by Rosanne Bane
Taylor explains what it’s like to have the normally dominant left hemisphere fall completely silent, how the right hemisphere perceives and interacts with the world, and how she integrated the two hemispheres as she made a remarkable eight-year recovery. Many of Taylor’s observations about hemispheric differences have been corroborated by research using SPECT brain imagery.
The left hemisphere is detail-focused and analytical; it compares and judges all things. The right hemisphere is focused on the whole, the big picture and similarities; it discerns differences without judgment. To the left hemisphere, time is measurable, divisible and sequential. But to the right hemisphere, time is fluid or unimportant; the right brain is always in the present moment in an unending here and now. While the right brain processes information slowly and, as Taylor says, “tends to hoe-de-doe along,” the left brain is efficient and values getting things done.9
Clearly, Process is a right-hemisphere kind of state. Process is not about accomplishing anything. You do Process just to do it, and it’s not even really about doing; it’s about being in the un-ending present moment. Process is about setting aside details, demands, and judgments and allowing yourself to forget about boundaries and time constraints.
Taylor observes, “My right mind is open to new possibilities and thinks out of the box. It is not limited by the rules and regulations established by my left mind that created the box. Consequently, my right mind is highly creative in its willingness to try something new. It appreciates that chaos is the first step in the creative process.”10
The true value of Process is that it gives us fifteen to thirty minutes to be free of the demands of the usually dominant left hemisphere to mess around with small-scale chaos to find the creative gifts of the right hemisphere.
WRITER’S APPLICATION: WHEN IS WASTING TIME NOT A WASTE OF TIME?
Make no mistake: The left hemisphere is just as important as the right in achieving our writing dreams. People who indulge in right-brain dreaming without harnessing the power of the left brain to get things done spend their entire lives waiting for a someday that never arrives. However, devoting fifteen to thirty minutes a day to let the right hemisphere take the lead during Process is not going to damage our ability to accomplish our goals, however much the left hemisphere may protest about wasting time. Significantly, Taylor observes, “the last thing a really dominating left hemisphere wants is to share its limited cranial space with an open-minded right counterpart!”11
I can always see the wheels turning in people’s minds when I suggest Process. I know their left hemisphere is thinking something along the lines of, “That sounds silly. Childish, even. How can I justify taking time to just fool around when I’m not even going to have some result to show for it?” The idea of playing just to play is too decadent to accept at first.
As I explain the value of Process, most students and clients get an intellectual understanding and are willing to trust me enough to try it. But even the most willing find they are surprisingly resistant to actually doing Process on a regular basis. The inner critic gleefully and viciously attacks attempts to have fun and play around with creativity, saying things like, “This is silly. What a waste of time! You’ll never get this. Go do something worthwhile! This is getting me nowhere.”
The most insidious self-sabotage says something like, “Sure, I’ll do Process, but not right now. Right now I have these other pressing things to take care of.” There will always be pressing priorities. If you postpone Process because of that, there will never be time for it. Without Process, the wellspring of your creative energy and inspiration will run dry. Your Product Time writing, the writing you care deeply about, will go flat and stale, and your inner critic will be the only one who’s happy.
But those who persist in building a Process habit report that it is an amazing source of creative energy and insight. YA novelist Betsy H., who was among the most resistant to the idea of Process, startled herself with the realization that she genuinely missed her Process habit when her old practice had to shift to accommodate a new work schedule.
“I never thought I’d say this,” Betsy told me, “but I need to find a new Process activity. I’m noticing that I’m not as free in my Product Time without doing Process.”
Practicing Process is an antidote to perfectionism. It’s a great relief for perfectionists to realize that the old motto, “Anything worth doing is worth doing well”—that is, perfectly—doesn’t always apply. Process opens our awareness to the truth that anything worth doing . . . is worth doing.
Pianist and writer Katie H. found that Process gave her a new freedom. “I am often so worried about the final product that I have trouble getting started. I want to know exactly where I am going before I take the first step so I don’t waste any time wandering about. Creative Process is a great way for me to steer my attention toward the doing rather than the being done. One of my favorite creative processes is dancing, since it exists entirely in the doing. When I turn music on in my living room and allow my body to move freely, I have no concern for whether one movement leads logically to the next one or whether the movements together form a cohesive whole. When I am done, there is no end product to observe or critique.”
Ultimately, the willingness to “waste time” fooling around with Process is what gives us the creative energy, insight, openness, freedom and willingness to make Product Time—the writing that “really counts”—pay off.
When and How
I recommend you give yourself fifteen to thirty minutes a day, five or six days a week to play with Process. You can do the same thing every day, or you might select three or four activities to choose from on any given day. You need a short list of options so you don’t spend more time figuring out what to do for Process than actually doing it. Make sure you have whatever materials you’ll need on hand; it’s frustrating at best and self-sabotage at worst to not have the Play-Doh or scrapbooking supplies you need on the day you decide to make that your creative play.
If you find you spontaneously want to do something unplanned for Process on any given day, and you have the supplies you need, go for it. If you don’t have the supplies, get them after doing something else for Process so you’ll have them on hand for another day. Wandering a craft or stationery store shopping for supplies can be Process, but if your house is full of art or writing supplies already, shopping is probably a resistance tool for you and therefore not a good Process choice. Consider shopping an errand and reserve your Process time for the actual play.
I find it’s easier to build and sustain a Process habit when you make time for it first thing in the morning. Our brain waves are significantly different when we first wake up; we have more alpha, theta, and delta waves and fewer beta waves. Beta waves are the fastest brain waves (above twelve cycles per second) and associated with logical, concrete thinking and active, waking attention, so we experience fewer of these brain waves when we first wake up. Alpha waves are the second-fastest (between nine and eleven cycles per second) and associated with resting, daydreaming, detached awareness, and a receptive mind; theta waves are third (between four and eight cycles per second) and associated with light sleep and intuition and inspiration; finally, delta waves are the slowest (less than four cycles per second) and associated with deep sleep and deep meditation. Alpha waves seem to be a bridge between conscious and unconscious; the content of dreams and meditation (dominated by theta and delta waves) can be recalled only if you also had alpha waves during the experience.12, 13
According to Anna Wise, author of The High-Performance Mind, optimum cognitive performance (including greater creativity) occurs when these four brain waves are present and balanced (that is, no one wave is dominant).14 So we’re closer to the creative flow state, where all four brain waves are present and balanced, in the morning than we will be for the rest of the day, when our high-speed beta waves will dominate. This makes mornings a prime time to
write or to do Process. Besides, once you start your “regular day,” it’s too easy to get caught up in the crisis du jour and forget the habits that give you what you need to get through the day.
But if mornings are already jam-packed for you and you’re already getting up as early as you’re willing to, then mornings are simply not your best Process time. Take a look at your schedule and decide when you can do Process: during your lunch hour, afternoon break or evenings? Because Process will slow your brain waves, it can be a relaxing way to settle your energy before bed. Some research suggests that evenings may be particularly good Process time for extroverts (introverts seem to be more creative in the morning).15
If you want help slowing your brain, you can listen to relaxing music while you do it (unless your Process is fooling around with an instrument and you don’t want the distraction). But no, it’s generally not a good idea to do Process while watching TV. Multitasking is antithetical to Process.
CHALLENGE: START A PROCESS HABIT
I suggest you copy and fill out the Process Commitment Form below. (You can copy the PDF of this form at http://BaneOfYourResistance.com/around-the-writers-block-forms/.) Sign and date it. Ask a friend to sign and date the form as your witness to make the commitment real. Post the completed, signed and dated form in your planner or calendar, on your mirror or in your workspace. Reserve the time in your calendar or planner for your Process commitments.
My Process choices are (fill in as many or few options as you like):
1.____________________
2.____________________
3.____________________
4.____________________
I will do Process for (number of) __________ minutes a day
on (number of) __________ days of the week
on (list the days) __________
in the (indicate morning, afternoon or evening) __________.
Signed:__________ Date:__________
Witnessed by:__________ Date:__________
The more detailed you are in making your commitment to Process, the more likely you are to do it. Having specified days and a regular time for Process significantly helps in making Process a sustainable habit that supports your writing. But be flexible enough to accommodate the unexpected. If you commit to doing Process five days a week, Monday through Friday, and you miss Tuesday, you can count Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday as your five days. You’ve honored your commitment. Likewise, if you don’t get to do your Process at the time you commit to, you can do it earlier or later in the day and it still counts. But if you don’t do your fifteen minutes on Tuesday, doing Process for thirty minutes on Wednesday doesn’t “make up” for missing Tuesday. You still need to add Saturday or Sunday to honor the commitment to five days.
Start with small commitments you know you can honor. Three or four days a week for ten or fifteen minutes a day is a good place to start; later you can build on your success to expand to five or six days. It’s better to say you’ll do less and succeed than to overcommit and fail. Showing up for Process for three days for fifteen minutes is a success if you committed to three days for fifteen minutes, but it’s a disappointment if you committed to four days for fifteen minutes or to three days for twenty-five minutes. Small commitments regularly honored will build momentum and rebuild your trust in yourself. They also develop and strengthen those neural pathways we talked about at the end of chapter one.
Taking your commitment to Process seriously—by making time to play for the sake of play, refreshing your creative spirit and restoring your creative energy, surrendering your expectations and demands, abstaining from slavish devotion to constant productivity and unending agendas, and being willing to experiment and explore the new creative territory—fortifies your ability to resolve the resistance that has kept you from the writing you want and need to do. But most important, keep your Process time fun and light! This is play, after all. We use the word “commitment” to impress other people who might want to take your time. “Sorry, I can’t do it; I have another commitment” sounds more official and unassailable than, “Sorry, I’m playing.”
INQUIRY
“What would be fun to play with? What did I love to fool around with when I was a kid that might be fun to revisit? Have I lost track of the value of play, and if so, how do I regain it?”
4
HABIT TWO: PRODUCT TIME
Success Story
Screenwriter and novelist Miriam Queensen observes, “Giving myself permission to write, even for just a short time, and not waiting for ‘perfect conditions’ for writing provided me with just the impetus I needed to get moving. I’d been stuck for quite a while, not even sure which project to work on first. So I was paralyzed and didn’t write at all.”
When she committed to Product Time along with Process and Self-care, Miriam started writing every day she planned to write. “I started out with only ten to fifteen minutes, but I have learned that I can write one page in fifteen minutes. Just the fact that I write a little every day keeps the novel in my mind, so that by the next day I sit down to write, the next page or more is already there in my head, ready to be typed out, whether I’ve consciously thought about it or not.”
Showing up for Product Time ten to fifteen minutes a day moved Miriam from being stuck on page 50 to completing her novel.
When Is It Process Time; When Is It Product Time?
As I mentioned in chapter three, when you’re freewriting, doing morning pages or journaling just to fill the page with no particular outcome in mind, that’s what I call Process. If you’re freewriting to develop a character, idea or image for a specific piece of writing that you eventually want to share (by publishing, posting on your blog, submitting for a grade or credit, or printing for yourself, friends and family), that writing is Product Time.
When you’re searching for your next writing project, it’s trickier to tell the difference between Process writing and Product Time writing. If you’re playing around just to play, it’s probably Process; if you’re playing around with an idea or in search of an idea, it’s probably Product Time.
The difference lies in your intention. Process is creative play for the sake of play with no expectations about the outcome. It’s the in-the-present-moment process of doing Process that matters, not the final results. When you show up for Product Time, on the other hand, you do have an intention that you will create a writing product (hence the term “Product Time”). If what you’re doing needs to be done to complete a writing project, that’s Product Time.
You need to put in many days of Product Time to do all the work necessary to create a piece of writing you want to share/publish/post/submit/distribute, so not every day’s effort will yield the end product you’re looking for, but every day’s effort contributes to that final product.
Why “Product Time” Instead of “Writing Time”
I use the term “Product Time” rather than “writing time” because “writing time” implies drafting, revising, editing and proofing. Product Time is that, of course, but it’s much more. Thinking about “writing time” as the time you spend drafting and rewriting is like thinking that making wine is putting wine in a bottle, corking it and slapping a label on the bottle.
Of course, writing is about getting words on the page, but it isn’t only about words on the page, just as making wine isn’t only about getting wine in the bottles. Product Time is the time you invest in doing any of the many tasks necessary to produce a piece of writing.
WHAT COUNTS AS PRODUCT TIME
Writer Jacquelyn B. Fletcher acknowledges, “The biggest struggle I’ve had with Product Time is remembering what counts. Because I have a merciless inner critic who berates me for laziness, I have to remind myself again and again that research counts! Interviews count! And the writing, too. Showing up at the desk for Product Time moved me from dreams of
a writing career to the reality of a writing career.”
If a task needs to be completed to finish a writing project, the time you spend doing that task should be considered Product Time. Product Time will include:
Finding an idea
Researching (both research that’s focused on a specific topic and exploratory research that’s part of finding your next writing idea or project), including reading, Internet searches, interviews, questionnaires, surveys, field research, etc.
“Incubating” the idea
Freewriting
Clustering (a.k.a. bubble brainstorming), mind-mapping, creating a fishbone diagram, or using any other brainstorming technique
Making lists
Writing character sketches or the backstory
Storyboarding or outlining
Describing, drawing or mapping the setting
Researching potential publishers/publications, including reading and analyzing sample issues or previously published books, reviewing writer’s guidelines
Writing and submitting query letters or cover letters
Drafting
Editing, revising and rewriting
Proofing
Enlisting readers and requesting feedback
Providing feedback to members of a writer’s group
Doing exercises or responding to writing prompts
Taking a writing class
Writing a synopsis or book proposal
If you sit down with the intention to do your Product Time and you don’t do anything else—don’t distract yourself with email, Twitter, Facebook, blog stats, voice mail, TV, texting, Internet shopping, looking for answers in the refrigerator, or sorting your junk drawer—you’re doing Product Time. Even if you end up staring at the spot where the ceiling meets the wall, pondering and puzzling over what the heck you’re going to do with this piece, as long as you show up and make yourself available to your writing, that counts as Product Time. This is a valuable investment. Give yourself credit for it.