TIP 64

Walking is writing.

It has happened enough times where I have been unable to make headway with something I am writing, and after putting it away for the night, I arrived back at my desk in the morning to an idea I didn’t have the night before.

The same thing has happened when a mental wall has formed late in the morning, only to have it unlock after a time away and sitting down to write again later that afternoon.

What is that?

“Starting” and fresh ideas seem to have something to do with each other; a synergistic push toward creation. The most potent time for ideas appears to be the “morning hour” of your writing session, when the coffee is its hottest and the chair feels its most comfortable. Starts tend to start ideas.

By contrast, sitting there pushing your brain for ideas may be good discipline, but when you feel the four walls going up around your brain, they rarely come down. Get up. Go away. Think about something else. Go for a walk and let your mind roam. Look at the clouds and consider your existence and feel the way the weather touches your skin. You’re not wasting time, you’re writing in your own way; creating your next start where ideas come out and play peekaboo.

Lastly, when you finally do flip close your laptop and step away from your desk before taking a nice long break, do it with a smile of anticipation, not the slumping shoulders of defeat. Positivity is its own morning sunlight.

TIP 58

Music, the ultimate psychedelic.

One afternoon, I searched Romantic Scores on Spotify and a list of sweeping themes from great movies loaded up. Perfect! I thought.

And so, with famous philharmonics making orchestral maneuvers directly into my earbuds, I took another stab at writing a romantic scene that seemed to sit on idle for too long, thus my decision to seek a little musical help.

By the end, I had overwritten by a long shot. I had turned it into a lovey-dovey syrupy mess, dripping with enchantment and over-impassioned speech. It was completely out of character with the rest of my book.

But here’s the thing. The music had changed everything. It brought feelings and images to the page that were not there before, and never going to get there. It had fueled my writing like hippies back in the day would try to fuel their artistic endeavors with psychedelics. It wasn’t that music had merely given me things to work with, music had taken me there.

I had to jump in and begin cutting back, but eliminating from too much is a joy. Creating from not enough sucks.

Don’t get stuck believing it only applies to the main genres like romantic or sad or suspense. Let the algorithms find music to support all kinds of moments—shopping, work, contemplative, yesteryear, sports…there are tons of pieces out there to give your wings a gusty lift.