Z: Zone

Every runner and writer has experienced it, being in 'the zone.'  For the runner, everything is easy.  Your breathing is in perfect rhythm to your steps.  Your legs feel strong and your feet seem to bounce off the ground.  Your body feels like it could run forever. 

For writers, it's those times when your fingers can't keep up with the thoughts tumbling from the bottomless well of creativity in your mind.  You always come up with the perfect verb and not one adverb sneaks its way into the prose.  Scenes come alive on the computer screen with descriptions better than a picture.  This is the zone and if you're lucky it could last for days.  Even a few hours of the zone can produce thousands of words.

How does one find the zone?  For runners I believe training and pushing yourself each time you tie on your sneakers can lead to those workouts where your slip into the zone.  For writers?  I think knowing where your story is going, knowing your characters and finding enough hours to write can take you to the zone.

Have you ever found the zone while writing?  What the best production day you ever had writing?