We read a lot about how productivity can make us more creative through optimizing our time. But perhaps the key to creativity is less about productivity and more about allowing ideas to incubate.
I’ve been a tech journalist for 25 years, and I write articles covering a wide range of topics for a number of different clients. Sometimes I’m in a rush, and have to get an article done to meet a deadline. But when I’m not, planning to take time before and after writing the first draft makes me more creative and more efficient. I let my subconscious do a lot of the work for me.
This week, I wrote an article for a client that was based on an interview with a company executive. I did some research on the topic and made a rough outline before the interview. We spoke for 45 minutes, and I transcribed the discussion and noted the most salient points. I then waited a few days to begin writing. When I started putting words down, they flowed easily. I completed my first draft quickly, then put the article aside until the next day.
During that break, my subconscious was working on the article as it had before I started writing. Instead of sitting in front of the computer rereading the article and doing microedits, I did other work.
When I went back to the article the following day, I found a number of points that I wanted to add and some to change. These weren’t apparent in my first draft, but had percolated through my mind when I wasn’t in front of the computer.
The incubation period – the planning, research, outline, interview, and delay before writing – gave me the information I needed for my first draft, and the post-draft break allowed me to more easily refine the article the following day. Incubation is thought to enhance creativity, and sleep, notably REM sleep, also aids in this process.
The Simenon method of writing novels
While the above works for writing short texts like articles or short stories, it doesn’t apply to novels. When writing fiction, this incubation process is constant. You may or may not plan your novel in detail, but you start writing with some ideas in your mind. At the end of each day, what you’ve written contributes to the incubation of the story that has developed in your mind and feeds the following day’s ideas. It is possible that every break you take makes you more creative.
Novelist George Simenon had an interesting method, which allowed him to write some 400 novels in his career (though they were fairly short; 50,000 words was the upper end of his word count). He would get an idea, write some basic points, such as details about characters or atmosphere, on a yellow envelope, think about nothing else for a week or so, then start writing.
In Maigret’s Room: The Home Life of Inspector Maigret, John Lanchester explains this method. “A Maigret novel came on Simenon like an illness: he would feel the pressure of an idea building to a point where he had no choice but to write it. At that stage he would go to his doctor for a check-up, then shut himself up in a room and write flat out until the novel was finished. This would take around seven days, plus two for revision.”
Non-fiction and incubation
With nonfiction, this process is different. Before embarking on writing a nonfiction book, you carry out a lot of research, conduct interviews, and organize material. All of this information ferments in your mind for months if not years. The process of doing research and taking notes reinforces certain ideas in your mind, and you start planning a scaffolding for the book. For some books, this process can last several years.
In episode 11 of the Write Now with Scrivener podcast, biographer Charles Shields said, “It takes me three [years] to research the biography. I don’t put pen to paper until usually about the fourth year. And then it takes me an additional year to revise the book to go through it and pull tight the loose threads, move scenes where they belong.”
During these years, everything he has discovered about his subject has incubated in his mind. 
Writing books and incubation
When writing a book, as mentioned above, the incubation process is built into the overarching writing timeline. Most writers recommend that you write every day, at least for a couple of hours. Writing one or two thousand words a day, then taking a break for the rest of the day and doing other things, means that incubation occurs naturally.
Ernest Hemingway used this technique. "Always stop while you are going good and don’t think about it or worry about it until you start to write the next day. That way your subconscious will work on it all the time. But if you think about it consciously or worry about it you will kill it and your brain will be tired before you start.”
But for some writers, the incubation period may need to be longer. Instead of feeling guilty that you’ve started a novel and put it aside, maybe look at that period as time for the story to build itself in your subconscious. When you later come back to the novel, you will have resolved character and plot issues, and you’ll be able to go much further.
Letting drafts incubate before revision
In On Writing, Stephen King suggests that, after you’ve completed your first draft, you should put it aside for a while. “How long you let your book rest – sort of like bread dough between kneadings – is entirely up to you, but I think it should be a minimum of six weeks.” He says that “Your thoughts will turn to it frequently,” but you should avoid temptation and not go back and fiddle with it for a while.
This incubation period is useful when completing a long project. Your subconscious works out many of the kinks in the manuscript so that when you go back to work on your second draft, you will have solutions to many of these issues. And, King says, “With six weeks’ worth of recuperation time, you’ll also be able to see any glaring holes in the plot or character development.”
It can be hard to allow writing the time to incubate. It’s tempting to keep plugging away, thinking that the grind will make your writing better. But incubation can be a powerful tool, and it’s worth trying it out to see how it works for you.
Kirk McElhearn is a writer, podcaster, and photographer. He is the author of Take Control of Scrivener, and host of the podcast Write Now with Scrivener. He also offers one-to-one Scrivener coaching.