Need some Writing Motivation? Try Spinning. No. Really.

December 7, 2019 | By Christina Clancy | Reply More

I’m a writer, but sometimes I trade my sweatpants for padded Lycra shorts, switch out my mug of tea for a water bottle, shed my Joan Didion seriousness and blast Pitbull in the spin room. I bark into my microphone for riders on stationary bikes to “Go! Grab it! Dig in!” I correct form and offer bits of encouragement when people look pained, bored or desperate. “Look for the top of the hill, you’re almost there,” I say, even though we all know there is no hill, and there is no there.

A hill is just a metaphor for adversity (I say this sometimes, too). Speaking of metaphors, lately I’ve been struggling up an incline of my own. I’m in the messy middle of my second book. There are so many decisions I need to make about character and plot, so many directions my novel can go in, so many… words. When I feel overwhelmed, it’s me who needs encouragement. That’s when I find myself turning to the spin room – not to teach a class, but to take one. Oddly enough, I’ve found that the dance clubby boutique studio near my house is the perfect place to find the motivation I need to power through my draft.

Usually I roll my eyes when I hear cheesy instructor-spouted bromides, even when they come out of my own mouth. Now I listen hard to words of encouragement, and I try to imagine that I’m being coached through my writing instead of a spin class. The instructors don’t tell me anything I don’t already know. Nothing blows my mind. But that’s not what matters — what matters is that they say what I need to hear at the exact moment that I need to hear it.

Everyone needs a coach. That’s what author and surgeon Atul Gawande asserts in his popular TED talk. He discusses how we often think that the more mastery we have over our craft, the more independently we can work, but he argues that athletes follow a better model by inviting feedback and motivation into their process. Gawande says that coaches help remind us of the fundamentals and help us focus “not just on how good you are now, but how good you are going to be.”

Most writers don’t have a coach sitting on the other side of their laptop to offer this encouragement and perspective, so why not find it in the spin room? Although writing and spinning might seem like wildly different endeavors, they are both hard – really hard – and they share a similar work to gratification ratio.

Here’s some exercise motivation that I’ve turned into my writing mantras:

“Congratulations. You made it here.”

Whether it’s your desk or the dining room table, some days you can feel overwhelmed simply by double-clicking your document’s file name. But you get credit for showing up, especially when there are piles of laundry to be washed and bills to pay, kids, Instagram…

“The warm-up is the most important part.”

When you write, you have to make physical and mental adjustments, just like when you exercise. It’s hard to sit still, especially for someone as hyper as I am. Your brain needs to warm up to engage in a creative task. Scientists have found that three types of brain network functions need to knit together: your default, or inactive mode, the executive network that controls your emotions and decision-making, and the salience network that controls what we notice (or don’t).

Allow yourself to ease into it with a warm-up period. If you don’t, you’ll give up at the first sign of discomfort, or you’ll push too hard and flame-out. I’ll bet that John Cheever didn’t dash off the last lines of “A Country Husband” when he first sat down at his typewriter. Then it is dark; it is a night where kings in golden suits ride elephants over the mountains.

“Find the zone.”

Wouldn’t it be amazing to be able to write without trying? Automatic writing was thought to be a psychic, magical state where the hand was “owned by something else” – like the spirit of Charles Dickens, or an ancient sea captain. Most writers don’t get that far into the zone, but sometimes, when you become absorbed in the work, your writing can feel almost effortless. The characters talk back to you, your language is fresh and inventive, and the ideas flow. Athletes take the zone seriously. So should writers, which means you can’t break your concentration by reading the news or checking Facebook. These activities interrupt the connections between the brain functions you established when you warmed up.

“The way you approach one thing is the way you approach everything.”

OK, that’s not always true. But it’s good to think of writing as an organic and connected part of everything you do, not as a separate task that you should approach differently from other aspects of your life. I often need to remind myself that if I want to be a successful writer, I have to approach writing with the same intensity and dedication that I approach other things that matter to me, like parenting and exercise.

“Think about what got you here. What are you hoping to accomplish?”

The here, in this case, is your desk, and the answers to these questions can seem obvious, yet we lose sight of them sometimes. Maybe you’ve always had a burning desire to be a writer, or you have an unusual story you’ve always wanted to tell. Or you’ve trying to approximate the artistry and craft of a writer you admire. Touch base with your inspiration and highest-level aspirations, and grab that brass ring.

“You’re awesome. You can do it!”

You are! You can!

“If this were easy, you wouldn’t be here.”

As much as we resist the work, the struggle is what makes you feel a sense of accomplishment. When you hit an obstacle in your writing, remember that it should be hard. Nobody wants to walk out of the spin room feeling like they just rolled their legs without resistance.

“You did it!”

A workout can feel never-ending, but it will end, and one day you’ll experience that massive dopamine rush of accomplishment that’s even more exhilarating than publication.

Writing is solitary, but inviting a coach into the process can help you believe that you can be better, and that you can and will make it to the end.

Link to TED talk

https://www.facebook.com/TED/videos/504451530019498/?v=504451530019498

Link for brain science info:

https://www.creativelive.com/blog/science-of-creativity/

—

Christina Clancy’s debut novel, THE SECOND HOME, will be published by St. Martin’s Press June 2, 2020. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, in The Sun Magazine, and Glimmer Train Stories, Hobart, Pleiades and on Wisconsin Public Radio. She has a PhD in English from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and she has taught spin classes for almost two decades. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

Link: http://bit.ly/SecondHomeNovel

Follow her on Twitter https://twitter.com/christi_clancy

Find out more about her on her website https://www.christiclancywrites.com/

THE SECOND HOME

For three very different siblings, a summer house on Cape Cod holds their childhood memories, their tangled family history, and their most closely guarded secrets. In this assured and affecting debut, Christina Clancy evokes the enduring nostalgia of summers past as she introduces you to a family you’ll quickly fall in love with and won’t soon forget.