S. Krashen ESL Journal 4(2): 10-11. 2001
Remember when you were staring at the ceiling in
elementary school, and the teacher asked you whether the answer was on the
ceiling? Maybe it was.
In a discussion of possible therapies to remediate
writing apprehension, Daly (1985) includes these suggestions:
"One potentially appropriate therapy for
procrastination lies in teaching something akin to time management. The writer
learns to go to a specific location each day at a certain time and do nothing
but write: No distractions are permitted . . . What may be appropriate for
(blocked writers) is ‘forced’ writing, where something must be put down on
paper whether it is meaningful or not (e.g. writing whatever comes to mind,
free-flowing brainstorming)." (p. 71).
In other words, procrastinators need to have a set
time when they do nothing but write, and blocked writers need to do forced
writing.
There is a problem with these recommendations. It
denies what I think is one of the most important parts of the composing
process: incubation, a term introduced by Wallas (1926) for the process by
which the mind goes about solving a problem, subconsciously and automatically.
Elbow (1972, 1981) refers to incubation as "cooking."
Incubation seems to happen best when we take a break
from creative work. During this time, we need to do something completely
different, something that does not involve conscious and deliberate problem-
solving. Wallas suggests that "in the case of the more difficult forms of
creative thought ... it is desirable that not only that there should be an
interval free from conscious thought on the particular problem concerned, but
also that that interval should be so spent that nothing should interfere with
the free working of the unconscious or partially unconscious processes of the
mind. In those cases, the stage of incubation should include a large amount of
actual mental relaxation" (p. 95).
Examples of incubation
Wallas (1926) reports that he first heard of the idea
of incubation from the physicist Helmholz. In a speech delivered in 1891,
Helmholz described how new thoughts came to him: After previous investigation,
"in all directions," .. " happy ideas come unexpectedly without
effort, like an inspiration ... they have never come to me when my mind was
fatigued, or when I was at my working table ... They came particularly readily
during the slow ascent of wooded hills on a sunny day" (p. 91).
Einstein clearly knew about incubation: According to
Clark (1971), Einstein would "allow the subconscious to solve particularly
tricky problems. 'Whenever he felt that he had come to the end of the road or
into a difficult situation in his work,' his eldest son said, 'he would take
refuge in music, and that would resolve all his difficulties.'" (p. 106).
Clark notes that for Einstein, "with relaxation, there would often come
the solution" (p. 106).
Csikszentmihalyi and Sawyer (1995) interviewed nine
"creative" individuals, all of whom had made creative contributions
in their field, were 60 or older, and were still actively involved in creative
work. All mentioned that insights occurred during idle time, and several
mentioned that they occurred while they were doing something else, during a
"repetitive, physical activity" such as gardening, shaving, taking a
walk, or taking a bath (p. 348).
Mind on, mind off
This is not to say, of course, that hard work is
unnecessary. Quite the opposite is true. Many studies confirm that high
achievers put in a tremendous amount of work, far more than less accomplished
colleagues. They engage in the "preliminary period of conscious work which
also precedes all fruitful unconscious labor" (Poincare, 1924). This
preliminary work is labeled "preparation" by Wallas, and as
"wrestling with ideas" by Elbow (1972, p. 129). Wallas notes that the
educated person "can 'put his mind on' to a chosen subjects, and 'turn his
mind off' ...." (p. 92). The educated person knows how, in other words, to
prepare and then incubate.
Of course, the "illumination" that is the
result of incubation needs to be followed by more conscious work. Ideas that
arise as a result of incubation need to be evaluated (Smith, 1994); our new
insight may not be right.
Long and short incubation periods
Incubation sometimes requires a very long break:
Feynman noted that "You have to do six months of very hard work first and
get all the components bumping around in your head, and then you have to be
idle for a couple of weeks, and then - ping - it suddenly falls into place ..."
(Csikszentmihalyi and Sawyer, 1995, p. 350). Incubation can also occur with
breaks of shorter duration. Piaget told Gruber (1995) that after he worked for
a few hours, "he would go for a walk, not think about very much, and when
he went back to his desk his ideas would be clearer ..." (p. 526). And it
can also happen in very short breaks, a few minutes or even moments. In my
experience, extremely short breaks are all that is necessary to solve many
problems and loosen many blocks. In agreement with Wallas, I have found that
these breaks work best when they are devoted to something fairly mindless:
washing just a few dishes, filing just a few papers, or doing some light
exercise.
The incubation phenomenon helps to explain why
accomplished people need to put in so much time; it may be that not all of the
time is "industrious." In fact, high achievers may actually take more
time. C.P. Snow, cited in Clark (1971), noted that Churchill "was not a
fast worker ... but he was essentially a non- stop worker" (p. 106); perhaps
some of the "non-stop" working was staring at the ceiling. If high
achievers appear to accomplish tasks more quickly than others, I suspect it is
only because they put in so much more time.1
Scheduling incubation time and not being ashamed of it
Some of Csikszentmihalyi and Sawyer's subjects
actually scheduled "a period of solitary idle time that follows a period
of hard work ... many of them told us that without this solitary, quiet time,
they would never have their most important ideas" (p. 347). One respondent
actually began his interview with this statement: "I'm fooling around not
doing anything, which probably means this is a creative period ... I think that
people who keep themselves busy all the time are generally not creative, so I'm
not ashamed of being idle" (p. 352).
Incubation and the composing process
The core of the composing process is using writing to
come up with new ideas: As Elbow (1972) has stated it, in writing, meaning is
not what you start out with but what you end up with. Incubation is thus an
important part of the composing process and might be an essential component of
revision; at least some writers need to take breaks, breaks ranging from a few
moments to several weeks or months.2 I suspect, in fact, that one secret to coming
up with good ideas through writing is understanding the importance of
incubation, and realizing that the process entails patient revision, takes
time, and often requires some time off-task.
For many writers, good writing can't be rushed.
Forcing writers to sit without a break and write nonstop denies the possibility
of incubation: As Smith (1994) notes, "composition is not enhanced by grim
determination" (p. 131). In fact, in-class writing assignments and
sit-down written tests actually teach students that incubation is not part of
the composing process.
I suspect that this false belief is one of the causes
of writing apprehension and writer's blocks. Blocked and fearful writers may be
under the false impression that writing should always flow, and that hesitations
are a sign of incompetence. Writer's blocks, however, may simply be signs that
a problem has come up, and taking a break may help the subconscious solve the
problem. This happens to me probably a hundred times a day: a problem with word
choice, a discovery that I have contradicted myself, a vague malaise that the
arguments are not in the right order, etc.. At least half the time, a very
short break, even two minutes or less, is enough to solve the problem. And a
solved problem often means new learning, a deeper understanding. In this sense,
some "blocks" are good. (Note: I took five breaks in writing this
paragraph, during which time I filed some papers, took some vitamins, and
checked e mail.)
NOTE
1. Thus,
a high achiever may finish a task in one year, while an average achiever might
take two years. But the high achiever might have put in more than twice the
amount of time, working two and a half hours a day, compared to the moderate
achiever's one hour a day. Sloboda (1996) calculated the amount of practice
time music students in the UK devoted in order to reach certain levels of
performance, as measured by the national system of music examinations. Those
who became high achievers put in much more time practicing, but there was no
evidence for a "fast track" for high achievers. All groups took about
the same amount of practice time to reach a given level. High achievers reached
the levels at younger ages but they practiced a lot more. In fact, "there
is a nonsignificant trend for high achievers to practice more than low
achievers to reach a particular grade" (p. 112).
2. Smith
(1994) points out that the kind of incubation discussed here may not be
universal: "I cannot argue that the fallow period is essential, because a
few writers seems capable of doing without it. They can write - at least by
their own report - a certain number of words in a certain period of every day,
and forget about writing the rest of the time ... But many other writers have
written graphically about their need for silent periods" (p. 126).
References
Clark, R. 1971. Einstein: The Life and Times. New
York: The World Publishing Company.
Csikszentmihalyi, M and Sawyer, K.1995. Creative
insight: The social dimension of a solitary moment. In R. Steinberg and J.
Davidson (Eds.) The Nature of Insight. Cambridge: MIT Press. pp. 329-361.
Daly, J. 1985. Writing apprehension. In M. Rose (Ed.)
When a Writer Can't Write. New York: The Guilford Press. pp. 43-82.
Elbow, P. 1972. Writing without Teachers. New York:
Oxford University Press. Elbow, P. 1981. Writing with Power. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Gruber, H. 1995. Insight and affect in the history of
science. In R. Steinberg and J. Davidson (Eds.) The Nature of Insight.
Cambridge: MIT Press. pp. 397-431.
Poincare, H. 1924. Mathematical creation. Excerpts
reprinted in Creativity, P.E. Vernon(Ed.). Middlesex, England: Penguin. pp.
77-88, 1970.
Sloboda, J. 1996. The acquisition of musical
performance expertise: Deconstructing the "talent" account of
individual differences in musical expressivity. In K. Ericsson (Ed.) The Road
to Excellence: The Acquisition of Expert Performance in the Arts and Sciences,
Sports and Games. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. pp. 107-126.
Smith, F. 1994. Writing and the Writer. Hillsdale, NJ:
Erlbaum. Second edition.
Wallas, G. 1926. The Art of Thought. Excerpts
reprinted in Creativity, P.E. Vernon(Ed.). Middlesex, England: Penguin. pp.
91-97, 1970.
