The Crabby Curmudgeon: The Three Naps of Rumination Monday

It’s cold outside! -45ºF windchill.

I know. It’s winter in Minnesota. What would I expect?

Be that as it may, IT’S COLD OUTSIDE!

While some people think this is a normal state of affairs here, the things that make life different today is that the governor closed the schools, many stores and institutions                                                                                  have shut down, and traffic outside is virtually nonexistent. Stuck inside, I’m wondering what I should be doing.

I can hear you scream, “You should be writing,” but my main inclination is to hibernate by burrowing under a mountain of blankets and waiting for spring. But that wouldn’t accomplish anything.

Or would it? 

The Crabby Curmudgeon has an idea.

Video Transcript

Are you making fun of my hat? Really?

Well, let  me tell you something. I have to go out here and get the mail later and it’s cold enough to freeze a penguin’s…bill off. I’m just gearing up for the trip. Then it’s right back into the house for Rumination Monday.

“What the heck is Rumination Monday,” you ask?

It’s one of the most important writing activities any writer can partake in. Especially if the brain is locked or distracted… or frozen. It’s taking time to think.

I know. I know. You always think when you write.

But sometimes it pays to think before you write. That’s where a day away from the keyboard can help. And especially on a frigid Monday afternoon, you have a perfect excuse.

Now, the way I found that works the best is to divide your activity… and yes, thinking is an activity… into three segments that I like to call naps.

Hey! When you get to be old you’ll understand the whole concept of naps.

The three naps are called visualizing, synthesizing, and energizing.

 Okay. Now. The first nap visualizing is taking time to close your eyes and see. I know. It sounds contradictory, but it works. Believe me. You see your characters. You see the setting. You see their  situations. You see their reactions.

It’s difficult to do this before a computer screen. Now, what you can see with your eyes closed... much more accurate.

Also, because it’s a nap, you need to lie down. Seriously. A prone position allows the sights, sounds, and smells to flow, unimpeded by transferring a thought from mind to the keyboard. Yeah,

Now, when you’ve got a passel of images running through your head, it’s time to get up, eat a sandwich and maybe some chocolate, and regroup.

On returning to the couch or the bed or the bare floor, lie on your back, and with your eyes open, though barely focused, you synthesize the images you saw earlier. Okay. What did you learn about the people and settings that you didn’t know before? What will influence the story? What is that hanging on the ceiling?

Okay. You may want to close your eyes until you can concentrate a little better. I'm a little distracted by the cold.

Anyway...Maybe before lunch, maybe some more lunch, a cold run to the mailbox, or an extended potty break 'cause when you gotta go, you gotta...go....Well, anyway...

The final nap of the day usually doesn’t include any somnambulant activity at all. And that’s okay. That is energizing. This features the fiction writer’s most important tool, the big question “What if…”

With your new knowledge of people, places and things in your story, become the troublemaker and ask yourself “What if so-and-so did such and such?” “What if this happened?” “What if this didn’t happen?”

You really do need to lie down for this part because for some reason, in the upright “awake” position, the internal censor tends to show up and rebel against your thoughts, yelling, “NO! NO! That can’t happen. Be reasonable.”

In a dream state or a near dream state or physical position, the writer can more easily ignore the censor and let the characters and plot grow. With all this new stuff, you’ll be a writing machine when you get up.

Best of all, with a a creative fire burning inside you, you’ll forget how cold it is outside.

Something to ruminate about.

I’m the Crabby Curmudgeon. Talk to you later.