overthinking won't get your story told, you may as well rest

creativity and overthinking really can't coexist

Sounds ironic, right? We figure that creativity is a process of thought. So, surely overthinking is the same as focusing in, digging deep, and really working on an idea…right?

No.

For me that is the difference between having three marbles in a bowl versus a bowl of fishhooks—you might believe having more things in your bowl is better…but it isn’t if you can’t disentangle them.

Pull one marble from the bowl and examine it, roll it around between your palms, place it on different surfaces, or hold it up to the light. Explore. Reveal. Describe.

Lift one fishhook (or start to pull it) and immediately another and another are latching on, insisting on inclusion, space and importance.

For me, writing ideas are like silvery whisp-like threads. If you have read the books by Deborah Harkness in the Discovery of Witches series, or have seen the television adaptation, you’ll recall how Diana learns to ‘weave’. The glistening threads, vividly coloured and sparkling with energy become the tendrils of a story (or a spell, for Diana) when combined.

Hours overthinking at your desk don’t equate output in your endgame project. I’m pretty sure that if someone dared putting a calculator on the miles of writing time versus the stack of words used in the final version (please don’t) it would be just more proof that “art doesn’t pay”.

We aren’t doing it for a measurable output. Meaning isn’t an algorithmic property either.

Photo by Dave Hoefler on Unsplash

This is writing too—hours making goofy noisy with my grandson, notetaking in my phone, staring out at the Bay from a rock at the bottom of my street. You have your own definition of writing time…I’m just trying to encourage you to make it a very flexible one.

Rest, because the ideas are coming and your channels for sentences are wide open when you wake.

Mixed metaphors aside (I used alot of those babies in here)…working harder, overthinking, crunching out lists…doesn’t a beautiful written piece guarantee.

Write on. It’s all coming in its own good time.