Green Where You Water It

Inspiration:

Notes:

There are many reasons I love this video (her energy is out of this world LOL), but one thing stood out above everything else—the best reason I’ve heard so far for why writers should consider writing in small chunks throughout the day:

Writing in small chunks keeps your brain engaged on the story all day.

What she’s really describing is cognitive priming. It’s when exposure to one stimulus influences how your brain processes related information later— often without you realizing it. For example, if you read the word yellow, you’ll recognize the word banana faster. Your brain has been primed.

Now apply that to writing.

When you write even a small chunk of your story in the morning, you activate:

• Your characters
• Your setting
• Your conflict
• The emotional tone
• The current problem in the plot

All of that becomes cognitively “active” in your mind.

Because those networks are activated, your brain becomes more sensitive to anything related to them throughout the day. You notice dialogue patterns. You imagine better reactions. You see structural fixes. Your mind keeps making associations.

You’re not consciously thinking about it nonstop. But the system is warmed up. So when you return later:

• You re-enter the story faster.
• You retrieve ideas more easily.
• You generate new material with less friction.

In other words, your idea fluency improves — your ability to generate multiple ideas quickly and easily. When you use smaller writing sessions, you strengthen your idea fluency because your story remains mentally active and your brain keeps forming associations in the background.

That’s the priming effect.

Small writing chunks prime your creative network multiple times a day so that each time you sit down, you’re not starting from zero. You’re reactivating something that was already semi-lit.

Put another way: instead of needing a three-hour block to “get into flow,” you stay in a low-grade creative flow all day.

That’s why later writing sessions can feel faster than earlier ones.

Now, one nuance.

While priming helps with idea fluency and re-entry speed, it does not replace deep structural thinking. That’s where longer sessions come in — when you need sustained working memory to reorganize large story elements, strengthen character arcs, or smooth out transitions across chapters.

But for momentum? For staying connected? For keeping the story mentally “alive”?

Small blocks of writing time allow you to intentionally leverage cognitive priming — and that may be one of the most best creative advantages you can build into your day.