Note from Laura: I’m delighted to present this essay from my talented friend, Kevin Mack. ESPECIALLY because Kevin and I have very different approaches to our work. I am much closer to the “regular writing schedule” end of the spectrum than he is, and I think it’s fascinating to hear about other people’s approaches. Enjoy!
Some writers sit down at the same time every day, and write for a predetermined period, and reliably produce a consistent number of words every time. I am not one of those writers. I go weeks, sometimes months, without writing a thing. Then I jump back into it and write twenty thousand words in a month (that’s a lot for me).
It used to really bother me. Maybe you can relate. Your output isn’t as high as you’d like it to be, so you force yourself to sit down in front of your preferred writing device. Then you stare at it as though you can will the words from your brain to the screen. I find that only works if I’m under contract and I’ve got a deadline, and even then, it’s not my best work.
Maybe you tell yourself you need to “do more research” because you’re writing historical fiction like me. Or you need to do more world-building because you write epic fantasy. And sure, sometimes we need to do those things. But other times, the research and world-building just sends us down a rabbit-hole. We get great ideas for new books, or sequels, anything besides the project we’re actively trying to complete.
Or maybe Laura asked if you’d like to contribute to her website and the topic was too good to pass up. So you take time away from one project to work on another. Maybe you are procrastinating, or swayed by novelty, or whatever. But I’m going to suggest that it might not just be normal for you to do that, but it might be a good thing.
If your writing is what feeds your family and keeps your lights on, what I’m about to say isn’t for you. This is for hobby writers, aspiring professionals, and those who view their art as an avocation. You’ve got a family, a job, and a life outside of fiction. You want to keep everything in balance, but you want to make steady progress on your novel.
Me too.
But here’s the thing. I’m a binge writer. Or more accurately, I’m a binge everything-er. I get grabbed by an idea and I run that idea to the ground. New video game? I’m there. I put 120 hours into Persona 5 when it released on Xbox last year. I only wrote 4,000 words from November to March because I was invested in the Phantom Thieves of the Persona franchise.
Then I put the controller down. 100% complete and all the achievements unlocked. And something weird happened. I started writing again, and I couldn’t stop. Three thousand words per week, four, five. Almost twenty thousand in a month.
Sure, it wasn’t sustainable. Other stuff got in the way. My union went into negotiations and I had to work on the economic committee. Then as soon as the ink was dry on the new contract, I received a job offer from a company I’d been eyeing. My productivity slowed to a trickle again.
It wasn’t the first time something like that has happened to me, but that time I had a realization: that’s my process, and it’s okay. In order to make sure I wasn’t just giving myself an excuse to slack off, I sought some research to see if there was anything to it. Turns out there is.
Cognitive bandwidth is the term for our capacity to process all the inputs and thoughts that constantly run through our minds. It encompasses not only our immediate surroundings and thoughts, like “what should my character say next,” “it’s cold in here,” “I’m hungry,” but long term or persistent thoughts too. For example, if your company is in the middle of layoffs and you don’t know if you’ll have a job next week, that’s a tax on your bandwidth.
That tax takes the form of brain fog, irritation, and the sense of “I just can’t concentrate.” And the greater the stress, the higher the price. We’ve got to free up our cognitive bandwidth if we’re going to remain productive.
How we ought to free up the bandwidth depends on the magnitude and duration of the stimulus. If your cold office is distracting you, put a hoodie on. Easy. But in the layoff example from before, you may not be able to focus on writing until you know your income is secure. Simple. Not easy, but simple. So you might have to wait until you survive the layoff, or worse, until you get established with a new job, before you can return to writing.
It’s everything in between that’s tricky. If you’re a consistent writer and you’ve reached a temporary limit, it might be as simple as a 15-minute walk around the block to clear your head. But if you’re nearing the end of a period where you’ve been ten times as productive as usual, your brain deserves a rest.
Give yourself permission. Play the game. Explore a new hobby. Emerge from your writing cave and spend time with others. And don’t cheat yourself. Don’t spend the time away from writing stressed out that you aren’t working on the novel. Indulge.
Eventually, the story will draw you back in. And you’ll have plenty of fresh ideas and energy.
Now, go write.
Kevin Mack is a sci-fi & fantasy author who lives in Albuquerque, NM. You can find his short story A Dawn Less Dark in the anthology We Deserve to Exist available here.
Pingback: Guests Posts (and cats) in Review - Laura Blegen