Writing

Here are some other techniques people use to access and maintain the zone:

Introducing a long delay between when you do the work and when it is shown to the world. Annie Ernaux writes about this in A Simple Passion, a memoir about how she becomes obsessed in a banal way with a man who is having an affair with her—the thought that others will read th

Substack • Notes | Substack

First, take a few deep breaths into your belly. No work of genius can come from shallow breathing. Secondly, set your intention to receive and you will. I promise you will. Trust these two steps as you trust yourself when you’re in love.

Gabe Berman • The Complete Bullshit-Free and Totally Tested Writing Guide How to Make Publishers, Agents, Editors & Readers Fall in Love With Your Work

INTERVIEWER:
Do you find emotional stability is necessary in order to write? Or can you get to work whatever your state of mind? Is your mood reflected in what you write? How do you describe that perfect state in which you can write from early morning into the afternoon?
OATES:
One must be pitiless about this matter of “mood.” In a sense, the writing

Marianne Williamson

open.spotify.com

When you’re feeling small, remind yourself this is the artist’s struggle and find comfort in Anna Quindlen’s words: Once you've read Anna Karenina, Bleak House, The Sound and the Fury, To Kill a Mockingbirdand A Wrinkle in Time, you understand that there is really no reason to ever write another novel. Except that each writer brings to the table, i... See more

Sari Azout • Check your Pulse #49

The antidote to envy is one's own work. Always one's own work. Not the thinking about it. Not the assessing of it. But the doing of it… [T]he work itself. It drives the spooks away.

-Bonnie Friedman

But busyness has a way of stealing creativity from you. Generative work, like art and writing, requires long periods of nothingness: it’s only in that wide empty space that ideas emerge. Long runs, hot showers, commutes that don’t involve harried Slack messages and listening to podcasts at 2x speed. Sitting at the edge of a dock, listening to the o... See more

Jasmine Sun • the scenic route

When it happens, we feel as if we’ve found a secret, peaceful path to the top of Everest. And when we’re not-writing—figuring out what not to put on paper—we feel as if we’re stuck in a storm, doing nothing at base camp. It feels unproductive. You can almost hear your life passing by.

Gabe Berman • The Complete Bullshit-Free and Totally Tested Writing Guide How to Make Publishers, Agents, Editors & Readers Fall in Love With Your Work