Things That Make Me Want To Write

Sometimes I do things that make me want to write. Other times, they remind me that I should be writing. Here are a few things that inspire me to get back to the page.

Things That Make Me Want To Write

1. Walking But Not Running

Taking a stroll, or rather a brisk walk, fully occupies most of our brains. We are quite disappointingly not creatures designed to think. In fact, like most animals, most of our brainpower keeps us alive. It stops us from falling over or forgetting to breathe, and so on.

When we walk, we move most of our body and thus all the body’s functions automatically kick in. What is left is just the conscious mind. We are left with nothing but ourselves to concentrate on. And, after a few moments, once the body gets used to the rhythm of walking, we become not bored but able to fully concentrate on anything because there are no distractions.

And that sends me into a fantasy spiral. Now, we can go with the flow, which is essentially meditation. Or we can be productive and force our mind to think of our writing. This works so well because we are pumping blood and oxygen to our brain at a high rate and are somewhat more intelligent than we would normally be sitting at our desk.

The ideal set-up would be a treadmill near our desk that we can jump off and write down that perfect paragraph. Or we might take a notebook with us when we stroll through the park.

I don’t know why this works so well, but it does.

2. Soul Crushing Labour

Deeply, punishing jobs. Lifting masses of bricks. Building badly made Ikea furniture. Or long drives through the country. These thankless tasks can take us out of our bodies and let our minds wander to strange places.

It is not the focused concentration of a gentle walk, but a grinding desperation to be anywhere else. This can give us insights and bizarre ideas. Use them. But it might leave us too tired to write.

3. Being Stuck In The Office With Nothing To Do

This is what I am doing as I write these words. I finished my work about three hours ago and have been doing busy work for long enough to drive me crazy. One can only do so much preparation for next week.

Luckily, I work in a Japanese office and type in English all day long. In fact, doing this is seen as me being productive. The other day, I was working on a novel, 20 000 words in, and my neighbour told me that she wished she could concentrate as well as I could. I said, “Thank you.” and got back to ‘work’. I don’t always have time, but sometimes I only have an hour of actual work in a day.

So, I study some Japanese, and I read some Writers Write articles. And, I type.

Once I have plausibly done anything that resembles work, I start to write an article or work on my book. Sometimes, I take my pen and notebook and write a first draft of whatever takes my fancy.

It’s not so much that I want to write, but that it is much better than doing nothing. It is certainly better than asking what else I could be doing, as that would just lead to grinding overwork and people talking to me all day long.

Actually, I just heard my boss saying, ‘What is he always typing?’ followed by ‘Eh, whatever.’

Other Things That Make You Want To Write

This all reminds me of certain authors’ writing methods.

Some authors had to get up really early to write. Some had particular writing spaces. Some had to write naked. Some had to isolate themselves. Just look at what it took for Douglas Adams to finish his book.

In fact, in Japan, publishers often have ‘hotel’ rooms where they ‘let’ authors with a deadline stay to ‘keep them on track’. I think all of this works because writing allows you to create a space while you are typing or while the pen is running over the page – while you are doing something you don’t want to do.

And, sometimes I just wake up at 2AM, write 600 words and go back to sleep. This has not proved to be a winning strategy. No matter how good the idea was at 2AM, it does not live up to 2PM standards.

The Last Word

I hope this gave you a break. If you need a writing task, why not write a note that one of your antagonists would write to your main character? Or make a short history book of your fantasy world? You know, write just because it’s fun!

by Christopher Luke Dean. Christopher writes and facilitates for Writers Write.

Things That Make Me Want To Write