How I Consistently Get Into a Writing Flow

Do you have amazing ideas waiting to be written, but when you get the time to write, you find yourself unable to?

If this sounds like you, let me share with you how I can consistently get into a writing flow, how I discovered what’s worked for me, and insight from a NYT Best Selling author I had the pleasure of talking to about this.

You can also listen to this post, read by me, on Spotify or on YouTube (releasing a few hours after the newsletter)

Physical Inertia

I love to trail run. It’s one of my favorite outdoor activities, but not for the first few minutes. Almost every time I go to run, there is this mental barrier I have to push through to get going. But once I get going, after a few minutes, I actually start to enjoy it and can run for hours.

Over the years, I’ve discovered that there’s a physical inertia I need to build up to push past the mental barrier and get into a good run. What’s interesting to me is that if I just try to brute force it, my body tends to not be too happy with me and it’s much more of a struggle.

But if I give my body a few seconds to understand what I’m about to do by doing a short warm up, deep breathing, and active stretches, it’s a lot easier to push past those first few minutes.

I’ve found that this is fairly similar to how my mind works when it comes to writing, and there’s three key areas that I focus on every time I write to help me get into my stories.

Three Key Ingredients

The three key ingredients I’ve found are: time, place, and cues. I’ll focus on the last one, as this is what helps me the most to get into a writing flow.

Similar to running, I’ve found that my mind has a mental barrier to writing those first few words. I can brute force it, but as with running, my mind pushes back and it becomes a struggle, leading to less effective writing (if writing anything at all).

There are many different ways that people can cue their mind that it’s time to write, but for me I always do these three things every time I go to write.

First Cue – Mental

First, I put on my noise canceling headphones and play calm or background music to give my passive mind something to focus on. Unless I give my passive mind something to do it tends to wander or spiral instead of staying focused on the task at hand.

I tend to choose music that matches the vibe of what I’m trying to do, but it’s always instrumental. I find songs with lyrics personally distracting as I start to think about what they’re saying or get caught up in music instead of my writing.

For me my top three playlists on Spotify are

Now, not everyone can write with music and that’s cool too! If you’ve never tried though, I’d say give it a shot and see if it helps you. If you don’t have Spotify, there are tons of free playlists you can check out on YouTube or other music platforms.

Second Cue – Physical

Next, I sit and close my eyes. I take a long deep breath in and let it out while I listen to a few seconds of the song. Depending on how my day has gone so far, I might spend a few minutes doing a mini-meditation to let my mind enter a state of rest. If you don’t like meditation or find yourself having trouble thinking of nothing, try focusing on a few positive phrases and either repeat it in your head or out loud like:

I am entering into a writing flow
I can write my story
I can do this

In a way, you are telling your body what is to come and it’s amazing how your mind and body ‘listen’ to what you’re telling it.

Last Cue – Visual

Finally, my last cue is to have my outline just below where I’m typing. I have found over the years that outlining is one of the most powerful tools I’ve used to break through writer’s block and to flow from idea to idea.

Not everyone likes to outline, and that’s fine too! But if you’re finding that you’re struggling with the discovery method of writing (or ‘pantsing’ as it is often called in the writing community for ‘writing by the seat of your pants’), try a simple three point structure to a scene you’re stuck on. You’re still discovering how to weave between these points, but by having these markers it can help you navigate a cohesive story.

If you’ve never outlined before, check out this post where I go into how I approach outlining and how it helps me get past a blank page.

My Chat with a New York Times Best Seller

This was further reinforced by my recent conversation with a NYT and international bestselling author, JD Barker. I had the opportunity to sit down with him and learn from his multiple decades of experience in the writing and publishing industry. There’s a ton of great ideas and nuggets of wisdom, so I recommend giving it a listen to the full conversation here.

From our conversation, two points reinforce what I’ve talked about so far. As it relates to writing, he talked about how he used to be a ‘pantser’, but after he started working with James Patterson and they co-wrote several books, JD came to see how much easier it was for him to write cohesive stories. He says now that he is very much an outliner or ‘plotter’ and finds that this helps him greatly in his writing process.

The second point from our conversation that I’ll highlight is that I found he also uses audio to get his mind into the ‘writing mode’, likening it ‘Pavlov’s dog’. He said when he goes to write, he plays a thunderstorm soundtrack. As soon as his mind hears the sound, it knows it’s time to write and he’s able to snap into writing mode.

Your way and a Finished Story

I do want to reiterate, that these examples are what I and another author have found that help us immensely to get into writing flow and finish the stories we’ve been dreaming about.

There is no ‘right’ way to write your story, only your way and a finished story.

How about you, what have you found that helps you get into a writing flow?

If you want to learn from what I’ve found helpful to help make your writing journey a little easier, or just someone to encourage you along the way, I’m here.

Subscribe to follow along, as you walk out your writing journey.

Most importantly,

Keep writing, and stay creative.

Indie Book Releases – October

Looking for inspiration from other authors who have come before or looking for fresh reads? Check out these amazing Indie Books on the Indie Release Radar!

And a special thanks to the wizards in the Hall of Heroes who help support these efforts and help these words reach more people.

Photo: TMS Sam

Creative Writing Wizard