Sarah Rhea Werner:

This is the Write Now podcast with Sarah Werner. Episode 138, Getting into Flow.

Welcome to Write Now, the podcast that helps all writers, aspiring, professional, and otherwise to find the time, energy and courage you need to pursue your passion and write. I’m your host, Sarah Werner. And this week we are talking about flow. And by flow, I am referring to a state of being or a state of writing during which times seems to fade away. And we get sucked into our work, into the story, into the words. And maybe for a while, we exist with that story as it pours out onto the page. We become the story or the story becomes us. Other people have called this being in the zone or the writer’s high and spoken of it similarly to the runner’s high, the state of ecstasy that a runner hits after they’ve been running for a certain amount of time. Now, not being a runner, I can’t say that I can 100% identify with that, but I have been in a state of writing flow before. I have been in the writing zone.

 And it is incredible. And today I want to explore a little bit, not only what is flow and what does it mean to be in flow or in the writing zone, but how do we get there and perhaps frustratingly, why can’t we always be there? Because that would just be so nice. Some writers may experience flow in different ways. I don’t think it’s one size fits all kind of experience and some may experience it more frequently than others. Some may be able to get into flow easier than others, but at its core, what exactly is it? Again, it’s not just one thing. But for me, in my experience, I tend to characterize it as a state of hyper focus on my creative work. But it’s somehow more than that. Sometimes it almost feels like there’s a spiritual element to it. And I’ve talked with other writers who explain this experience as a sort of channeling. The ideas that are pouring forth are not wholly their own, but are being bestowed or given to them by insert your own exponentially, large force here, God or a muse or the universe or the spirits of past writers, or just a whole bunch of stuff that we’ve built up in the reservoir, in the creative museum that is our brain and which flows forth when we are focused enough to channel it.

And whether you are open to seeing it as a spiritual experience, or whether you just understand that for you, it is a mixture of too much caffeine, too little sleep and a looming deadline, whatever it is. And I’ve interpreted it many different ways over the years. It always feels like the time I spend within flow is tinged by a little bit of magic. It has felt historically like an out of body experience, like wonder, like possibility, like joy. And it is within this state that I’m truly able to write things that surprise me. Approximately 700,000 years ago, when I first started the Write Now podcast, one of my very first episodes was called Surprise Yourself. I think it was episode four and I didn’t have the words for it at the time. But I think that was one of my earlier attempts to explain what it felt like to be in a state of flow, to channel whether magical, spiritual, or chemical, the story coercing through my brain, the story that felt like it was in my bloodstream, pumping through my fingers, through my heart and onto the page

What do I mean by surprising myself? Well, I find myself writing things that I had not consciously thought of before. I find characters saying things that I didn’t necessarily plan for them to say or doing things that I did not plan for them to do. I find descriptions of people and places and things flowing through my fingers, unstoppable like water. Again, things that I had not planned ahead of time. The feeling that while I am to technically writing the story, I am also experiencing the story or even reading the story for the first time. Now, I love surprises. I am that person and I love it when I can surprise myself. There is no truer joy than realizing there are things tucked away in my brain that I never even knew. And it often drags me out of the hopelessness that everything has already been done or that I don’t have enough ideas for a book or a novel or an audio drama because here my brain is channeling or generating or some mixture of the two creating new ideas and connections and solving plot holes in ways I never would’ve imagined just five minutes earlier.

 It feels a little bit to me like writing outside of myself or accessing some pool of information or memory or magic that is closed off to me in other times. I’ve talked with a lot of writers over the years, and many of them say that they’re addicted to this state, that this is the whole reason that they write is to get into that state of flow, is to make contact with that mystical inner pool of information within their brains or channeled from who knows where. Again, I realize this episode might seem a little uncomfortably woo woo for some people. And that’s okay. For some people, creativity is extremely spiritual. It’s a mystical experience that they can’t explain or don’t want to explain. So I really encourage you to find a way that is comfortable for you to describe your state of flow and what it means for you.

 And actually, I know I usually don’t talk about this until later, but I would love to hear about your state of creative flow and what that feels like and what it looks like for you and where you think it comes from. So I invite you to head out to the show notes for today’s episode, episode 138, over at sarahwener.com. That’s S A R A H W E R N E R .com. Navigate to the show notes for episode 138, scroll down to the bottom and let me know your thoughts in the comments there. I do read and respond to every single comment that comes through on my website. So I’m really interested in hearing about your own experience with this state of flow. And if it’s something you’ve never experienced before, let us know that too. I’m interested in hearing about all different sorts of creative experiences. So we’ve been talking about flow for a little while here about how magical it is, how it feels great, how it’s really exciting and fun to surprise ourselves, and to really pull forth from a pool of, be it experience magic, hidden memory, what have you.

But how do we bring on this state? Right. So I sit down in the morning and I’m like, well, time to get into flow. And I open up my Word document or my Google Doc, or I open up my notebook and I stare at the blank page and I’m like, all right, magic, let’s get going. And I write a couple words and they’re not quite right, or they’re difficult. And I get a little itch on the side of my brain that says, Hey, Hey, just check Twitter just real quick, just to see if anyone has interacted with you so that you can respond to them and look like a responsible online person or it might be a good idea to just see how many emails came through last night so that you can really set your brain up to deal with them later

Or your mom called three days ago and you still haven’t called her back or there’re dishes to be done, or, oh no, my kid just woke up and they’re throwing a fit or, oh, I forgot to feed the cats or literally anything can go here. I’m not going to lie. Flow is elusive and difficult to achieve. And we might not get into a state of flow every time we sit down to write. Heck we might not even get into a state of flow every week or every month, but what we can do is make it easier to access. What we can do is cut out some of the frictions, some of the distractions that keep us from getting into the state of flow. And while we might not be able to force it, I think to some degree we can engineer it for ourselves.

I think it was Louis L’Amour who said, “The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” I think if we’re going to continue to use this water metaphor for creative flow, I think we’re to have to deal with the notion that just as we can turn the faucet on, we can also turn the faucet off. And some of you may have been thinking that, oh, well, the opposite word of flow is blocked, writer’s block. I don’t think that’s necessarily true. I don’t think that’s 100% true. I don’t think that writing flow and writers block are the opposite of each other. I think they’re very different mindsets, but I do think that we have to turn the faucet on. I do think that we have an active part to play in enabling the water or the creativity to flow forth. And sometimes, in figuring out what turns the faucet on metaphorically speaking, I think it helps to understand what turns the faucet off. For me, that was a little bit easier to identify.

I was very blatantly turning off the faucet when I went to check Twitter, when I ripped my brain away from the page where I was creating, when I started going into the trending topics and reading the news and getting really sad and depressed under the thin excuse that, oh, I need to know what’s going on in the world as a writer. If I’m going to be well informed, I need to read these trending topics on Twitter. And we’ve talked before about avoiding creativity, about resistance. And that’s definitely a sign of resistance. What else does it look like to turn off the faucet? Distracting ourselves by checking email, by looking out of the window at what our neighbors are doing next door, by deciding to go back to bed, maybe even by overthinking things. I am a classic and chronic over thinker, which is a very excellent way to avoid dealing with reality.

There are also times when it feels like our flow is being interrupted by someone other than us. You sit down to write in the morning and someone knocks on your office store or your phone rings, or your kids start screaming, or your dog starts barking. Something external happens that rips you out of your creative writing space. And I know that at feeling. I know how it feels, like you’re helpless. Like you could just get some writing done if everyone would leave you alone, like I could just record this podcast episode if that train would stop blaring its horn. If this is something that happens to you often, if it happens to you every single time you sit down to write, if it happens reliably every day, I would encourage you to reexamine the boundaries that you have set in your life. And I don’t mean this to sound pedantic or scolding or anything like that because it is something that I still struggle with as well. Healthy boundaries come from a respect and prioritizing of your own work, of your creative work and can consist of shutting your cat into another room for an hour, handing the children off to a partner or spouse and beg for one undisturbed writing chunk of 45 minutes or an hour or whatever it is you need.

It can consist of getting up early because you know that between five and 6:00 AM, the house is completely silent and telling all of your other housemates that, Hey, this is my writing time. Please do not disturb me. I take this very seriously. Mother, please do not call me between noon and one o’clock. That is my writing time. And I need to do it. You can experiment with setting different kinds of boundaries and really have honest conversations with the people around whom you’re setting those boundaries and letting them know how important it is to you, that you have this one thing. Help them understand that this is something you need and build boundaries is around it accordingly. Designating and protecting a chunk of time is one of the ways in which we can turn the faucet on and help pave the way to creative flow.

Because here’s the interesting thing. I’ve been rereading The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. And it really struck me this time around that she seems to insinuate that creative flow is our natural state. She encourages us to think about when we were children and we would sit down at an empty page with a crayon or a pen or a pencil. And we wouldn’t sit there saying, how can I get into flow? How I tap into my creativity? We would simply create. No overthinking, just action. Julia Cameron argues that we’ve put a lot of barriers in place and that the act of getting into flow is the lifting of those barriers. She even goes so far as to say it is actually easier to write than not write. I had to scribble that one down on a post-it note and stick it to my computer monitor, where I look at it every day.

And I see Julia Cameron reminding me it is actually easier to write than not right. I think unconsciously, we put a lot of work into turning off the faucet. Not consciously, we don’t do it on purpose. Or if we’re in a state of self sabotage and resistance, maybe we are doing it on purpose. But we can start to lift these barriers out of the way, we can turn the faucet on more and more and more by making writing easier. So again, designating and setting aside and protecting a chunk of time during which we can write and be creative. Shutting off distractions during that time. Putting our phones on airplane, downloading a focus tool on our computers that does not let us access social media or email, shutting the cats or the dogs or the children into another room while we create, understanding when we focus best during the day. Do you create better in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, late at night? When is your sweet spot for storytelling?

I’ve talked with many writers who definitely have a time of day that they prefer to create. If you can make that time, the time that you set aside to write. And in this, I encourage you to experiment. I used to think that I was an evening person or a night person, because I thought it was cooler to be an evening or night person. When really I do all of my best writing and creating super early in the morning. I don’t want that to be the case because it makes me look like a super mega dork, but there you go. Try setting aside different times during the day and see how you feel creatively during those times. See what your focus is like, what your energy is like, how loud your house or your environment is. Here’s another thing that will help ease the flow. Not only focus, but commitment and permission can also play a role in our creative flow.

Do you feel like you have permission to be creating? Yes or no. And are you committed to creating during this time that you’ve set aside? I’m asking that in all seriousness, because there’s been times when I’ve set aside time to create. And during that time I would rather be doing something else. And so I allow myself to be distracted. I’m not committed to getting into the creative flow. Other things that can help you ease the flow and get into the flow of creating are listening to a specific kind of music, whether it’s instrumental music or classical music or hard punk rock or ambient sound. I like to listen to rain in the background. I also have a white noise machine that I use if I need silence for concentration. It also helps if your body is taken care of. If there’re no distractions where you’re thinking, oh, I’m so thirsty or I’m so hungry, or I have to use the bathroom really badly

Take care of that stuff before you sit down to write. Get a glass of water, make a cup of tea or coffee, get a glass of wine, whatever it is that will help you ease into the creative state. In order to get into this state, many writers will also go for a walk. They’ll meditate. They’ll read for 30 minutes. They’ll doodle a little bit. They’ll write by hand and they might even focus on the enjoyment of the experience. Wow, I’m really enjoying putting these words onto the paper and sinking into that enjoyment can help channel them toward flow. Removing distractions, allowing yourself to focus, this can put you into the state of, again, depending on how spiritually you want to look at this, it can put you into a state of communion with your inner child or your inner artist. That version of ourself that is less cynical, less distracted, and simply eager to make cool stuff. For me in my own experience, it also takes a certain amount of time.

I’ve noticed that it takes me about 10 minutes of sitting there, focused on my creative work before the resistance goes away. Before I lose that itchy urge to check social media or bake a loaf of bread, and then it takes another 10 or 20 minutes before I realize that, oh, I’m really sucked into this story. I’m in a state of flow. And I know this can be really frustrating for people who must write in short bursts and who don’t have the luxury of blocking out two hours or an hour of time. No matter what sort of conditions you’re facing, I urge you to be gentle with yourself. Forgive yourself easily, give yourself grace, but don’t lose the commitment to your creative work. And remember, you’ll never be 100% free of distraction. I mean, unless you’re in a sensory deprivation chamber or something. Even right now, recording this podcast episode, there’re trains going by, there’re planes overhead, there’s cars roaring up and down the street.

Was it Doris Lessing who said, “The conditions will never be perfect.” We can’t wait around for the world to give us perfect writing conditions, but we can help facilitate better conditions for ourselves as creatives by doing what we can to shut out distractions, to set boundaries, to allow ourselves to focus, to turn on the faucet, to build healthy habits that make writing even more frictionless. The conditions will never be perfect, but if we take care of ourselves and if we take care to curate to the degree to which we can, our environments, then I think that will go a long way in helping us get into the state of flow. So what about you? I want to hear about your experience with the state of flow as a writer. I want to know what this means for you. I want to know what this state feels like for you, how you get into it, what gets in your way, let me know.

In order to do this, and I had mentioned this earlier in the episode, but I’m going to say it again. Go out to sarahwerner.com, go to the show notes for today’s episode, episode number 138, scroll down to the comments and let me know. What is your relationship with the writing zone? With the state of flow? With your muse? Whatever you call it, I want to hear about it. Again, that’s over at sarahwerner.com in the show notes for today’s episode, episode number 138. While you’re out at my website, go ahead and also sign up for my free weekly Dear Creators letter. So this is content that is completely different from the information and value that I give here in the Write Now podcast. That is a letter that goes out to creators just like you every Monday morning. And that’s where I talk about my own creative process, creative blocks, overcoming those blocks, and just generally living a creative life.

There are currently thousands of people on my list, and I would love for you to become one of them. So go out to sarahwerner.com and sign up for the Dear Creators email letter. And you’ll get that every Monday, right in your inbox. I want to say, thank you. Not just to you for listening, but thank you for listening because you’re amazing. But I also want to say thank you to my amazing patrons out on Patreon. Patreon is a secure third party platform that allows people to donate a dollar per episode, two dollars per episode, $70,000 per episode. Whatever you have lying around, whatever you dig out of the couch.

No, seriously. These are the people who keep the show running. They help me pay for hosting costs, website costs, all of the costs associated with producing this show. And I’m extremely grateful to them for it. This week, I’d like to especially recognize Tamara K. Salman, Amanda King, Christine Black, Laurie, Regina, Amber Fratessi, Dennis Martin, Ladijah Herney, EK Knight, Mark Bullock, Michael Beckwith, Mike Teft, Sarah Banham, Summer, Tiffany Joiner, and Whitney McGruder. Thank you all so much for your generous contributions to the show. I truly appreciate it. If you would like to join their ranks and become a patron on Patreon, you can do that by going to the show notes for today’s episode and just clicking the button that says help support this podcast. And that’ll take you out to my Patreon site where you can sign up and do your thing. I also want to say one final thing before I sign off. I talked with Alex Telander of the Writing Walks podcast last week, and we had a great conversation about horror books, including the Ghost Tree.

And we also so talked about writing flow, which is where I got the idea for this week’s episode. And so if you would like to listen to me and Alex talking about flow a little bit more, go on over to the Writing Walks podcast and download that episode. I’ll also try to have a link for it in the show notes for today’s episode, just to make that extra accessible to you. So thank you, Alex, for a fantastic and inspiring conversation. I really appreciated it. And with that, this has been episode 138 of the Write Now podcast, the podcast that helps all writers aspiring, professional, and otherwise to find the time, energy, and courage to pursue your passion and write. I’m Sarah Werner. And I’m going to go try to get into the flow.