These books are to be resourced during the programming phase, when you’re inputting as much material as possible for your brilliant brain to file away, adding possibilities for a multitude of new neuronal connections to spark when the real writing begins.

One way to do this is to keep a “sensory journal” in which you describe, as intricately as possible, one sensory experience a day—the exact way something looked, heard, or tasted, for example.

According to Nobel Prizewinner (for his work on the psychology of judgment and decision making) Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, the brain operates under two systems: System 1 (fast thinking) and System 2 (slow thinking). Fast thinking happens automatically, with little effort or voluntary control, while slow thinking involves

It’s helpful to use your affinity list as affirmations to bolster positive thoughts about yourself as a writer: “I am imaginative, creative, and compassionate. I am open to new ways of thinking and fresh ways of seeing certain issues in life. I am able to focus on what I want this particular work to reflect. I love to think, plan, dream, originate.

Identify a Purpose Larger Than Yourself A 2014 study of two thousand students, published in the Journal of Social Psychology, found that identifying a “pro-social, self-transcendent” purpose, such as gaining skills to benefit society or making a positive impact on the world, helped students study longer and harder.

They are also more likely to navigate by using landmarks than cardinal direction.

The Paris Review on Twitter. There are, of course, other books, such as Writers on Writing: Collected Essays from The New York Times. One that is sure to fuel a fire to write is To Live and To Write: Selections by Japanese Women Writers 1913-1938 (edited by Yukiko Tanaka), which is writing from women who wrote under the most adversarial conditions

Fifteen to twenty minutes of expressive writing, three to five times a week has been shown to have positive health benefits, including long-term

The caudate nucleus is the region of the brain that assists with coordinating practiced skills into automatic behavior.