently converted to veganism – both for health and ethical reasons – and I’ve been heavily researching everything to do with it. I’ve been spending time on message boards, reading blogs, hunting recipes. It’s been consuming my waking mind.

And it’s only when the waking mind is thoroughly occupied that the men in the basement really get to work.

I don’t know why it works that way for me. I don’t usually get the ideas when I’m reading (be it fiction or non-fiction) – it’s like my mind needs to digest all those bits of information, fitting them together like a jigsaw puzzle until something new is created.

This morning, I had a eureka moment while stepping out of the shower. It’s times like this that I really know that I’m not meant to do anything in this life other than write.

Mirrored from Stephanie Gunn.