On Flowstate Writing (With Apologies to Stephen King)

byklww14

171 followers

5 years ago

I'm a good writer. Under certain circumstances, I'm even a very good writer.

The problem is those circumstances. I am a very good writer in academic circumstances. But blogging, that great & necessary tool of the affiliate marketer, is not academic writing.

So, I find myself re-learning how to write. This time, if I get it wrong, I won't just end up with a failing grade.

But if I get it right, I won't just end up with an "A," either. There's a lot of motivation there.

Motivation is good, so, lucky me.

I've studied copywriting, and it's helped. A lot. But I'm not quite there yet. I can tell.

The Problem

One writing technique I've never mastered is called "show up & throw up." It's also known as the first draft.

When I first went to college (don't ask how many times I've gone to college - one relative described it as "from the sublime to the absurd"), electric typewriters were how your wrote your papers. White Out and Liquid Paper were how you corrected your mistakes. I saw one paper, not mine, that had about half the page whited out & typed over. If you made one mistake, you'd have to type over the entire page.

To save time, I learned how to type and write all in one go. No first draft, just research & go. No rehearsals.

It's great for crunch time, but for months & years of blogging? I suspect it's not sustainable. In fact, I've been told by professional writers that it's a recipe for burn out.

So, here I am, un-learning and re-learning. Again.

What is flowstate writing?

When you're in a flowstate, you're focused, you move smoothly from on thing to the next, efficiently, even gracefully. Your concentration is so strong, nothing distracts you. Your productivity is high and so is your creativity. When your writing in a flowstate, the words just pour out. It's one great idea after another, effortlessly, endlessly. You write and write and write, and when you finally do stop, you're amazed at how much you've written and how good it is.

To put it another way, you're in the zone.

Why flowstate writing?

I'm told creating a first draft properly will open up the floodgates of creativity. That I'll experience writing as a flowstate.

I have vague memories of writing as a child, when I dreamt of becoming a writer. All of my writing then was just for myself, so it always met the show up & throw up standard. It never occurred to me to worry about spelling, grammar, or punctuation. Almost of my writing was flowstate writing then.

More recently, I've done a lot of journalling. For me, journalling is my primary means of maintaining or improving my mental health. I suppose it involves flowstate writing, too, at least once in a while.

But I nearly always find myself editing while I write. Editing, I'm told, is the enemy of flowstate writing.

Seeking Treatment

I've found a couple of writing games that require you to write constantly for a set period of time or until you've reached a certain word count. The second one has a setting called "typewriter", so you can't go back & edit while you write. I'm trying to work up my nerve to use it to develop a blog post first draft.

It's easy to find excuses not to do the first draft. The method I've used for so long is still working for me, more or less. I used it to write this post. And I'll continue to use it, but I want to be a better writer, so I'll practice new techniques, like show up and throw up, as unappealing as it sounds (on multiple levels).

What are your writing secrets? Do you experience flowstate writing? How do you get there?