Try This: Turn Off Your Radio

Drive time is writing time

This might seem obvious, but if you’re not already doing it, you should be…

I started writing fiction late in 1988, the same year I bought a 1986 Toyota four-banger pick-up. Two-wheel drive. Beige. The radio was busted, so every commute took place in silence. Every red traffic light. Every traffic jam. Driving became some of my most productive time to daydream and practice rephrasing lines for fiction. I was trapped going from point A to point B in silence, so the task of rephrasing a single sentence countless times wasn’t daunting.

Driving to work or home or the gym, I might get one sentence perfect. I could jot it in my notebook. That’s how whole novels get written. While writing Rant I came across boatloads of information about distance driving and brainwaves, road trips related to time slips — modern accounts where traveling folks happen across long-vanished towns or inns and interact with long-dead locals — and even how seat vibrations trigger theta and delta brainwaves similar to deep sleep. All fascinating stuff.

If you need downtime to daydream, turn off the radio in your car. Words and music compete for our attention, so give your mind a chance to wander.