Spencer Wise

Practice the habit of writing every day no matter what. You can come up with a million compelling reasons not to write today. There’s so much quotidian bullshit in life (excuse my language) it could fill up your whole day. You could spend all your time at your job and then handling all those very real, very tedious adult things piling up on your desk. Those need to get done. But put aside an hour or two. Even a half hour, done the right way--meaning without self-recrimination or self-analysis--can be hugely productive. I’m trying to lose myself in the narrative voice, go so deep into a character that I’m essentially living in his or her shoes. To get into that trance or fugue state or the zone, whatever you want to call it, could take me 10 minutes or 10 hours. Sometimes I write for 10 hours but only the last half hour produces anything worth keeping. I mean, it could take that long for my critical functioning to shutdown and for my creative side to take over. I wait my brain out. I let my mind spin until I’m exhausted and then the writing gets good because I’m too damn tired to overthink and second-guess everything I’ve written. So you got to find whatever tricks you need to let yourself create. 

Spencer Wise is the author of the novel, The Emperor of Shoes (HarperCollins, 2018). His work has appeared in journals such as Narrative Magazine, Cincinnati Review, The Literary Review, and New Ohio Review. He has been awarded the Gulf CoastPrize in nonfiction and a Vermont Studio Center fellowship. Wise is an Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at Augusta University.

https://advicetowriters.com/interviews/2018/9/25/spencer-wise.html