Count Every Minute
On a recent road trip, with my husband driving, I was staring out the window.
“What are you thinking, Jen?” he asked to make conversation.
“Nothing,” I replied, my mind blank.
“Really? I thought you said you’re always planning your next book, or scene.”
Huh. I actually did say that. And, when I did focus on my mind, I realized I had in fact been thinking about my work-in-progress. Except, I’m always thinking about it, or my characters, or spinning another story in my imagination, so I hadn’t even noticed I was doing it—not consciously. I love to let my mind wander, to have my subconscious work on those thorny issues, and play around in my imagination, and it’s gotten to the point where it’s so natural for me now that I hadn’t even realized that was what I was doing.
I’m not suggesting you have to pick up this habit. What I am suggesting is that you give yourself permission to count those times you are doing it as your writing time. Since creativity comes from imagination, we need to strength that muscle. Letting your mind play in your imagination is good training. You’d never run a marathon without training, so why not treat your “dreaming” time in the same way?
Which means, that I got a good solid, two hours of writing time on that leg of our trip. 😊