I have a job for you. Go to your couch. If you’re not near your couch, try this when you’re home. Alternately, you can go to your bed. Or the floor, if you like. There’s one of those everywhere so you can try this anytime.
Lie down. Stretch yourself out if you want, or curl up. Lie on your side or flat on your back. Cover yourself with a blanket (especially if it’s a soft, cozy, cuddle-up blanket) or not.
Close your eyes. Or not. It’s up to you.
Think.
Don’t sleep. Don’t rest.
Think.
About what, you ask impatiently? For me, obviously, it’s about my book. If you’re a writer, it can be about your story. If you’re not, try the technique anyway on a problem you’re trying to solve.
When I get stuck (see Writer’s Block post), I try to think through my problem. Some writers advise free-writing–typing anything that comes into your head about a particular topic and then drawing inspiration from there. Go ahead, if you like. It’s not a bad strategy. Just not one that works for me.
What works is just thinking about my book. Imagining I’m reading it as if it were complete. What would I expect to see?
When my husband walks into the room and sees me stretched out, I remind him I’m working. (I think he believes me. :))
Caveats: It’s a very fluid strategy; there’s no telling exactly when your brain will reveal the solution. It requires patience. It requires concentration (very, very difficult not to let your mind wander). It requires commitment–keep at it even when all seems lost.
Oh, and try not to fall asleep.
I discovered this method works for me when I was attempting my first novel. I’d wake up early before my family, creep to my computer and sit, cursing at the blinking cursor. I dragged myself out of bed for this? I was getting nowhere. The first few times I gave up and went back to bed. But I couldn’t fall back to sleep; I’d go over my plot points in my head, or hash out how I wanted to my character to react and then I realized I had my answers. (Another warning: you have to get out of bed first, even if you return to it. So many times I’ve tried not getting up–it’s brilliant, right? Just wake up and think. That’s when I fall back to sleep.)
So I’m not writing (as in physically typing words) right now because I’m musing. Lyra and David have gotten past the military blockade. They are about to run into another obstacle, a more ominous one. I have the concept mapped out, since I’ve written the (seventh? eighth?) first draft. But it’s not yet coming together.
So I’ve been thinking. Lying on my couch thinking. What’s wrong with what I have? They’ll meet some more bad guys, unrelated to Moto’s gang. I have David recognizing the threat of these guys just by their car. That’s a problem–how would he know he should avoid them? Instead, I think I’ll ratchet up the suspense; have them meet these guys when they are forced stop for gas; both David and Lyra will sense they are dangerous, they’ll try to get away as quickly and quietly as possible, but the bad guys will follow them. This also clears up another problem: why would the bad guys suddenly go after an unknown jeep? There may be reasons (since they control the area, they knows who comes and goes, maybe) but now I have to get into too many explanations. Better that the bad guys are given the chance to size up David and Lyra–especially Lyra, a foreign white girl, whom they assume to be rich.
Another problem (you’d think I’d learn) is that I’d stuck too closely to my original idea of my fiction African country called Taifa (see post Introducing the Second World). I was setting the scene as if David and Lyra were still in Africa, not my imagined Second World, which more closely resembles Turkey.
That’s where I am now: dreaming up a new setting for the next obstacle David and Lyra will face.
I’d better get back to work.
On my couch.
Or maybe my bed…