“Imagine the writing process as a heart pumping blood,” writes Alice W. Flaherty in The Midnight Disease. Flaherty is a physician and author who studies the biology of creativity and, especially, all the complex things that go into the urge and ability to write. Her heart metaphor offers a fresh way of thinking about the way we
write, and to identify what is helping us “pump” and what is hindering us.
write, and to identify what is helping us “pump” and what is hindering us.
Flaherty describes several things that determine how well hearts pump.
The first is muscle—simply the strength of the amazing tissue that sends blood through the body.
The second is the heart’s ability to coordinate its rhythm, drawing blood in and sending it out again with precisely the right movements and timing.
The third is technically called “afterload”: the pressure the heart must continually work against in order to eject blood.
Finally, the heart must have sufficient “preload”: a continual supply of new blood to draw in.
How does this all apply to writing?
Heart muscle can be compared to your energy when you sit down to write. How tired are you? How much enthusiasm to you bring to your work? How excited are you to sit down and write? Are you depressed and fatigued, or happy and animated?
The energetic, refreshed, joyous writer is like the healthy heart that beats strongly and with vigor. If you’re exhausted or sad, you’re like the weak heart that struggles to send enough fresh blood through the body.
Heart rhythm is similar to our ability to control the consistency of our work. The writer who has good work habits, who has a schedule and sticks to it, who is able to focus when it’s time to write, who sets reasonable goals and works realiably, is like the heart that is pumping with a constant, even rhythm.
If you find yourself writing in fits and starts, procrastinating, or incapable of sticking with a schedule, you are working like a heart with a serious arhythmia.
The afterload—the pressure we must work against when we write—is all that “stuff” that pushes back at us. Perfectionism, anxiety, fear of failure, fear of success, disappointment, discouragment from others. I could go on and on, but you already know them.
If we think of our writing as a beating heart, we can keep in mind how important it is to keep pumping, pumping, pumping against all those things. As soon as the heart stops beating back against the afterload, the body dies. As writers, we, too must work against the pressure that tells us to stop—not by attacking it with ferocity and rage, but acting against it the way the heart acts against its afterload, consistently and steadily.
The preload—the supply of blood to our writing—is everything we do that feeds our creativity. If that is reading poetry, listening to music, going for a brisk walk, or meditating—great. If it is staring into space, eating a sandwich, or watching an episode of Gilligan’s Island—also great!. It doesn’t really matter what it is, as long as it truly nourishes our writing.
When my writing is floundering or feels uncomfortable, I often evaluate it using Flaherty’s metaphor. I ask myself:
- Am I writing with energy (How is my “heart muscle”)?
- Am I writing with consistency (How is my “heart rhythm”)?
- Am I pushing back steadily and surely against the things telling me to stop (Is my “heart” working sufficiently against the “afterload”)?
- Am I doing the things that feed my writing (Is my “heart preload” adequate)?
This fresh metaphor has given me a new, interesting way of assessing my process and making sure I stay on track.
I enjoyed reading this – ultimately one can never tell where the inspiration itself comes to write = sometimes one may have a physical writers cramp and at others a psychological one and sometimes it is all about time – remember Peters or was it Parkinsons principle – work expands to fill time …..
Like me – I set myself a small goal of 3 books for this year and took 6 months off from Jan to June. In between I started off with the third book – completed it in my spare time and it is now being illustrated. So now time is there and my work has expanded to fill it with lots of little inconsequential add on’s like this comment on your post – of course your post is very nice and reasoned – but what am I doing here – just enjoying it without bothering about the basic need to start and complete the 2nd Book for this year .. one can never explain the meanderings of erratic minds like mine I think ha ha
Carry on regardless Jill, you are doing a great job!
Deepak
3 books in one year hardly seems like a “small goal” to me, Deepak! Thanks for your comment!
Awww – I actually have to complete 12 Books before November 2016 which is when I should actually have retired – the stories of each of them are clearly laid out somewhere in my mind and bits and pieces written on scraps of paper or sent to myself by mail also scattered all around ha ha – it’s really very boring to sit and type and edit and type and edit again and again with changes too every now and then ha ha ha – but I’ll do it. Have just started on the book of poetry also today and sent excerpts to my schoolfriend’s daughter who want’s to illustrate it in the persian style – it is a book of quatrains – I have about 60 more written after the first burst of 166 Quatrains I wrote in the mid nineties so since the quatrains are already written – both this one and the 3rd Tale of the Booga Dooga Land will certainly make it to the publishers printing press this year. That leave the third book – that has no illustrations and is base on my own jaunt to Bombay with my friend when we were caught smoking in school and ran away ha ha – of course every thing in the book will not be everything we did or experienced – but since I am writing it as a novel – I will have the liberty to integrate other people’s experiences which we encountered in Bombay in the book – I’m sure you’ll like it – aiming for between 250 to 300 pages – so lets see if I manage to do it by December.
Writing with an empty mind is such a pleasure – you never know where you’re going to end – just like this original spontaneous thank you letter ha ha ha
Cheers and lots and lots of lovelaughter to you and all writers
Deepak
Excellent!