Stuck? How About a Subconscious Walk?

Don't just sit there when it's sucking

Photo by Arek Adeoye on Unsplash

Check out my first post here to read more about the namesake of this newsletter and make a copy of the input/output tracking sheet if you so desire.

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FIRST UP, BUSINESS! For the next month I have consulting slots open. More information in the form here, but I tend to work with people on the following (my qualifications included):

• Book proposals. I teach a class on this, sold a gift book off a proposal for six figures, and have helped a bunch of people get agents and sell their own gift book proposals. This is for personal essay collections, memoir, journalistic books, comedic gift books, etc. Novels are not sold off of a proposal.

• Short satire—editing, brainstorming, work plans, personal rubrics, submission. I created the Online Satire Writing program for The Second City and graduates of that program now write for Last Week Tonight, The Onion, The New Yorker, and tons of other shows and outlets.

• General creative process and organizational setup. See: this newsletter.

I’m open for projects/needs that require 1-2 one-off sessions—I’m not taking on repeating weekly clients right now. Take a look and write back with any questions!

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Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash

There’s a school of writing advice that can basically be summed up as: butt in chair. You sit at your desk for a certain amount of time and ONLY allow yourself to write or stare at the wall. You do not get up until writing time is done, no matter how bored or stuck you are.

And I do believe that there’s a certain value to this sort of discipline. I had a deadline a few weeks ago and you better believe my butt was in my chair….and on my couch, in my bed, on the floor, wherever my back felt best. But for that particular deadline, I was rewriting based on very clear notes. I knew what I needed to do to make the draft coherent, and I was executing those edits one after another. For that type of work, butt in chair is excellent advice.

But what about when your work is less, “smooth out this scene and insert this crucial piece of backstory,” and more, “I have no idea what my character’s low moment is?”

For that type of thinking, I need to get up and move. And more often than not, I like to take what I call a “subconscious walk.”

Let me explain by building upon a TikTok trend (I do not use TT, so I’ve very cooly gathered this information from various articles, including this excellent one by comedy writer and author Mia Mercado).

Last summer, “hot girl walks” were all the rage, with playlists, TikToks, and Instagram reels extolling their virtues. What I liked about the trend is not what you were supposed to wear (ideally, matching sets of expensive workout clothes which I do not own) or the music (though I did enjoy many of them, including this one), but instead, what the walker was supposed to think about during the walk.

You ready?

“The Hot Girl Walk is a four-mile outdoor walk where you can only think about three things: things you’re grateful for, your goals and how you want to achieve them and how hot you are,” says Mia Lind, the TikTok content creator and creator of the Hot Girl Walk.” (source)

THREE. THINGS. ONLY.

1. What you’re grateful for

2. Your goals and how you will achieve them

3. How hot you are

While I’ve never taken a hot girl walk in my life (I prefer “sweaty gremlin shuffles,” personally), there is something about the trend that resonated with me. It helped me put into words something I had been doing for years.

When I’m stuck on a major question in my creative work, I take my dog, go outside, and walk him up by Prospect Park while thinking about three things:

1. How nice it is to move my body, and any areas I need to stretch when I get back to avoid a debilitating back spasm

2. What scents my dog is enjoying and how nice and fluffy his tail is

3. Then, at the far end of my consciousness: whatever the problem is I’m trying to solve in my work.

The “far end of my consciousness” or subconscious, is key here.

I find that inspiration can get spooked when you shine a flashlight directly on it (aka, sit at your desk trying hard to force an idea into your head). But as I’m walking outside, watching my dog’s tail bob to and fro, I can convince skittish ideas to slowly emerge, let me see their shape, and sometimes I’m able to snatch them up before they get away.

Here’s an example of how this works for me:

I was stuck on why a certain character made a certain choice. There were many emotional options I could have gone with, but none of them gave me that satisfying mental *click* when two ideas perfectly slot into one another.

So I got ready to go out, hyped my dog up to the point that he was borderline insane, and right before I went out the door, ASKED MYSELF THE QUESTION OUT LOUD, and then promptly tried to forget about it.

About a mile into the walk (I do NOT walk 4 miles, I usually do 1.5 or 2), when I was mainly focusing on not being killed by someone who decided to drive their motorcycle on the sidewalk, I had the inkling of an idea. That could work, I thought. I let it marinate for a bit longer and focused on heel striking correctly, since I managed to break my own ankle last year from incorrect walking, and after a few more minutes, the piece of the plot puzzle I was grappling with snapped into place.

I immediately grabbed my phone and voice dictated the general idea (this is key for me—I find typing can sometimes cause the idea to get muddled or escape before I can capture it) and then emailed the voice memo to myself. When I got back to my desk I reread the section I was stuck on, listened to the voice memo, and immediately saw which choice worked best for this draft.

So, in brief, here’s my subconscious walk routine:

1. Get ready to go outside—meaning plan a route that lets you daydream a bit, I wouldn’t recommend doing this while trying to cross a highway, for example

2. ASK MYSELF THE QUESTION I’M STRUGGLING WITH OUT LOUD BEFORE I START WALKING

3. Be prepared to capture any thoughts in a casual way (for me, voice recording)

And here’s the thing: it doesn’t have to be a walk. You can put a certain question into your subconscious as you do yoga, stretch, or even cook. Since cooking occupies part of your brain with ingredients, directions, time management, it’s also a good time to let your mind chew on the meatier questions.

I find this method of coaxing connections and patterns to be a) intuitive for me, and b) much more pleasant than sitting at my desk crying because I’m stuck.

What should we call it—the Stuck Writer Shamble? I welcome your naming input.

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Have you ever done this, or something similar, when you’re stuck? When do the solutions to your creative problems emerge? Let me know!

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INPUT: A Substack I’ve Been Loving—Lonely Victories by Hurley Winkler

First off, Lonely Victories is an amazing name for a writing newsletter (I’ll never forget getting the offer for my first book, gasping, and realizing I was totally alone in my apartment). Secondly, I love reading Hurley’s takes on creativity, the writing life, and community. It’s a very welcoming newsletter and I highly recommend subscribing!

Another unique cool element is Hurley’s Book Club for Writers, which meets quarterly on Zoom to discuss books about the craft of writing and the creative process. Become a paid subscriber of Lonely Victories to join, and you'll also get 10% off Hurley's Zoom workshops for fiction and nonfiction writers!

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Upcoming Fall Workshop:

• I have a new class listed with Write or Die for September. It’s for NON-COMEDY WRITERS who want to inject more humor into copywriting, speeches, emails, etc. More details below, one session, lots of takeaways and slides! Enroll here (actual name of the class is “Comedy Writing for Non-Comedians.”)

  

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ABOUT ME: My name is Caitlin Kunkel and I’m a comedy writer, long-time teacher, and creator of The Second City’s Online Satire Writing Program. I currently teach classes and consult on gift book proposals, modern adaptation, satire, and comedic literature. I co-founded The Belladonna Comedy and the Satire and Humor Festival, and I co-wrote the satirical gift book New Erotica for Feminists: Satirical Fantasies of Love, Lust, and Equal Pay, named one of the Top 10 Comedy Books of 2018 by Vulture.