My life is fairly crammed, and writing time is hard to come by. Today I got one of those precious blocks of time in which I could write for several hours almost without interruption, yet as I fired up the computer, I felt not excited about the prospect, but worried and on edge. I also felt a little unsure: I had several projects I could be working on and was waffling on which one to choose. Continue reading Better Writing Through Writing About Writing
Tag Archives: focus
Three Pillars of Writing Success for Any Publishing Environment
Lately I’ve been looking, for the sake of my sanity, for some principles of writerly success that I can really depend on. These are a tad elusive when the publishing world is being shaken up by the complete redefinition of self-publishing and the whole eBook thing. I don’t know about you, but I look at all this and say “Hey, how am I going to make a living as a writer in this mess–or even just find a readership–when we don’t even know what the publishing world will consist of in five years?”
Uncertainty is a terrible motivator. Continue reading Three Pillars of Writing Success for Any Publishing Environment
Zoning out: the brain’s science fictional mode
Here’s some good news for those of you who, like myself, are prone to losing mental focus; apparently “zoning out” is an important mental state, as well as being intrinsically linked to the way we think about the future.
The regions of the brain that become active during mind wandering belong to two important networks. One is known as the executive control system. Located mainly in the front of the brain, these regions exert a top-down influence on our conscious and unconscious thought, directing the brain’s activity toward important goals. The other regions belong to another network called the default network. In 2001 a group led by neuroscientist Marcus Raichle at Washington University discovered that this network was more active when people were simply sitting idly in a brain scanner than when they were asked to perform a particular task. The default network also becomes active during certain kinds of self-referential thinking, such as reflecting on personal experiences or picturing yourself in the future.
The fact that both of these important brain networks become active together suggests that mind wandering is not useless mental static. Instead, Schooler proposes, mind wandering allows us to work through some important thinking. Our brains process information to reach goals, but some of those goals are immediate while others are distant. Somehow we have evolved a way to switch between handling the here and now and contemplating long-term objectives. It may be no coincidence that most of the thoughts that people have during mind wandering have to do with the future.
Well, that’s a relief – I can stop castigating myself for getting distracted by stuff while I’m… oooh, look, a new entry on TVtropes.com! [image by Spojeni]