Getting "In the zone."

[GastlyGibus]

I'm curious as to what other people would describe as their "writing zone." What do you consider your ideal environment for starting to write?

For me, for some reason I find comfort in more crowded/lively places. When I'm alone in my room, I find that it can be distracting, ironically enough. When I really feel the hankering to sit down and do some writing, I'll usually go out to a small cafe or similar place. All I need is my Chromebook, a place with Wi-Fi, my headphones and some good music for me to really get "in the zone," so to speak. I don't like writing at home, because there's too many distractions and my short-attention span will very quickly find something to distract me. When I'm out in public with my computer, there's really nothing else to do, so it essentially "forces" me to sit down and write, which is honestly the only way I'll get anything done. xD

Just give me a small cafe, some headphones, and some Death Metal (don't ask why, I write better with Death Metal) and I'm ready to write. So what about you guys? What is your ideal set-up for writing?

 

[Dorothy]

A quiet, messy place with decent lighting and colorful walls, with orchestral music in my ears.

 

[Legacy]

Quiet, solitude. I'm the opposite in terms of ideal environment. A little Mary Jane also helps me get into my writing zone, but for the kids, I don't condone such a thing.

 

[LightningTopaz]

In my room, with a tab open to Writer (this way I can see my word count), a tab for my online radio (usually on to my custom blend of 70's to 90's pop, but I'll put on some jazz or Celtic as needed), and about a million tabs open to my various generators in case I need an idea.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Got to be at my desk, really, with at least some quiet. Writing I always type, planning, plotting and the like for some reason I have to do on paper. I quite often have a little whisky as I type. Oh! And taking a shower. For some reason I tend to get my best ideas from the shower

 

[CrystaI]

I need a quiet place with completely no sense of human around me, so a state of solitude.

And, my brain work the best when I'm standing, so I need something of approximate height of 1.3m to support my laptop. At home, I often placed my laptop on the closet in the study room, or the shoe drawer near the front door of the house, or the decoration cabinet at the lounge.
Then, when I start to work on my fic, I'll be standing for more than an hour without ever sitting down. The longest I'd tried is standing continuously for 6 hours, no resting. Don't worry, I'd already get used to it, so I don't get tired for standing for long time. Rather, my butt will be sore if I am sitting down for more than a hour...

 

[Lord Kyuubi]

I'm best off completely alone in a room that's preferably a bit dark and has nothing distracting around me. The room should be quiet. I then usually listen to a soundtrack from a film or a game, or something. And I need to be like that for a good length of time to get properly into the story and get much written. Oh, and I also need restricted internet access. I'll cite right now as an example of why.

 

[Glitchipedia]

I can write plot synopses and the like under pretty much any circumstances, but when it comes to actually writing things out scene by scene, I think it depends on the season and the phase of the moon....and possibly the exact arrangement of the dust on the piano behind me.

In all seriousness, I haven't found my "zone" yet. Otherwise I'd have already posted something resembling a fanfic.

 

[Lysandre]

For me, the zone hits at about 1-2 AM in the morning. Ideal conditions are on the couch, intense plot music in the background as I write. Usually I'll hit the ground running and do a full chapter if I manage to get in the 'zone' in this manner.

 

[PiccoloX]

After a long drive with little traffic and a random lineup of good songs.

 

[Warrior of Fire]

Just having a soft place to sit and good music (for me, that's classic rock, Zelda music, assorted video game music, and Smooth McGroove) works, though sometimes, I have intense duels with my own personal Bakura (from Yu-Gi-Oh), writer's block. And when that happens, no amount of getting "in the zone" gets me that pivotal plot-required topdeck to utterly destroy it until next time.

 

[Silverwynde]

My "zone" is either my den, with the TV playing softly in the background--low enough to where I can hear the noise and that's it--while I have some music playing on YouTube. Usually, what I'm doing is simply transcribing stuff from one of my notebooks, so I need a secure place for it and something to prop it open while I tap away on my laptop.

My other "zone" is the breakroom at work, usually when no one's around. All I need is a seat, a table and my notebook and I'm ready to go.

 

[Me Gusta]

I just sit in a comfy chair, with heavy metal or video game parody songs, and sit and let the creative juices flow. To Quote Stephen King's Misery, "You have to find the hole in the paper."

 

[Srebak]

I'm not saying that i don't have any ideas, i just can't "get into the Zone" as it were. I've decided to focus on three stories right now: a fantasy novel i'm writing, a fanon Season two for a show that ended after one season and a sequel series to a show that i like, but my creative juices have stopped flowing.

I've been working on my fantasy novel for 7 years straight now and i'm still not close to the end. Maybe it's because i've decided to go back and edit some parts of it, but whatever the reason, no credible author takes this long to write one book, it's embarrassing.

I started my fanfiction season two because i wanted closure with the plots of the actually show, i still do (even after hearing about how the show's actual season two was supposed to go down). But i'm still nowhere near the end, just like the fantasy novel. Maybe it's because, once again, i decided to go back and edit a few parts or maybe it's because my memories of the way some of the characters acted in the real show have a negative impact on me. I was half hoping that this could be my chance to voice my distaste of the way the main character was treated through subtle means, but i just can't make it work the way i want. I've posted five of my "episodes" online and a lot of fans liked them, to the point where they were asking for more. I know what's like to wait for something you like, so i don't want to disappoint my "fans". But i just can't oblige them.

For quite some time, I've been trumpeting the call for the creation of a fan-made sequel series to a show that i like (it was in reaction to the fan-made fifth season project made for another show made by the exact same company). But when it looked like no one was rallying behind me, i decided that it might help if i actually posted an "episode" online and get people's attention. However, despite how many ideas may run through my head, i've yet to actually finish anything.


And to top it all off, come next month, i'll have the urge to work on another novel i'm writing (a WWII based story, in response to Memorial Day)


What's a guy to do?

 

[Beth Pavell]

I think perhaps you're trying a bit too hard. If I were you I'd just get used to writing for enjoyment again, writing drabble to prompts or something

 

[Persephone]

I do a lot of research and planning before I write more than a few character-establishing scenes that won't make it to the final product. I do a few of those (ie, how would this character react in a party, schoolroom, etc.) to get the narration style down. Or I take a scene from another third person story and try to imagine how the narrator of mine would narrate it. These are entirely for my own use and some get deleted a few minutes after they're done because they're so embarrassingly bad. But, they do prepare me for actually writing a scene. After glancing over the relevant research and planning I go on a long walk and tell a version of the story to myself aloud to get any new ideas and figure out some good lines of dialogue and a decent flow. Then I sit down at a desk alone and hammer out words for an hour or so before I get up and do something else with my day. It's a mix of actually productive work and ritual that probably really doesn't help but it gets me to focus.

I can't have music or other people with me when I write. Music really influences how my writing works, often causing me to make changes that I regret later when listening to something else or nothing at all. Once in a great while I will listen to music on my walks when I plan ideas and a "rough draft" but never when typing final words. And I got hopelessly self-conscious and distracted when other people see me write fan fiction. Or even normal fiction.

 

[Princess Crow]

I open up the necessary tabs on the internet, find a comfortable/quiet place, disconnect from the internet after all necessary information has been loaded, and then I finally begin writing. I get too distracted by the rest of the internet/other people, so if I'm ever not entirely by myself, I won't get any writing done. Music is typically a no, but I find that it can occasionally break me from my writer's block. If, however, the music does nothing and I'm stuck in the block, there's no recovery -- I have to close the word document and resume at a different time. Sucks, though, seeing as my blocks have become increasingly common and I'm losing out on writing time.

 

[Niji]

I definitely write best in the rain (for as long as I can remember I've always had an unusual love for it). The sound of waves or cars is also nice sometimes. Being somewhere out in nature helps, but often isn't ideal. When inside, being anywhere with a distinctive and isolated atmosphere also helps; either the nice feel of a bed-and-breakfast, or the fearfulness of an abandoned building. I also like being somewhere off the ground, as I usually prefer. I change position a lot; from laying on my stomach, to sitting, to pacing around. A cup of green tea can be beneficial as well. I almost always type stories, but have to write poetry in a journal. When I listen to music, which is most of the time writing stories, it has to be songs with emotional lyrics and a dark sound to them, so usually rock, goth, or metal. (I should mention, I write mainly horror.) Before writing I often read a little of one of the classics, such as Lovecraft. I also sometimes look at pictures from old hospitals and such.

 

[Srebak]

When i was writing my fantasy novel (which is still far from being complete by the way), i saw an opportunity to vent my anger towards certain people, people who have bullied me in the past. I was gonna base certain unlikable characters on these people or at least give them the same names, then i was gonna have incredibly horrible things happen to them (like they get eaten or vaporized or just torn apart limb from limb). I'm not entirely sure that it's working, but i am still trying.

Plus, this line of thought has also carried over to my plans for my fanfiction as well. One is a fan-made Second Season for a show that ended after one season and the other is a fan-made sequel series to a show that i liked. Since both of the shows in question had the main character suffer a long list of problems and issues (mistreatment, insults, being shown up, betrayal and people speaking out against almost every decision they make) it seemed like a good idea to subtly voice my concerns towards this mistreatment. In the fan-made Season two project, i was going to have certain characters debate the issue and have the main character finally vent about how he was mistreated. In the Sequel series idea, i was going to have the Main Character vent and have an evil twin of the Main Character being acting out on these frustrations.

The problem is, these ideas seem to be backfiring on me in a number of ways. For one thing, i seem to be placing the MCs on heroic pedestals, which is not only considered bad by most fans, but also seems to come at the expense of the other characters' skills, personalities and development. However, the biggest problem for me is that my sympathy for the MCs is causing me to have writers' block; I keep thinking of new ways for the characters to voice their anger and frustration (and dare i say even hate) that i'm losing track of everything else. For example: I keep thinking of new ways for the villain of my Sequel series idea to be tempting the hero that i'm not sure i know how to make what villain is saying wrong or something the hero would want to ignore.


Any thoughts (i think that's how i'll end threads like these)?