The Thursday! Newsletter 1-30: It Ain't Pasta but It Just Might Work
Volume 1, Issue 30
I've been working on rituals lately.
Alas, none of them involve dancing on top of a hill, ringed 'round by dark woods, on a moonless night in front of a bonfire. There are no baying hounds, no chanting in a language that sounds like Latin but is far older and more sinister, no answering chants from the woods from throats that are not entirely accustomed to the air of this world. Though, honestly, if that's what it took to get my mind focused on writing awesome stories, I'd be breaking into ancient libraries and scouting wind-swept hills tonight.
I suspect the rituals I'm building will be far less exciting but also not nearly as likely to draw the attention of the authorities. Unless things go horribly wrong. Hey, you never know.
So why the rituals? I blame Jon Acuff.
Acuff is the popular author and public speaker whose books have sold roughly a bazillion bazillion copies. He writes quite a lot about many of the same things I write about here: creativity, life, doing your stuff, frustrations and joys. He also writes about things I don't, such as tennis shoes. But that's where he hooked me.
Here's how it happened. In his latest book, Soundtracks (which I highly recommend) Jon wrote about the wicked writer's block he had at one point right before he was set to start a new book. He couldn't get himself going. Every chunk of negative self-talk in his head was playing at full volume all the time. So, he decided to do something quite different. He adopted a motto -- Writers write! -- and bought a pair of expensive green running shoes to reinforce it. Every day before he sat down to his work, he put on his shoes. He only wore them in his writing place, at his writing, while he was writing. When he was done for the day, off came the shoes and they stayed there until the next day just like Mr. Rogers. If that sounds a lot like what Mr. Rogers did at the beginning and end of every one of his shoes, it's because Acuff took the idea from Mr. Rogers. I think it's darned clever. Let me tell you why.
Most professional athletes have at least one game-day ritual. Some of them have a bunch. They use those rituals to focus their mind on the game. They've trained their brains that when they eat a big plate of spaghetti and meat sauce or listen to a certain musical group or wear a certain pair of socks, it's time to think about the game and only about the game. All the distractions fall away. All the good habits built by hours of practice leap to the top of the stack and are right there for the brain to grab and use. They all serve to remind the brain over and over and over again, that it is time to play ball, not worry about taxes of what's for dinner tomorrow, or now the new contract negotiations are going, or even on where you are in the standings. Game day. Right now. Nine innings of four quarters or 80 minutes or whatever the game is. The phrase "get your game face on" is a short and popular way of invoking whatever ritual you have to clear your head of distractions and do your stuff.
Churches use rituals as well for the same reasons. They are not sacred in themselves (though I may get some argument from friends who differ) but they help focus our minds on the sacred. The more you're thinking about what's up next, what you're going to bring to next week's potluck, or when you need to stand up or sit down the less you're thinking about God.
We all have busy brains. Some are busier than others but we are all easily distracted. We can't help it; it's how we're built. When you're out there foraging for food, you can't afford to focus on only one thing. You have to be alert for other sources of food, other foragers who might want to poke you repeatedly with a sharp implement and steal your food, various animals who might consider you food, and other food-related matters. We carried those instincts with us when he moved into lifestyles that require more focus and less worry about predators and random pokes from sharp implements. You see the problem, yes? We'd like to focus but we're not exactly built for it, naturally.
This is where we build rituals. A ballplayer eats spaghetti and meat sauce. Jon Acuff puts on expensive green running shoes. A Baptist church sings two songs before the announcements. They use those rituals to lock them into the flow because, as you know, once we fall out of flow, it takes time to get back in. I don't want to waste time getting back into flow five or six times a day while I'm trying to write. I'm sure you don't either. Time is precious. You have a lot to do. You want to spend as much time doing your stuff as you can. Creative rituals help us stay in flow and minimize the distractions our own brains create.
There is one hitch. They don't just cling to us like a stray sock on a clean shirt. We have to repeat them every day. We have to train ourselves. The only habits we build accidentally are bad ones.
That's why I've been working on my own creative rituals. I am very, very, very easy to distract. My brain loves to chase stray ideas, video games, or a Mission: Impossible mini marathon on Pluto TV rather than do the work of writing a story or my resume or a screenplay (all things I have on my plate to do, one at a time). I need that pre-game ritual that sets my brain on the right path. It is slow going. I'm new at this whole "being disciplined and professional and able to supervise myself" jazz and my brain absolutely hate being in harness. But in harness is what gets the work done and the work is good and will be better and will earn me the sort of life I most want to live and most want to share with my amazing wife and my stalwart friends.
I think you want the same thing and I'm willing to bet that you have many of the same problems with distractions as I have. We creative folks tend to have slightly minds, even when we want them to settle down and do the work. That's okay. It's how we are and we work with it, right? There are advantages to being a bit of a mental magpie -- the ability to collect ideas from darned-near anywhere, even when we don't do it on purpose, for instance -- but the disadvantage is we need some rituals.
The good news is we don't need an expensive pair of running shoes to make it all happen. I'm glad for that because I'm not inclined to buy a pair, mostly because I can't afford them but even more mostly because I hate running. I'll come up with something else. I mean, unless someone out there wants to buy me a pair of expensive casual walking shoes or something like that. I guess that'd be a good ritual! Otherwise, I'll keep going with the news ones I've started. I'll give you a hint about one of them: I'm trying the twice-daily affirmations Acuff recommended in his book, based on some very good survey and science work he and an associate of his did.
I'll keep you posted on how it's going. In the meantime, I hope you have a good ritual or two. But no summoning! We don't summon things here. Well, not bad things. Probably.
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What I Wrote and Read Last Week (More or Less)
"Broadcast 544" is the kind of sci-fi I'd like to see a bit more on my television.
Then again, so is "The Dawn Raid".
Coincidence has brought the message "Make stuff now and see if it's any good later" to me in a couple or three different ways lately. Seth Godin's excellent short thoughts are only the most recent.
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Arts and/or Letters, to Class Up the Joint
A Zodiac Man, from an English folding almanac, circa 1415.
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One Last Thing
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