A couple of days ago, I was writing the entry for ‘Surprise Elemental’ [link], and while writing:

”
Stealth-related skills are very common among denizens of the demiplane of Surprise, and Surprise Elementals are no exception. As surprise is a key component of their makeup, there are actually many exceptions. There are few things more surprising than a Suprise [sic., it was right here that I made the exclamation]
”

the thought came to me that ‘it just writes itself’.

This is amazing. I am laughing with glee. I love writing, and I always used to hate it so much.

Thinking about it, I’m not really sure why. I know I used to find it very difficult to write. It would only happen under extreme deadline pressure, and I would hole myself up away from everyone so I could focus.

It would feel like pulling words from a stone[1], wringing my brain for each sentence. But I knew that I could do it under pressure. My writing got me interviews for my first university job, and some of the writing for my undergrad thesis was “the best he’d seen”. At the same time, it wasn’t good enough to get me into my grad school of choice[2].

So, I could write, after a fashion, but it was never a joy. The closest I came was the snappy repartee of a bunch of friends emailing back and forth, which was awesome, and def. improved my typing speed, but wasn’t really ‘Writing’.

Over the years, I tried tried blogging at various times, usually on Livejournal, but I never felt I had enough to say to warrant continuing beyond a few posts.

But something changed over the last few years. I had one blog, which I was adding to more often[3], I chose a role at work where I was doing more individual contribution, and most importantly, I discovered *flow*[4].

I had been dabbling around the edges of flow for years. One of my fondest memories from high school is spending the entire day at home focused on chemistry problems. We used to say in undergrad that we enjoyed exam season because that meant we could (in a socially acceptable way) push aside all other obligations and actually focus for a couple of weeks. During undergrad, I did a lot of my best writing and other work between midnight and 6am, when no one else was around or was even likely to be around. When I was running my startup, I came up with my best and most original algorithm while on vacation away from distractions. Last year, over the holidays, I started doing Project Euler problems.

It was some of my lifecoaching sessions that really linked the concept of flow with what I was trying to do, more importantly telling/reminding me that it was flow that I was seeking, and that this was a good thing.

The next holidays, I started writing every day, and it continues.

The breakthrough from a couple of days ago feels like the next step, the conversion of flow to joy. A “runner’s high”, if you will. S said that when she was writing every day, it felt like that to her as well. Something about remapping your brain to be good at something, then really focusing on that, so that it’s no longer words and notes[5], that you can play with it and it becomes fun.

It just writes itself!

[1]Or perhaps pulling sword from an eston.

[2]Parts of my application were good, parts were bad, but I remember being specifically dissatisfied with my writing at the time.

[3]About one post every 20 days, but that was much more than before.

[4]’Flow’ in the ‘being productive’ sense, where your tools feel like they’re an extension of your body, and the ideas/art/repairs/something just flow out.

[5]When I was singing with the chorus, one of our goals was to get ‘beyond words and notes’, so that you could focus on conveying emotion.