Firehose

Yesterday we explored strategies and tactics for dealing with writer's block. Today we're going to check in and think about the opposite condition.

What do you do when the words won't stop coming?

You might not see this as a problem. I know several writers who can sit down at their computers and knock out 8000, 10,000, or more words in one marathon writing session. And these words aren't just filler - they're examples of good, solid prose, stories that have substance, and characters that engage the reader.

However, I'm talking about the situation that arises when you're so into your story and the telling of it that you can not pull yourself away from the computer. I don't know if this is problem for any writers going old-school, using a typewriter, but it can happen with a computer.

Here's a scenario:  You're writing your story, and the flow of emotions in the narrative drags you along. You want to see what happens next. You have to get those words down. The story has been plotted beforehand, and you've lived in this world of your own creation long enough to know its peculiarities and nuances. You're intimately acquainted with your characters. All you want to do now is to give all this knowledge and commitment concrete form. You have to write the words that make all this real.

And so you write. Bio-breaks come and go, you may take a moment to get something to drink, the phone rings and goes unanswered. The story must be told. Finally, twelve or fifteen or twenty hours later, you must pause. Your fingers aren't working quite right anymore. Your eyes are dry and itchy, and your tongue feels like old leather.

How do you deal with these incredible gushes of creativity? How do you maintain your sense of balance? How do you remain healthy in body and mind?

I would guess that these moments in the groove happen far fewer times than having the words stop flowing all together. Nonetheless, the groove times do happen.

So - what do we do? Do we just give in to the muse, that purveyor of words, and write until we can't write anymore? Or do we find stopping places, where we can rest and re-group, and then perhaps an hour later move back into the groove?

My own writing sometimes gets that way, but not very often. I've done some programming in my life, and one time I wrote a 900-line batch file that was a complete file management system. It took about three days. I don't remember exactly what happened in those three days, but I wasn't really present anywhere but in my programmer mind. The program practically wrote itself. It was wonderful. I find that those few times I've had this kind of focus in writing prose, that it's the same feeling. The sense of presence and involvement is practically physical.

When the muse is showering you, drenching you with the firehose, do you want to leave the stream?

I don't have a good answer for this. That's why I've gone to this length to describe the event. I'm throwing it open to any readers. Have you been in this sort of situation before? What were its health effects, physical, mental, and/or emotional? Were any personal relationships affected by the time spent writing? Join in the conversation and leave a comment.