In The Zone

Actually, I do get in 'the zone' quite often when I'm writing, where I can write and write for hours without stopping. Usually, this happens at the most inconvienent of times, like when I really need to be somewhere or get something else done other than writing. Oh well, I'll take what I can get. But once I'm really into my writing, almost nothing can distract me...almost.

It doesn't happen to me very often. however when i was writing my last novel, i found myself in "The Zone" during the last third of the book, and ended up finishing it in one week. (the first 2/3 of the book took me about 4 months to write) As storygirl said previously, it can happen at the most inconvenient times, but when it does, run with it.

Like Storygirl, I find the zone or it finds me, often when it is most inconvenient to write. The length of time varies, some times a half hour, other times many hours. It produces my very best writing.

I find myself in awe of it. It is as if someone else is writing and I am just the vehicle. It is one of the most devine experiences I've ever had.

I had named it the "zone", never having, heard any one else speak of the phenomenon. In recent years I've heard others speak of it, and by the same name. It feels good to know I'm not that unusual.

Too bad agents and publishers don't have a "zone". They have . . . probably I better not mention what they have.

bird

I know that feeling, that "Zone" thing

Mistook said:

We talk a lot about writer's block, but how often do you experience the opposite? Every once in a while I'm lucky enough to find myself in "The Zone." It's a state where the words flow so easily that I feel more like I'm reading the chapter, than writing it. I don't have to stop and think, I just dictate what I see unfolding in my minds eye.

For me this state comes and goes. On the best night of writing, I might hit this zone for an hour or two, but normally I'm lucky to be there for five minutes before I have to stop and think about what comes next.

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The text above belongs to "Mistook" and the text below to me.

I know that feeling, I know it. Sometimes it just strikes...and you can not but throw yourself in. I know I do not describe it very well...but...let's think like this: you can not stop the river from running, right? And if you dive into river without holding on...the river may take you anywhere. Well, the same thing happens to me with my writing. The "Zone" - feeling comes and takes me wherever it wants to. And when I finally am able to stop and hold on something, I have to take some breath. You see, the rush of that "river" is so strong.

The most weird thing is...there is this one story I have been pondering...I have written different versions of it...but lately I have had this feeling I must write it down chapter by chapter and the happenings of everyone. I mean like this:

The Name Of the Story
Chapter One
- first happens thing X
- then happens thing Q
- then person T comes to the place and has a terrible secret....

Well, you got the point, didn't you? And I must admit....it feels good to do that. I have not written my stories that way before.

Mistook said:

We talk a lot about writer's block, but how often do you experience the opposite? Every once in a while I'm lucky enough to find myself in "The Zone." It's a state where the words flow so easily that I feel more like I'm reading the chapter, than writing it. I don't have to stop and think, I just dictate what I see unfolding in my minds eye.

For me this state comes and goes. On the best night of writing, I might hit this zone for an hour or two, but normally I'm lucky to be there for five minutes before I have to stop and think about what comes next.

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Yes. It comes when I tell it to: 4 am when I have started a new novel, and lasts till the end of that novel, and always at the correct time!
If you haven't, read Dorothea Brande's Becoming a Writer. She explains the psycuology of it all. It's no great mystery, in fact; the mystery is only in that we know so little about how and why it works.

This happens to me when I start a story, begin writing with an idea of the end, but no idea of how to get there. I know the destination but not the route of the journey.

Anyway, usually about a quarter or a third of my way into the book, something happens, where I have an idea, a spark, something happens and it all becomes clear. It's as if the writing gods want to see me make an effort and after I do, they bless me with a clear vision of what to write! When this happens, I'm in the zone for a few hours, I can't not write.

And after that particular writing session ends, it's easy to continue another day. I'm maybe not as 'high' as I was when I first got 'in the zone' but the story is clearer in front of me, and it makes it a pleasure to write.

scarletpeaches said:

This happens to me when I start a story, begin writing with an idea of the end, but no idea of how to get there. I know the destination but not the route of the journey.

Anyway, usually about a quarter or a third of my way into the book, something happens, where I have an idea, a spark, something happens and it all becomes clear. It's as if the writing gods want to see me make an effort and after I do, they bless me with a clear vision of what to write! When this happens, I'm in the zone for a few hours, I can't not write.

And after that particular writing session ends, it's easy to continue another day. I'm maybe not as 'high' as I was when I first got 'in the zone' but the story is clearer in front of me, and it makes it a pleasure to write.

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me too me too

I get something similar when I'm sketching or painting - I've decided that on a physical level, most people have some craft that, if they could find it, would 'make their hands happy'. That's the best I've ever been able to explain it. I'm not a very good painter - competent and slowly improving is the most I'd claim - but it makes my hands happy. I have friends who spin, or weave, or lay gold-leaf, or carve wood - I've tossed this phrase at them, and they know what it means.

It took me a while to get anything like that with writing. I got flashes, yep, when I looked back at what I wrote and thought, hey, that's not half bad, and that little interchange of dialogue is actually pretty good! sort of thing. But I couldn't really remember having written it.
Now I can often put myself into that flow (I think of it as flow) without too much effort. One thing I had to learn was to not fuss over every word (which is my tendency) but to allow myself to correct it later. Often I found it didn't need as much correction as I'd thought it would.

I used to go through recognisable stages - first, that it was flowing and all was good; second, that it was stumbling and awful and I should give it up; third, surprise that I'd produced something that good.
Being able to type quickly has changed the process. When I handwrote (which I do slowly) or typed slowly, a lot of 'editing' happened between the mind and the keyboard. Now it happens after the words get onto the screen. It was the ease of rearranging text on the screen that converted me to word-processing, Luddite that I am.
-Barbara

batgirl said:

I got flashes, yep, when I looked back at what I wrote and thought, hey, that's not half bad, and that little interchange of dialogue is actually pretty good! sort of thing. But I couldn't really remember having written it.

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This hasn't happened to me in the same writing session, but it has happened to me when I've put something aside for a time, even just a few days, and then gone back to revise. I'm sometimes surprised by what's there--usually by the good bits.

I get into the zone almost every time I write, but then, I don't write according to the rules. I don't plot in the traditional sense. I know how my story begins, and how it ends, but all the stuff in between has to ferment for a while. When I know where I'm going, I sit down and distill the mash onto the page. My best night was a 12,000 word marathon.

The November Writer's Digest will have an interview with Kathryn Wall. She writes like I do, in spurts, and talks about how other writers look at her like she's insane when she tells them.

She is also an exception to the rule regarding self-publishing. Self pubbed her first book, then sold it and book 2 to a small press, then signed with St Martins for 3,4,5, and beyond... but she is also a rare talent, not merely mortal like the rest of us.

Mistook said:

We talk a lot about writer's block, but how often do you experience the opposite? Every once in a while I'm lucky enough to find myself in "The Zone." It's a state where the words flow so easily that I feel more like I'm reading the chapter, than writing it. I don't have to stop and think, I just dictate what I see unfolding in my minds eye.

For me this state comes and goes. On the best night of writing, I might hit this zone for an hour or two, but normally I'm lucky to be there for five minutes before I have to stop and think about what comes next.

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Getting ideas on the page seems like a gift. My problem is staying focused on the long task of perfecting that WIP. I am constantly doing rewrites because I have to write things out to see if they are working through the whole story. And sometimes I have a sequence that is working, but I want to add more depth to it.

At the end of the day I have to like it. Even if my Beta's like something doesn't mean I will when I come back to it.

I'm there with my current WIP, once I changed the POV. It just wasn't flowing for me, so I switched POV and hey presto! we're off and running. I'm only looking at around 1000 words a day with this right now, because of everything else that's going on, but those words are flowing smoothly, to my great joy.

Mistook said:

Almost, eh? What aren't you telling us, StoryGirl?

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Hey, you are all writers, so use your imagination.

What happens after an hour or a night "in the zone" when you return the next morning to read what you've written?
For me, the results vary, but I can usually get into the zone when I'm re-reading stuff from the last session (a day, a week, or a month ago) and I start to really like it (about half the time).
By the time I finish reading, I'm usually ready to sail into the next sentence.
If I go an hour or so without getting into the Zone, that's when I know it isn't working today.
I can also get in the Zone when I'm not writing, when suddenly (usually in my sleep) I start dreaming scenes and sentences.

Mistook said:

For me this state comes and goes. On the best night of writing, I might hit this zone for an hour or two, but normally I'm lucky to be there for five minutes before I have to stop and think about what comes next.

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I’m a blank page writer. I don’t know what’s going to happen before it happens. I throw out stuff that hints at some coming disaster, but the disaster never comes as I anticipate, and when it comes chapters later—if it comes— I write it very fast. Sometimes, as in writing dialogue, I don’t know where it’s going at all. Not even a sentence ahead. The characters take over and speak to each other, ignoring me, ignoring everything. The writing flies. To me it’s as if there’s a connection I make to something supernatural that feeds me the words. All I have to do is to write it down as fast as I can. I have uncreative periods too, but I don’t worry about them. I know that they’re not really uncreative, just that something is gestating in there, getting ready to come flying out.

When I first started writing, that zone would be a brief period during the morning. Three years later, I still find it important to make that connection the first thing, or it might be impossible to connect for the rest of the day. But if I do make it, I find myself connecting in spurts all through the day, and then late into the night.

I regard The Zone as a rare gift that occasionally settles over me - when I'm already typing my brains out, of course. It doesn't make much difference to the time I spend writing. I can write just as much when not in The Zone, and feel just as happy with the end product. The main difference seems to be that all the effort jumps out of it and it becomes a flowing, joyful experience for an hour or two. Happens sometimes when I'm writing late into the night and I hit this kind of floating, clammy state of hyper-awareness, or sometimes just out of the blue.

I think there's another Zone too. Not the 'Oh my God this is so easy I love being a writer I could sing a song wheeeee!' type but the 'YES! I finally got it right!' Zone where, after struggling with something that's not quite there for days or weeks you suddenly hit the perfect note and everything starts to sing. That's less a state that you're writing in and more a Golden Realisation that you've not been wasting your time, and this really is good. Like you slip outside of yourself and all your mad neurosis and doubt and insecurity for split-second and just see what actually IS. I love that best of all.

Nateskate said:

Getting ideas on the page seems like a gift. My problem is staying focused on the long task of perfecting that WIP. I am constantly doing rewrites because I have to write things out to see if they are working through the whole story. And sometimes I have a sequence that is working, but I want to add more depth to it.

At the end of the day I have to like it. Even if my Beta's like something doesn't mean I will when I come back to it.

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The Zone and the Muse seem to enjoy some simialarities. Unfortunately, I don't see enough of either, these days. As Nate says, any day I can get words or thoughts converted to pixels seems like a gift.

I get "in the zone" usually when I get midway through a book. That's when I start LIVING there until it's finally done.

I guess being a Gemini helps me adapt to the two lives fairly easily.

The muse lives in the zone. Sometimes she visits me, sometimes she collects me and takes me back home to her house. These are the times I treasure.

Mistook said:

I think both of you need to get your butts to Amsterdam, and pronto!

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please explain