Mind Games

JAN BROGAN: I've always thought that novel-writing was a little like delivering a baby. Your brain has to deliberately forget all the pain and agony of the event so that you'd consider doing it again.

A new study on motivation (Haung et al, 2010), posted by my favorite blog, PSYBLOG seems to confirm this.  It's all now official: the motivated mind often steps in  with some helpful trickery.

If the new goal is to be achieved, it must be made to seem less daunting. In other words, if viewed realistically, babies wouldn't be born and novels wouldn't be written.

In the study, participants were told they were going to be involved in an ongoing effort to collect one thousand t-shirts to send to refugees in Haiti. To make sure they were motivated, they were given a lot of background on how important their task was, how desperate the state of refugees, and in particular,  how severe a lack of basic clothing.

One group of participants were shown only two full boxes of t-shirts already collected, simulating the feeling we get at the start of a big project, i.e. that there is still a lot of work to do.

These participants coped with this by over-estimating the number of t-shirts already in the bag. In fact, in comparison to an unmotivated control group who thought there were, on average, 92 in the box, those motivated souls committed to the task estimated there were 220 t-shirts.

The overestimating made them feel that the goal was more attainable. A self-delusional jump start.

Towards the end of the project, study participants also had a habit of keeping themselves motivated to completion by  under-estimating the progress they had already made. This helped them  push themselves on harder as they approached the goal, when the temptation is to slack off.

In other words, we lie to ourselves both to start and to finish.

This all makes perfect sense to me,  especially since I am reading the Steve Jobs biography and learning about his reality distortion field. But how about you? Have you ever tricked yourself into starting or completing a goal?

ROSEMARY HARRIS: Happens every time I start a hike! "This isn't that long...I've gone farther at a higher altitude. Look, I've already gone 20% of the way!" It doesn't work quite as well for me with writing - as in "Whaddaymean it's ONLY 300 pages?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Oh, yeah. Every time. "Oh, sure, I can write five hundred words a day starting NOW and the book will be finished ahead of schedule." Ha, ha. Only problem is I never have any idea what I'm doing at the beginning of the book... but if we didn't underestimate how hard it was going to be, I don't know how we'd ever get up the nerve to start.

LUCY BURDETTE: Oh of course, it's fun in the beginning! Anything is possible. We're getting ideas like crazy and thinking of crimes and suspects. Only later does it become clear that we really had NOTHING. Little snatches of ideas with nothing figured out... I'm in that stage now where I need another 50 pages at least--but I've long since outrun my synopsis.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Are you kidding me? Tricking myself is an integral part of my entire life. My clocks are set fast so I'm not late. I SET THE CLOCKS. And then I "forget."  I don't enter my whole paycheck to my checking register--so I think I have less money than I really have. I'M THE ONE WHO ENTERS THE DEPOSITS. I believe my own stratagems. Oh, and I hide money from myself.  I stash $20.00 in a little pocket of my wallet, just in case. I put it there! But I always forget, and then when I  need, it, I'm SO happy!  About writing? I don't need to trick myself. The fear works just fine.

HALLIE EPHRON: Until I started writing fiction, I was one of those annoying people who got everything finished early. Projects. Thank you cards. College essays. It wasn't hard; I just did it. I found it calming to know I was ahead of my deadlines.

The problem with a book is that the deadline when you start is SO FAR OFF.  Now I'm a ditherer, and no 'trick' other than a deadline bearing down on me can get me to buckle down and write. And sometimes even that doesn't work unless I already have figured out what happens next.

RHYS BOWEN: I can't trick myself when it comes to writing. I'm in full blown panic mode at the start of every single book. The voice in my head whispers "You'll never get this story going. It won't be long enough. You'll say all you want to in 50 pages. It will be a horrible failure and they'll want their advance back." So the first 50 pages are like pulling teeth. Then there is a glimmer of hope. I see my way ahead. I start to write faster and with more confidence. By page 150 we are romping along merrily. I'm on my 29th mystery now and you'd think I'd realize that I know how to do it. But I've found that I need the panic mode to make me work. Several friends say the same.Nut cases, all of us.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I suspect in my case it's less "tricking myself" than blindly and optimistically planning that I'll be able to write to my max word count every day and that nothing in the rest of my life will interfere with my work. HA. I have to confess, I do the same when I plan to drive somewhere. If Google maps says it takes one hour fifteen minutes, I'll assume traffic is non-existent AND that I'll pick up time by speeding on the highways. Result: always arriving late and harried. Why do I keep doing this I don't know.

JAN: Yes, Julia, I do the same exact thing whenever I go somewhere and I never understood why I did it. Predictably. Almost compulsively. Then, in my last book, Teaser, my addictive protagonist, Hallie Ahern, became dependent on the adrenaline rush of danger (think the Kennedy clan) and I thought - okay,  now I've written something I really can't relate to, because I don't even like the thrill of boardwalk rides.  But then one day as I was racing around, leaving myself no time and getting harried in traffic, the thought occurred to me:  Maybe I'm doing this for the adreneline rush.  I mean, why else would I put myself through this all the time?

But that's some other study I'm sure!  How about everyone else out there? What mind games do you play to get your goals accomplished?


REMINDER: Melissa Robbins, your name was chosen to win a copy of No Way to Kill a Lady by Nancy Martin.  Please email me at Janbrog@comcast.net  with your snail mail address so Nancy can send you a copy.  Thanks! 

Writer's Challenge Week II

It's an illness, and I've go the cure

JAN BROGAN - It was a rough beginning to the week, with some serious elbow pain and family issues messing with my writing schedule. Also preparations for the New England Crime Bake annual conference - where I actually am today, as you read this.

On the other hand, I did a ton of research that I needed to do for my new novel, and to be fair to myself, I really need to do that research before I can write that much.

By Wednesday though, I was disgusted with my progress, or lack of progress. Mostly, I was disgusted by how easily distracted I was. Then, in a fit of distraction, I read a new study by (yes, again) my favorite blog, PSYBLOG on discipline. And how it really builds on itself. The more you exert discipline, the easier it becomes.

So.... I put really put my foot down on Internet distractions and this is how I did it. I set the alarms on my I-Phone for 11:30 a.m., 3:30 p.m. 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. And these are the rules, I can use Internet for book or assignment related research during that period, and I'm allowed to check in at Jungle Red, which I consider work-related, but I can't go anywhere else on the Internet. I also cannot check email until I hear the alarm.

Yes, I'm just like Pavlov's dog, I practically start salivating for email when the alarm goes off, but you know what? I've been insanely productive between the alarms. I finished a freelance article I was working on, made huge headway on two other assignments, and have done a ton of research.

Yes, I'm all smarmy with feeling better about myself - and wanted to share because it really does work!

Anyone else have any helpful hints to share? Confessions to unload? Pages to boast about?

MORE on Happiness and Upcoming Writer's Challenge

JAN BROGAN: As it turns out, the happiness we all seek is best in small doses. In fact, it may be the small doses that actually create the happiness.

A new report from PSYBLOG (how many times do I exclaim this is my favorite blog?) talks about a 2008 study (Nelson&Meyvis) that tried to track happiness by offering massages to its participants. Half the participants received a three-minute continuous massage and the other half received a three-minute massage that was delivered in two parts, with a twenty second break in between. The authors expected the continuous massage to bring more happiness - because we all know, the longer the massage, the better. But, it turned out that the people who had the break enjoyed it more. Why? The theory is that the break stopped them from becoming acclimated to the massage.

Interesting concept: That adaptation is the enemy of happiness. Once we take things for granted, they lose their ability to bring us happiness. Or perhaps, we lose our ability to NOTICE these things bring us happiness. In either event, it explains why rich people are often not happy. Because they can afford it, the bar for their happiness keeps rising. They tend not to savor the small things because their expectations have risen to such heights.

So, you should rejoice! According to this study, small pleasures beat big pleasures. And while some cake is better than no cake, twice the amount of cake does not produce twice the amount of happiness (remember that when you are dieting.)

So USING THIS LOGIC: I planned the next WRITER'S CHALLENGE, which officially begins Sunday, October 30th. It is a smaller pleasure - only FOUR weeks. And it's only four weeks, so I can sneak it, and you can thoroughly enjoy it, before the holidays start. Then you will LONGING to be back in the calmer moments of disciplined writing.

As usual, there will be prizes. Small, highly-pleasurable, SIGNED prizes. Come back Sunday to sign up.

On Visualization

JAN: I've been practicing yoga a lot more diligently lately, and my instructor was trying to interest me in a teacher/training program. I really, really like my instructor, so I was mulling it over. But when I asked her how one makes the leap from teacher/training graduate to actual yoga instructor, she said, "Don't worry about that. If you think positively, it'll all work out. It's the Law of Attraction."

The Law of Attraction, for those of you who missed it, was the key concept of the bestselling book The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. Little did my yoga instructor know, I hated that book. I declined the teacher/training course.

Not that I'm against positive thinking, but The Secret was telling its readers that they could solve all their financial problems by just "visualizing" a big fat check being mailed to them for no apparent reason. And then their positive thoughts would "attract" the big fat check, and it would, for no apparent reason, turn up in their mailbox.

And yet...I know positive thinking works in some situations. For instance, I always play a better game of tennis when I visualize winning the point in advance. So the question is this: When is visualization useful, and when is it just plain balderdash?

My favorite blog, PSYBLOG, answered this question for me just this week, and I'm going to apply its findings to writing.

According to the study quoted in PSYBLOG, visualizing an outcome can actually screw you up. And fantasizing about wild success works against you. That's because it's a human characteristic to assume that everything is much easier than it actually is. Even with years and years of experience, we simply don't anticipate how much of any plan can go wrong or how much work may be involved. Just dreaming about the goal may actually reduce performance.

In other words, writers.... fantasizing about what you are going to say about your book on Oprah before you've actually finished the first chapter is counter productive. Accepting your Oscar while signing up for your first screenwriting course may make you skip important lessons.

BUT.... visualizing the process of getting to the goal can be useful. In one study (Pham and Taylor, 1999), students were asked to either visual the ultimate goal of scoring high in an exam, or visualize the steps they would take to get that high score. The students who visualized the steps scored way higher, partly because the visualizing helped focus their attention on what exactly needed to be done, and partly because the visualization helped reduce anxiety about the process. The students who just visualized the high score dreamed more and studied less.

So I think the moral of the PSYBLOG story for writers might go like this: We might spend our visualizing time more wisely if we visualized the parts of writing that we can actually control. This may mean visualizing ourselves writing through that impossible scene. Visualizing ourselves through the difficult middle, and after that is completed, feeling more confidant we will come up with a clever end. Visualizing the tough process of querying agents or dealing with questions or concerns from editors might help, too. And when the book comes out, we might visualize making time for all that promotion on the web and at bookstores, libraries and conferences.

As for me, I decided to visualize spending less time on yoga and more time on research for my next book. And right now I've got to about twenty difficult pages to finish what I hope is the last draft of my novel, so I'm off to visualize myself going over those pages with a fine tooth comb.

Anyone have any other ideas about what we might visualize?

Do you believe in dreams?

JAN: Last week I had a dream that I was looking for my son, who was two-years old and hiding in a room.(it was an attic room with a slanted roof ) I was searching under the couch, but couldn't find him. In the way of dreams, I suddenly realized that my son wasn't two anymore, but twenty-one and six-foot three. No way could he hide under the couch or inside the window seat.

I woke up, not frightened, but uneasy enough to email my son at college and ask if he was okay.

Why? It's not like I have ever experienced prescience. Never in my life have I ever predicted something that actually came true.

According to PSYBLOG, which is my favorite blog, I inadvertently subscribe to the "Freudian" view of dreams -- which is to say that dreams have meaning.

Except, I don't really. The attic room in the dream was my daughter's bedroom in our old house. I know dreams are just pulled from the scrap heap of my memories and thoughts. Sometimes the dreams are so incredibly superficial and banal that I keep those dreams to myself. And yet -- I still emailed my son to make sure he was okay.

PSYBLOG reported that two researchers, Carey Morewedge and Michael Norton, conducted an international study on the way people view dreams. They asked participants who subscribed to the "Freudian" view of dreams, as well as those who rejected the "Freudian" view of dreams, to imagine they were taking a flight tomorrow and that the night before three things happened.

1. They consciously thought about the plane crashing en route as the route they were going to take.

2. They had a dream the plane would crash.

3. A real plane had crashed on the route the night before.

The participants were asked which of these events were most likely to make them cancel their flight.

The Freudians, of course, said the dream about a crash would be the biggest motivator to cancel. The majority of non-Freudians said the actual crash would be the biggest motivator, but it was only a slim majority. And even the non-Freudians said they would be more influenced by the dream than by the wide-awake "conscious" imagining of a plane crash.

In other words, the majority of people gave some sort of credence to the dream. The study, found that this belief in dream's predictive power was strongest in the U.S., - where 56 percent of people think this way about dreams, South Korea and India.

One of the cultural reasons suggested for this strong, stubborn belief in the power of dreams is the way dreams are portrayed in books, films and TV. As an author, I instantly recognized this as true. We only include a dream in a book to make it mean something.

I'm not a big fan of dreams in books, and if you are in my writer's group, I write big red X's over your long-winded dream. But, even I have used snippets of dreams to show a character's worst fears. And because my books have thriller endings, my character's worst fears often turn out to be true - on some level.

So how about the rest of you writers out there? Guilty as charged? And readers, do you believe in dreams? Maybe even when you don't want to?

Email Addiction Revisited

JAN: This is how sick I am. These statistics about email comforted me. At least at first. They come from a 2010 AOL survey, which I discovered through PSYBLOG - which is my favorite blog.

1) .59 per cent of recipients say they check email from the bathroom.

Yes, their bathroom. Just for the record, I have NEVER checked email from my bathroom. I think it's probably only the hygiene thing holding me back.

The reason email is so addictive, according to Psyblog is "variable-interval reinforcement" which is a complicated way of saying --even though most email we receive runs from boring to downright irritating, we get enough sporadic "exciting" emails to make us keep checking. We're hoping for that high moment.

2) 47% claim to be hooked on it, 25% of people can't go without email for more than 3 days, and 60% check email on vacation.

Guilty as charged. Always on vacation. Even in France when I had to spend money at an Internet Cafe. And really, is there anyone with email who goes three days without checking it?

3) You check email even more than you THINK you check email. Participants in a study by Renaud et al. (2006) claimed to check their email, on average, once an hour. However when the researchers spied on them, it turned out they checked their email every five minutes.

4.) Email eats a quarter of the working day

In a 2004 diary study (Czerwinski et al) of people in various different occupations. researchers found that, on average, people spent 23% of their working day dealing with email.

Okay, now I'm not so comforted. Now I'm realizing how much time I waste.

5.) It takes 64 seconds to recover your train of thought after an email interruption.

So in other words, all the time I spend meditating and doing yoga to enhance creativity, is blown once I start checking my email.

My solution, of course, is to Write First. Because once I start checking email, I fall into all the bad habits mentioned above.

So come on everyone, confess. Do we have any bathroom email checkers here?? Any five minute interval checkers?? Or do you now feel so much better about your email addiction because everyone else is worse??