Put your unconscious to work

Allow time between finishing your research and starting to write. That way, you give your unconscious time to assimilate the information and work out your own response to the topic, which then informs your argument.

I do my non-fiction writing in the early morning, having researched the topic the afternoon before. Just before I down tools, I have a think. How do I want to tell this particular story? I make a little mini-plan of the next day’s writing, listing the headings in the order that makes sense to me, and assign a word count to each section. Having organised and set myself the task in this way, I let my unconscious work on it overnight. This may or may not modify my ‘take’ on the subject, but either way, the next morning I have only to glance at my mini-plan and the writing almost always begins to flow.

Jen Green
6 December 2018