The Zen of Traffic
Years ago, when I first started writing, I lived in Seattle
where I spent 2 – 3 hours every day commuting two and from my job. I know what
you’re thinking—ugh, spending that long in the car every day seems torturous,
and there are days when it was. In the winter months, when it was dark, the
rain teeming down, staring into a river of red taillights as far as the eye can
see. And don’t even get me started on what it was like to drive on the viaduct,
which even the DOT admitted should have been replaced decades before it
actually was.
The traffic was so bad, I used it as an obstacle in my
second book. My editor said that she and her team were laughing at how many times
the characters complained about the horrendous traffic. As part of the Amazon
tribe, my editor and her team also lived in the Seattle area and no doubt each
of them had their own stories to tell about their daily commutes.
Okay, yeah, it was bad, but it did have an unexpected upside.
The commute gave me time to listen to countless audiobooks and podcasts. And it
did something else too, something very important. Driving provided the perfect
opportunity for my subconscious to work its magic. While I navigated through
the endless stream of traffic on my way home for the night, my subconscious had
time to churn. Whatever problem I was working on, whether it was a work-related
situation or a question about my current story, my mind would quietly operate
on a lower-level, thinking things through more deeply until suddenly, an idea
or a solution sprang to mind that seemed like a lightning strike out of the
blue. For me, driving in traffic became a weird sort of meditative experience.
Ironically, it was also one of the main reasons why I chose
to leave Seattle. As the city continued to grow, the amount of traffic became
overwhelming, and the drivers grew more impatient. The commute wasn’t just a
matter of crawling along at predictably low speeds until you finally reached
your destination. It became more random. More dangerous. People would dart out
in unexpected ways, causing accidents as they ran out of patience. I
understood. Sitting in traffic was frustrating, but I started worrying about
safety—actually making it home in one piece at the end of the day, and when
someone in Tukwila started shooting at the cars driving by… Well.
So we moved, and I started working from my home office,
which seemed like a dream after all the time I’d spent in my car. What used to
take me hours, now took a matter of minutes. The commute consisted of walking
down the stairs, into the kitchen for coffee, then into my office for the day.
But eventually I realized there was something missing. Driving played a vital
role in my creative life. Now that I wasn’t spending hours alone in my car,
letting my subconscious grind, I felt a gap in my creative life. That
never-ending well of story ideas and flashes of insight seemed to dry up over
time, and I found myself pushing my conscious mind into solving story problems
driven by my aggressive deadlines, instead of listening to my gut.
Once I realized what the problem was, I started working on
ways to solve it. (That’s what us Type A people do, right?) I would let my mind
wander on a drive to the coast, and suddenly the ideas began to flow. Snippets
of character dialogue would come to me. Solutions for story problems arose.
But because I work at home, and write, and have a family
and, and, and… Long solitary drives along twisty backroads wasn’t exactly a
scalable solution. So now what?
I started to meditate.
The first time I sat on my office floor to do it ended in
abject failure. I flattened my back against the wall and crossed my legs. No
sooner had my eyes drifted closed when I felt a fuzzy muzzle fill my palm. I
looked down at my Yorkie, tail wagging, who thought for sure that the only reason
I was down there was to play with him. His sister looked equally excited by the
prospect. I shooed the herd out of the office (yep, there are two of them), and
then they started to whine and scratch at the door, as if convinced that I was
playing with their toys without them.
Yeah, that wasn’t going to work. So I went upstairs. And
just as I began to clear my mind, the neighbor’s landscaper showed up with his
leaf blower set to overdrive. I gritted my teeth and went onto Amazon. Salvation
arrived a day later in the form of noise-canceling headphones.
It’s in the silence that I get my best work done, those blissful
moments when the clutter in my mind falls away allowing room for the other
thoughts (the ones that aren’t related to shopping lists and kid-related
pick-up times). It’s then that my characters finally begin to speak and that
action scene that has been plaguing me for weeks now, finally comes into focus.
The ideas flow from my mind and through my fingers and the happy hours disappear.
While I never imagined myself to be the type of person who
meditates, it’s been instrumental in helping me rediscover my inner muse. So if
you find yourself struggling with a problem—a work situation you can’t seem to
figure out, or a creative problem you’ve been struggling with, find a way to
let your subconscious work. Find your inner Zen. Whether it’s taking a walk in
the woods, playing a mindless game on your phone, or taking a long drive. Whatever
it is that sends you into that meditative state, make it part of your regular
practice.
You’ll be surprised at how much more productive you become.
Thank you so much for hosting me on your blog. I hope you
all love The Perfect Brother.
Published by: Indie Pub
Publication Date: September 27th 2022
Number of Pages: 421
ISBN: 978-1-7335452-4-2
Book Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads
This is a giveaway hosted by Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours for Chris Patchell. See the widget for entry terms and conditions. Void where prohibited.
This giveaway is for: 1 - $20 Amazon.com Gift card to a winner in the US
**Freda's Voice was not compensated for posting. This is a tour-wide giveaway.
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