Polarity Of Mind

I’ve just returned from a ten day road trip that included a few days in Nashville. I might blog about the trip next time, but for now I’m following up on my last post, Deep Creativity. I came upon a wonderful series of articles by Merlin Mann on the same subject called “Making Time To Make” (note this link is only Part One of the series, see the other two parts at the 43Folders Blog). In it he quotes novelist Neal Stephenson on the subject of Internet (and general) distraction:

“Writing novels is hard, and requires vast, unbroken slabs of time. Four quiet hours is a resource that I can put to good use. Two slabs of time, each two hours long, might add up to the same four hours, but are not nearly as productive as an unbroken four. If I know that I am going to be interrupted, I can’t concentrate, and if I suspect that I might be interrupted, I can’t do anything at all. Likewise, several consecutive days with four-hour time-slabs in them give me a stretch of time in which I can write a decent book chapter, but the same number of hours spread out across a few weeks, with interruptions in between them, are nearly useless."

The four-hour time block is one that I grew accustomed to in my days of routine songwriting. Even if you have a day job, this is something you can squeeze into a weekend or maybe a quiet evening if you happen to have an easy day at work. You must begin by feeling relaxed about the length of time you’ve set aside to work. Even if you end up discarding an hour’s worth of failed effort, you still have ample time to go deep into the zone for a solid verse or chorus.

Don’t be in a hurry to commit to an idea. Turn off the ringer on the phone, don’t check your email, and if possible, try to get the place to yourself (send your spouse to a movie or pass up a party you won’t hate to miss). Don’t jot down thoughts in a hurry, re-think your concepts, clarify and distill the language. Work your way inward until you pick up the faint trail of a solid idea. This metaphor is appropriate: you are in the wilderness of the imagination. Don’t expect to find the well-worn path. If you do find it, be suspicious.

I emphasize this because it’s often the case that a real breakthrough is only possible in deep concentration. Short bursts of time-effort can sometimes yield a good spontaneous line or on rare occasions a couplet, but a tight lyric cannot be written one phrase at a time while multi-tasking. Your brain must be firing on all cylinders. You must have the complete resource of language, metaphor, rhyme, and imagery focused like a laser on the task, and the focus must last for as long as it takes to finish the job (the verse or chorus you’re working on).

Another way I think of this is as a kind of unified “polarity of mind”. It’s as if all the neurons are pointing in random directions when I begin a writing task, and I must first harness the “magnetic” current to get the thought process flowing in one direction : toward the goal. As long as part of my mind is occupied on a different problem, I’m not unified, not fully focused. I can tell when the focus is there because there’s a physical sensation of tremendous mental power aimed at an invisible target—I know the target is there, yet it eludes direct perception at first. Gradually I begin to see an outline, then as concentration increases I can see the bull’s-eye. There is also a sense of expectation, an “aura” that precedes the discovery of the right line or word—you can feel it emerging just before you pounce on it.

Writing is not free-association, scribbling down the thoughts as fast as they come to you, although this can be useful at the start of a writing session. That’s like drawing the treasure map. But you must still follow the map, and what you discover as you follow is the stuff that makes the song. Great lyric writing isn’t just singable language. Go deep and find out what you can make of an idea, don’t just skim the surface between emails.


copyright 2009 craig bickhardt