Don't confuse flow states and good writing

Flow is what you feel when engaged in a task that hits the sweet spot between challenging and “I can do this.” When I shot my second documentary, there were days I was one with my subject. What I saw on the monitor and heard on the headphones were all that existed. It was a volleyball documentary, I was shooting action, and when I was in flow, my body, like the players’, knew where to get its next shot.

There were also days I was out of sync with my subject, always in my head—“What do I shoot next?”—rather than feeling it. The players go right; my camera goes left. Something amazing happens on court; I had already hit “stop.” I keep trying to enter that flow sensation, and the footage, as I watch the monitor, is flat.

With anticipation I upload the flow footage to my computer. Watching it: “I was in flow that day?” “Wow, this is boring” “I shot two hours of feet” “Why all the feet?” “Here are the star player’s feet” “I can tell by his sneakers that he is… standing and doing nothing.”

How ironic if the footage from when I wasn’t in flow were amazing, but I watch and it’s weird. Crooked. Full of errors.

Editing I draw from both archives: flow footage and non-flow footage: “Actually I need a shot of feet here, even if they’re boring feet” “This shot is a total fluke—I must have accidentally hit ‘record’ with my hip or something—but it solves this editing problem, and makes the scene.”

Flow is a sensation that comes and goes. It’s not in my control, and doesn’t correlate with the quality of what I produce. What matters is doing the work every day.

The same for writing: sometimes I don’t get a good night’s sleep, and the next day when I’m working on my novel I feel jittery, unfocused, and out of touch with my language cortex. But the quality of my writing is no better or worse than days when I type, type, type away, lose track of time, and forget to eat dinner.