Hello lovely writers! Welcome back to my It’s a Writer Thing mini-series on stimulus control and generalizability. As you may recall, I’m a clinical psychologist, which means I get to take advantage of all those great psychological theories and put them to work for me in my writing, and I want to share that with you. In my last two posts, I talked about the benefit of ingraining a very powerful urge to write by creating a habit. Writing under the same circumstances every day for a few weeks can create stimulus control in which the environment triggers our writing behavior. But I also cautioned that we can sometimes hinder ourselves if we limit our writing to only that special circumstance. We don’t want to limit ourselves! We want to be productive no matter where we are, right? So, to avoid that, once we’ve established a good habit, we need to vary our writing environment (while still sticking with our routine) so we can train ourselves to write under a variety of stimuli. This will allow for optimal productivity. Today, I want to add in two new concepts: cognitive control and locus of control. Definitions
Locus of Control: In other words, to whom or what we attribute our success (or failure). Is it because of things inside of us (i.e., internal locus of control) or things outside of us (i.e., external locus of control)? How does this all fit in with stimulus control and generalizability?STEP 1: First off, we must recognize that external stimuli impact our behavior. That’s exactly why stimulus control and generalizability work, right? Whether we’re talking writing behavior, eating behavior, study habits, whether we get on Facebook or get to work on that MS instead, we can’t ignore the impact of external factors on what we do. If we try to, we’re losing out on some potentially helpful stuff and maybe even setting ourselves up for failure (like if we minimize the impact of a coworker bringing donuts to work when we’re trying to count calories). So, step 1, just remember that external factors impact us. STEP 2: External factors don’t have to be the end-all be-all of our behavior. Yes, stimulus control is powerful, but so is your brain. We need to remember that the executive control of our behavior lies within us. All too often I hear people saying things like: - I can’t work out today, because I got stuck in traffic. Or - There’s no point eating a healthy lunch because I’m going to have an unhealthy dinner. Or - There’s no point writing; I’ve only got a half hour and I need at least 45 minutes to make it work. Or - Why try to write? My kids are being all loud and making a mess. What do all of these situations have in common? They all are examples of external locus of control. In other words, they’re all examples of situations where we assume the external environment has the ultimate power to decide what we do. Cognitive control is like our trump card, the one that bypasses all of these barriers. By putting the locus of control back inside us, we exert cognitive control. Instead of letting the environment drive our behavior, we can use other important stimuli to drive it instead. Stimuli like: our goals, our values, our decisions, our plans, our prior preparations, the deadline we committed to with our editor/agent/critique partner. Stimulus control and generalizability are tools to increase our writing by training our behavior around external stimuli. They’re perfect for helping us get productive. Cognitive control and an internal locus of control mindset are tools to overcome barriers and stay productive even if the environment isn’t aligned in our most optimal set-up. Your comfy chair and tatty robe won’t write your story for you, right? YOU write your story. And you can do it whether you’re in the perfect spot or in your really uncomfortable work clothes or surrounded by a lot of distraction or with a glass water instead of a huge-ass mug of coffee or jazz instead of polka (you know who you are). No matter how powerful the stimuli in our environments, we are always the ones with the executive control. We are in the driver’s seat. We get to veto all the other stuff and put our brains to work for us. So, when I use the mantra shared with me by my dear friend, You can do it! You can write!, I’m literally invoking our powers of cognitive control.
I'm so excited to announce that the latest issue of Allegory Magazine is out and you can read it for free. This issue is very special to me as I had a hand in choosing the stories that made this issue's cut. When the list came out, I was giddy to see several stories that came across my desk had been selected by the Editor in Chief. I never expected the experience to be so fun or rewarding, but I loved every second of it. So another HUGE thank you to the awesome Ty Drago, author of the Middle Grade zombie series, THE UNDERTAKERS, for inviting me to help out with your fun eZine. In this latest issue, you'll find a range of Horror, Sci-Fi, and Speculative Fiction that will certainly fit every taste. I hope you enjoy! And, submissions are OPEN for the next issue. You can find out more about that HERE. Happy Fall! We all know what fall means... NanoWriMo is almost here! Trying to cram 50K into one month is a major challenge. This month in my, It’s a Writer Thing post, I'm going to talk about a tool that can help you get there. Last time, I began a discussion about the concept of stimulus control, a powerful psychological principal we writers can harness to increase our drive to write. By creating a writing situation that we stick to—same day, same time, same place, same old robe that is really falling apart but we can’t live without--we can ingrain a writing habit and amp our productivity. But as I mentioned in my last post, there is a debate out there on whether writers should hit their manuscripts every single day? Some say yes, others say it should be up to the individual author to decide what works for them. According to psychology both of these camps have it right. Life is just full of confusing shit like that. So, though stimulus control is an excellent concept and will definitely work for you if you chose to set up your own writing habit, it can also hinder us at times. Today I wanted to talk about the flip side, a principal called stimulus generalizability. DefinitionsStimulus generalizability is the concept that covers how one’s behavior can become conditioned to occur in the context of many different stimuli. Remember the stop sign? Sure, it’s a very strongly conditioned stimulus for all us drivers, but so are stop lights, crossing families of geese, and the coffee shop that makes the perfect espresso. Stimulus generalizability is how we turbo-charge the power of the environment to work for us and our writing. To appreciate the potential of stimulus generalizability, it’s important to understand the way stimulus control can mess us up. THE (POTENTIAL) PROBLEM WITH STIMULUS CONTROLHave you ever heard of a baseball player who won’t change his socks? The guy just wears them, all crusty and smelly, until the end of the season because of some belief that if he washes them, he’ll wash the luck out. In addition to representing a superstitious belief that has zero impact on whether his team wins the game or not, this scenario represents stimulus control at its very worst. We can, at times, become so reliant on our designated routine—or lucky socks—that we begin to believe that the desired behavior we want is only possible in our special environmental conditions. In other words, if we as writers can’t write at the right time, in our favorite coffee house (and in the right table within said coffee house) or while wearing that ratty old robe, we think we cannot be productive at all. Sure, we may bang out a ton of words between 5AM and 6AM on weekdays, but what good is that if we can’t write at 3PM on a Sunday afternoon. Or in the car during a long road trip. Or in the evening after work when we discover we have some surprise free time. Or… What good is it if we can only hit one particular kind of goal under one particular set of circumstances? HOW TO HARNESS THE POWER OF STIMULUS GENERALIZABILITY IN YOUR WRITINGn order to be productive as writers, we need to harness both stimulus control and stimulus generalizability. Here’s how. I still say that starting off with one set routine is great. Condition yourself to write under your preferred circumstances first. BUT, once you’ve gotten into a good rhythm with that, it’s time to vary your writing environment. In addition to your usual time, start adding in other writing stimuli: your friend’s house; the car; the diner instead of the coffee house; a different Panera. Whatever. Vary the time, the music. Drink tea instead of coffee (or how about a big old glass of wine?). Just like a dog trained not to be an asshole in public because he can sit no matter where he is and who is giving the command, we will train ourselves to be productive writers under any circumstances. So, remember, though stimulus control is an excellent tool, if we want optimal productivity, we must also practice writing in a variety of situations in order to let the behavior of writing generalize. Friends and followers may know about my incredible experience earlier this year as a winner of Pitch2Publication, a contest where authors submit completed books for an opportunity to gain mentorship by an editor or writer a little further along the journey. When Rebecca Faith Heyman chose my YA thriller, "Ten Past Closing," as her pick, I was bowled over. It was a ton of work, but I loved every minute of it. And, as a result, I was bowled over again when I was offered representation by one of my dream agents, Dr. Uwe Stender. So, as a way of working to help recreate that same experience for another writer, I applied to be a mentor in a similar competition called FicFest, and author and creator, Tiffany Hoffman, accepted me into her FicFest brood. So, ready or not, here I come! I'll be mentoring in the Middle Grade category. The contest doesn't officially open until the winter of 2017, but I'll definitely be posting updates along with info on the kinds of books I'll be willing to mud-wrestle the other mentors for. Until then... I'm so excited to announce my latest story acceptance. My dark, uber-gross comedy will appear in ZOMBIE CHUNKS, a horror anthology from Dead Silent Publishing. Some of those involved with this book are also part of Silent Studios, a group of gore-lovers responsible for special effects in a whole slew of movies, shows, and games (and I'm sure everyone out there has seen at least one piece of their work). Check back for more info soon.
Hello lovely writers! Welcome back to my It’s a Writer Thing mini-series on stimulus control and generalizability. As you may recall, I’m a clinical psychologist, which means I get to take advantage of all those great psychological theories and put them to work for me in my writing, and I want to share that with you. In my last two posts, I talked about the benefit of ingraining a very powerful urge to write by creating a habit. Writing under the same circumstances every day for a few weeks can create stimulus control in which the environment triggers our writing behavior. But I also cautioned that we can sometimes hinder ourselves if we limit our writing to only that special circumstance. We don’t want to limit ourselves! We want to be productive no matter where we are, right? So, to avoid that, once we’ve established a good habit, we need to vary our writing environment (while still sticking with our routine) so we can train ourselves to write under a variety of stimuli. This will allow for optimal productivity. Today, I want to add in two new concepts: cognitive control and locus of control. Definitions
How does this all fit in with stimulus control and generalizability?STEP 1: First off, we must recognize that external stimuli impact our behavior. That’s exactly why stimulus control and generalizability work, right? Whether we’re talking writing behavior, eating behavior, study habits, whether we get on Facebook or get to work on that MS instead, we can’t ignore the impact of external factors on what we do. If we try to, we’re losing out on some potentially helpful stuff and maybe even setting ourselves up for failure (like if we minimize the impact of a coworker bringing donuts to work when we’re trying to count calories).
So, step 1, just remember that external factors impact us. STEP 2: External factors don’t have to be the end-all be-all of our behavior. Yes, stimulus control is powerful, but so is your brain. We need to remember that the executive control of our behavior lies within us. |
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