Category: The Zone

Writers: using the right and left sides of your brain

The Creative Zone is a magical place – but when we deliberately set out to get back into The Zone – guess what? We can’t find our way back. And the more we try, the harder it seems. If only we knew where it was… Does The Zone really exist as an anatomical entity in our brains? Where is it?

The Creative Zone

For writers, the Creative Zone is a wonderful place to be. The Zone is where everything seems possible, our thoughts fly free and words just flow onto the page without any struggle or effort.  Although the work we produce in The Zone will need to be shaped and edited at a later date, it is in The Zone – this magical place – that we weave and spin the raw material that forms the basis of our finished writing. Continue reading “Writers: using the right and left sides of your brain”

Are you writing in The Zone? 7 key signs

Writing in The Zone is a great experience, we all agree. Here are the 7 signs you’ve arrived.

Can you tell when your creative juices are truly flowing?flowing water illustrating creative juices, for writes

Most of us experience moments when we seem to be functioning at a higher level – so bound up in our creative work we believe we are operating on a different plane from normal.  When this happens, we often say we are in The Zone.

The creative zone. It’s a wonderful feeling.

spacer - Ruth Livingstone - writer

Seven ways to tell if you are writing in The Zone

  1. You sit down and start. A few minutes later you discover four hours (or more) have passed.
  2. During this time you felt no urge to eat or drink or take a pee.
  3. What is happening to your characters feels more real than what is happening in the real world.
  4. People talk to you. You hear their words but you have no idea what they mean.
  5. If you try to speak – to answer the phone, for example – you are unable to form a coherent sentence.
  6. You find it amazingly easy to write and you can’t bear to stop.
  7. Afterwards you feel exhilarated but exhausted.

Writing in The Zone is a great experience, we all agree. When you’re there you never want to leave.

But The Zone is an elusive place. You won’t find it on any map. Sometimes it’s very difficult to get to. That is why writing can be such a frustrating and challenging and heart-breaking task.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could always just slip back whenever we wanted to?

Read the next blog post, where I try to work out where The Zone actually is.
Writers: using the left and right sides of your brain.