Research

Sometimes when I write a story, I get so caught up in research that I lose focus on what I was actually writing about. I’ll go down a rabbit hole, becoming more immersed and intrigued in the research itself than the actual story. When this happens, I have to tell myself to pause and get back to writing, or else I’ll get so sidetracked that I’ll stop writing altogether.

It’s similar to going back and editing a draft while you’re in the middle of writing it. Instead of moving forward, adding lines and pages to the story, you spend more time trying to polish it as if it were the final draft. And like research, it can bog you down, take up precious time, spoil the momentum of the writing session.

What I like to do to counteract this is to tell myself to keep writing as if I am on a time crunch. Doing so encourages me to jot everything down onto the page, putting me in the moment of the dialogue and visuals. This urgency to get every thought and idea out before time runs out is like an act of recording their transitory and ephemeral existence before they disappear for good.