How to Get Into FLOW
If you’ve been following me at Resilient Writers for any length of time, then you’ve heard me say how important it is for us as writers to achieve a state of flow.
Flow helps us have the kind of writing sessions that so many writers long for, where we lose all sense of time and anything that isn’t our characters or our narrative.
But the flow state can seem unattainable if we don’t know how to reach it reliably, each and every time we sit down to write.
Luckily, there’s a dedicated field of scientific study called Positive Psychology that can teach us the concrete conditions that need to be met to reach a state of flow.
How to Get Into Flow
Listen to learn:
- How you can achieve a state of flow in your writing life
- The power of psychology in our writing lives
- Why it’s important to choose the right time for you to write
- The benefits of living as a writer that’s always learning and growing
Here’s a...
How to Focus on Your Writing
I believe in the power of coaching. Obviously – as a creativity coach myself. :-)
And that means that I also engage coaches in my own life, for different reasons. I have one for business, one for fitness, and one for writing.
A Recent Coaching Story
This week I was at a group coaching session on Zoom where a new friend of mine was being coached. She’d had someone approach her with a paid opportunity that she was excited about, but it was something that would direct her away from her creative passion.
Full confession: my friend sounded so excited about this new opportunity, so my instinct was to say “Yes! You should try to do it. Find a way to fit it into your life along with your creative work and everything else.” And I said as much, as the first person to speak after she explained the situation.
Meanwhile, another friend in the session (there were just 3 of us, plus the coach) was shaking her head and kinda losing it a little bit in her Zoom box.
When our...
How to Achieve Creative Flow
You sit down to write, eager to translate the words and images in your head onto the page. Perhaps it takes a few minutes to settle in, but you’re soon deep into your work-in-progress.
Two hours later you look up, astonished that the world outside your book exists and wondering where the time went.
Have you ever had this happen to you? Perhaps you’ve experienced a taste of it, but in shorter bursts. Or you can only achieve this elusive state intermittently and desperately want more of it.
This is the elusive state of FLOW. It’s a critical component of a creative life and also one of its most rewarding experiences.
When we’re in a state of flow, time ceases to exist – as does anything outside of the immediate artistic challenge in front of us, whether that’s crafting a love scene or finding more active verbs on a final editing pass.
Flow is where we feel that sense of satisfaction in our creative process, and when we’re in flow, we’re...
Ingredients for a Perfect Writing Day
Join me for a wee thought exercise…
Let’s imagine a perfect writing day.
You and I both know there’s no such thing as truly “perfect” in real life, but for the moment this is just a thought exercise so we can make our day whatever we want it to be.
Here’s mine…
I wake up early, feeling truly rested and refreshed. Everything is quiet around me except for the sounds of birds starting their day. I walk my cocker spaniel, Mr. Darcy, because he is definitely perfect and hates to wait for his morning walk.
As I walk, I clear my head of last night’s dreams and observe… the woman who lives in the house on the corner is walking her fat Pekingese pup while wearing pyjama pants and slippers…a black squirrel has found a piece of bread and is trying to cram as much of it into his cheeks as he can…the couple who own two Weimaraners are also out for a walk and don’t seem to be speaking to each other. Are they...
