What state do you read in?
Now that I’m back in the workforce, I don’t get to read in the same way I I used to.
I might actually be reading more consistently now. I listen to audiobooks on my commute and I’ve got hour long lunch breaks, so I’m getting in at least half an hour a day. 1
But it’s a different experience.
Reading at home without time restrictions, without work thoughts creeping in, allows you to give more thought to the work—and I suspect get closer to the conditions under which the author intended his work to be consumed.
Which brings me to my point today.
What state of mind, are you in while reading? And therefore what state of mind should an author write towards?
See, I do the bulk of my writing early in the morning when I’m caffeinated to the gills and yet to face the stress of the day.
In this state, I’ve got a lot more mental energy. Complex wording invigorates me, I’m happy to tackle puzzle-like plot lines and layer in subtle secondary themes. This is a state in which I appreciate the clever ‘moves’ that a musician is making in a song, it’s a state where I’m happy to indulge tangents for the sake of the ride.
But come 3:00pm when I’m taking my lunch break?
Not even close.
The caffeine’s worn off. The momentum of the day is burying me and the evening training session that I’m going have to face in a couple of hours, is now wearing down on my nerves.
In this state, the way I take in fiction is very different. I want the language to be simple, get to the point. Don’t try to be cute with needless misdirects. Keep the pacing steady and fast.
At this time of day, I’m either looking for escapism or information—and I want the funnel down that road to be as friction free as possible. Don’t make me work for it.
Which raises a predicament doesn’t it?
This isn’t just a case of writing with a certain audience in mind. It’s writing with a certain audience, at a certain time of day, in a certain state of mind, in mind
And sure, I can see obvious push back on this. You might look at the above and say: Relax. The farm to fridge process of writing a novel doesn’t track this closely. The substances or state of their bodies doesn’t carry through to the page.
Do Led Zeppelin listeners need to be mainlining heroin to enjoy the songs? Do Jimi Hendrix fans need to be dropping acid to tap their foot along to Voodoo Chile?
Perhaps not. But I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that if you tried those things, your listening experience might be enhanced…
This is a stretched comparison though, putting yourself on Hunter S Thompson’s daily prescription of any and every drug isn’t going to help you enjoy his work. The black out that Stephen King was supposedly in while writing the entirety of Cujo will not give you insights in the terror of a rabid dog.
But let’s pull back from that.
The case I’m making here is not about the relationship between art and drugs.2 Let’s bring this right back to my original point where I’m describing a caffeinated, energized writer, appealing to a tired, work weary audience.
Can this writer reasonably expect to connect with these people? Is this a case of writing in the first state, editing in the latter?
I used to follow some version of the above when I first began my novel—but there are logistics involved in that. Carving out one solid writing session in a day is hard enough, let alone two.
I also find it difficult to assess whether my more pessimistic afternoon state is feeding me a realist version of the writing or whether I am simply in a state where even Hemingway would have read as low-grade to me.
But then of course, I’ve also experienced the opposite, where a complex work has pulled me out of the zombie zone. On days where I’ve craved the simple, but forced myself to chew on something with a little more friction in it and found myself no longer needing that easy wave.
On Monday nights when I get my writers group, It’s not uncommon for me to stand up, remembering how good I thought this scene was only a few hours ago, then when I read it, find myself rolling my eyes. “Get to the fucking point.”
It all seems to come down to a roll of the dice at some point.
Solutions?
This is a real conundrum, because the sad reality is: most people are not as free as I’d like them to be. They’re chained to jobs, they don’t have agency over their own schedules. Readers are a bit of a dying breed, so when they carve out a moment to read your work, you want to respect their effort.
But this is yet another rabbit hole. Are you showing them an equal amount of disrespect by feeding them a stripped down version? Bereft of the richness it once had, out of fear that your tired audience won’t “get it?”
And that’s assuming you know what a given state is going to do to their attention. For the first two months at my new job, I stood at the same tube station, staring at the same wall without seeing it at all. Then one day, probably the fiftieth time I’d stood there, I found myself in a state of mind where I was actually present. I noticed the complex network of wires, snaking their way up and around corners of the wall. I noticed the rats running in and out of the railway tracks. I thought about how every aspect of that set up serves a purpose in getting thousands of people to and from where they need to go every single day. Careers, relationships, death has risen and fallen to the functionality of this service countless times, and it had taken me this long to notice.
Was I particularly well rested that day? No.
I’d just worked a full day, it may even have been mid week, so I wasn’t on any type of pre-weekend high. My mind just turned up that way at that time, making me particularly open and observant.
Hardly something you can bet your writing career on is it?
So forget it.
These types of worries are the makings of insanity—which I suppose is stalking up to my point. You can’t overthink this stuff.
Getting the writing done is hard enough. Perhaps your audience will change over the course of your writing career in accordance with your own lifestyle—but that’s ok, that’s authentic — in my opinion.
And yes, perhaps the real answer here is to get my caffeine addiction under wraps so I’m not constantly putting myself into a state that no reasonable human being could, or would want to, relate to. But to be tailoring to an audience of drinkers, drug addicts or personified cats will only read read as contrived.
That’s the conclusion I’ve come to anyway.
That might not seem like much to you. But I’m consistent.
Although I’m sure I’ll tackle that topic down the line