The Zone

A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream.
Gaston Bachelard
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So you’re sitting there looking at the blank screen. You’re either drifting off into the zone or you are actually reading what I’ve written.

The zone, you ask? What is that? Well that is the place that your mind goes when you’d rather be someplace else, doing something else. You know, the zone! Writer’s have a tendency to weave in and out of the zone. We like to visit it as a place of solace when we’re bored and in our zone, this is where some of the best story ideas come into our head.

A story idea came to me this morning while I was in that place of hidden treasures. It came at me like a lightning bolt grazing the ground and I need to write down the idea before I let this one get away.

There is your tip for the day. Get out of the zone and write those ideas down before they slip away into the abyss. The abyss is a dark place where all our thoughts and idea’s go and are sometimes unretrievable. (Is that even a word? Those squiggly lines are appearing making me think I’ve just made up a new word, for crying out loud! Okay, the word I want is irretrievable! DUH!

Now where was I? The squiggly lines...no no that’s not it, the zone. Yeah I was in the zone thinking what a gray day it is and how much I’d like to be out walking so I can harvest some story ideas on my walk.

No no, I was telling you, my readers, about the zone. Do you remember sitting in school, a really boring class and you zoned-out of what the teacher was saying and went into this world of make believe? Thoughts of the previous day, possible thoughts of the next day? Maybe even a fantasy of a whole different world! THAT’S the zone!

I knew you were one of those people, okay maybe a few of you are one of those people. What? You are ALL one of those types who visit the zone? Yay! Maybe I’m not crazy after all.

There in the zone lay a treasure trove of thoughts and ideas that need to be written down. Get out your pen and paper, open up you MS Word, excel, whatever you use. Open the screen up so you can get those ideas out of the zone and onto your screen where they will soon leap up at you making you want to dig deeper and then write about what the hidden archeologist in you has found.

I’ll assume we all have an innate consciousness where we know there is more planted than meets the eye. The only way to find out is dig dig dig until you unearth something of value. Whether it is fiction, non-fiction, fantasy,sci-fi, write the idea down, go back to the page every now and again and see where the zone will take you after reading that one sentence.

Okay people, come back to this post you’re reading and get OUT OF THE ZONE!

Write Write Write!