Writers spend a lot of energy and angst on worries that boil down to an unhelpful behavior chain. We find ourselves uninspired as we stare at a blank screen, fall down a research rabbit hole, or argue with social media trolls. How did this happen? Why aren’t we working on our book?

My Problem Behavior

Currently, my biggest road block to productivity is social media. I don’t even like it that much, but time just disappears as I scroll through posts, most of them selling things I’m unlikely to buy. Because book promotion and marketing do involve using social media, I can’t just totally ignore it. 

My Behavior Chain 

Everything humans do started out in the subconscious mind. We encounter a thing in our environment, a trigger, which inspires a thought. We might quickly become aware of the thought but often don’t notice it until we are already acting on it. And that action has its inevitable consequence. 

Behavior Chain Example

• Trigger: I check my notifications on Facebook to see if anyone has entered a book give-away contest. Now logged on, I can’t help but notice a video of cute baby goats jumping around. 
• Thought: I don’t consciously think the baby goats are more interesting than my novel, but subconsciously—they are pretty cute and more appealing than working out eight story characters’ alibis for a murder. 
• Action: Without actually making a conscious decision to blow off work, I click the link and get hypnotized by baby goats. They introduce me to their friend, a cute kitten that love a duckling. 
• Consequence: Finally checking the time, I realize I’ve spent the first hour of my work session not working. Now I feel guilty, in addition to being stressed about finishing my book. This novel isn’t gonna write itself, but you couldn’t tell it by my behavior. And that behavior was part of a sequence initiated in the subconscious before I ever had a chance to make a rational decision. 

Breaking The Behavior Chain

So, to avoid the unpleasant consequence—taking years to write a book—something has to happen between thought and action to break the chain. This is hard, because we’re talking about the millisecond jump to implementing a subconscious thought. But recognizing the situation and coming up with strategies to reframe the trigger is the first step. Let’s ponder that and talk about it next week. 

If you enjoyed this journal entry, you might like to read about Stress.

I started this blog thread on the gritty details of the writing process over on my Facebook Author page, @kbkathylbrown, but think I might be better served putting it over here. If you’re interest in following my writing process in an informal way, you’ll find a few posts on Facebook that might interest you. You can subscribe to the blog from the website landing page (scroll down).