Being green

[swan_tower]

Apropos of my earlier post -- really, what I need are more environmentally friendly ways of doing the developmental stages. I had some very productive thinking time while showering, and more while driving to and from the city, but I can't just do those things on a whim to make my brain work!

I genuinely think that my job got harder when I switched over to writing full-time, but not for the reasons that usually get cited: when I was in college, when I was in grad school, I spent a fair bit of my life walking to and from class. That was excellent thinking time. But these days . . . yes, I realize I could just go for walks. It isn't the same, though? Walking just for the sake of walking feels like it's me trying to hide the fact that I have scheduled this period for Thinking About the Book, which isn't effective. It works better when I'm walking for some other purpose. Like errands -- but a combination of pandemic + foot problems means I haven't even done as much of that lately.

Maybe I should take up gardening. :-P

(originally posted at Swan Tower: https://is.gd/63RY3g)

Comments

[isis]

I solve a lot of writing problems while going for runs. Walk for exercise - like, tell yourself you're walking to get fitter, certainly not because you're trying to Think About the Book, no siree!

[swan_tower]

Alas, I do very badly with exercise for the sake of exercise. I vastly prefer either to be getting exercise while doing some other task (walking for errands; walking on a treadmill while doing things on the computer), or else doing a physical activity that is interesting and rewarding in its own right, like karate. So that approach would wind up with me failing on two fronts: first, the fact that I'm walking just for fitness reasons, and second, the fact that I'm attempting to use that as a fig leaf to hide Official Book Thinking Time.

[sholio]

I relate to all parts of this so hard, including the need for a more environmentally friendly solution. Long car drives are my #1 brainstorming aid, and during the pandemic I've gotten in the habit of hopping in the car and doing an occasional drive to burn off creative energy and give me some free-floating brain time, but this is obviously unsustainable. I noticed when I transitioned to writing full time that, as great as it was to get to do The Thing all the time, I really felt the lack of the mental wheel-spinning time that used to go along with having a job I wasn't particularly invested in. It used to be great for plot brainstorming!

... so, yeah. You're definitely not alone, but I don't know what a good solution is. (Well, mostly I keep thinking I should get more exercise and/or do more housework, both of which are also good brainstorming activities for me, but the problems are ... exercise. And housework. Woe.)

[swan_tower]

I really felt the lack of the mental wheel-spinning time that used to go along with having a job I wasn't particularly invested in. It used to be great for plot brainstorming!

Now I'm remembering that in addition to the time spent walking to and from class, I also had time in class where I might or might not be paying large amounts of attention. It's telling that I developed a mark to put in the margins of my notes that would flag whatever was there as being about a story instead of the subject matter . . .

At least I realized a few years back that I had lost the "feed the compost heap" aspect of my life, where academia meant constantly chucking random bits of interesting fodder into my brain. I'd fallen into a mode of doing almost nothing but directed research for an already-planned project, which for me eventually means a slowdown in new ideas. Now I'm back to reading a lot of nonfiction.

[rushthatspeaks]

Mindless handcraft, like drop spindle, or the kind of knitting where you do yards and yards of plain knit stitches?

Driving works this way for me too, and the closest I've come to figuring out a more environmentally friendly solution has been when I realized that driving was almost being a kind of active meditation (which produced flow state) and attempted to aim for that in walks. Gardening might also do that?

Stationary bike, or regular biking?

[swan_tower]

My weaving project may suffice once I get the hang of it enough for it to become mindless -- but too repetitive may not work. We'll see.

Stationary biking I can only bribe myself into by saying I can watch TV while I do it.

[mrissa]

I like the writing retreats I've been doing for themselves, and if I could teleport to them (including "my luggage" in that "I"), I absolutely would, but I also find that the solo drives to get there are very mentally productive. And actually I try to time projects so that I'm not doing last bits of revision on a retreat, because that's the sort of brain setup that is least likely to benefit from the drive.

[swan_tower]

That is very sensible planning.

[dhampyresa]

If you live in a place where that's possible, make a list of various places of interest/things you meant to visit but never did/etc around you and walk there.

Maybe try colouring books?

[swan_tower]

Alas, most of the interesting stuff around me is not walkable.

[mindstalk]

Bicycle ride?

[swan_tower]

Same thing as walking: if I'm doing it for its own sake/as an excuse to think about stuff, it's not as effective as if I'm doing it for some other reason and thinking on the side.