Flow.

You earn the “flow” merit badge every time you become completely immersed in your writing.

Signs you may have experienced a flow state include:

• A high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention. “I just wrote thousands of words. Better yet: none of them were for my blog, in an email, on social networking sites, or typing ‘cakewrecks.com‘ into my browser.”
• A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness. “I became third-person omniscient.”
• A distorted sense of time. “Wait, you’re telling me it’s five o’clock in the morning?“
• A lack of awareness of bodily needs. “It’s getting dark out, but I’ve been so busy writing I haven’t even touched my morning oatmeal.”*
• Focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself. “You need to jackhammer outside my window for a few more hours? Not a problem. You  keep doing what you’re doing, and I’ll keep doing what I’m doing.”

*Caution: ignoring oatmeal will not automatically put you in a flow state. Sometimes it just means you’ll spend longer doing the dishes.

This is part of the merit badges for writers series, and may be posted on your site or blog. Have you earned this badge? Will you never earn it? Tell us why in the comments.