August 7, 2012

The last few months I have been blaming writer’s block on a physical issue that was causing ongoing pain and exhaustion. Surgery fixed the issue recently—but unfortunately, the block remained.

I tried all my old tried-and-(mostly)-true methods of breaking a block. I assumed the cause stemmed from some lazy habits I picked up in 2012.

I just needed to crack down on myself, right? Whip myself into shape!

Things I Tried That Failed

I tried. Honestly, I did. I used the Promodoro Method of writing for 25 minutes and resting 5 minutes. I tried changing locations, cutting distractions by writing in the library study where I had no access to the Internet or TV.

I worked in the mornings, my optimal writing time. I got back on the treadmill, exercising to clear my foggy brain. I made elaborate spreadsheets of long- and short-term word quota goals to hold myself accountable.

None of these ideas worked. Panic threatened.

How had I ruined my writing discipline in less than a year?

Wrong Diagnosis Equals Wrong Solution

This past year as my health got worse, I tried to diagnose the cause. I ate much better, I exercised, I limited time online, I limited social outings… Nothing worked. Why? None of those things actually addressed my night-time severe headaches, which turned out to be caused by “acute angle glaucoma.” The solution was laser surgery on both eyes to eliminate the pressure. Voila! Problem solved!

What does that have to do with writer’s block? Just this.

Writer’s block creates a similar problem. It has many causes, so a one-size-fits-all solution…doesn’t fit all. (I should have known this! My article “A Block by Any Other Name” deals with this very subject.)

Writer’s Block Outside the Box

One author gives a very interesting twist to the problem. Cec Murphey in Unleash the Writer Within says writer’s block can be your friend. He poses a couple of questions:

• What if writer’s block is a symptom and not a cause of the problem?

• What if writer’s block comes from some wise, inner part of myself that wants to help me?

Writer’s block is a blockage you can’t seem to push past. Cec Murphey suggests that you ask yourself: What is going on inside me that stops me from writing? (Then wait for the answer.)

Think of writer’s block as a gift, Murphey says, a powerful force to help you regulate the creative process. It comes from within and has something to teach you.

Pay attention, wait, and listen.

The “Friendly” Writer’s Block

So how did that idea work for me? Beautifully, actually.

I tried it, and it took a couple days of waiting until I realized the problem. I had done tons of character and theme work on my novel outline, but my plot was thin. And since it is a mystery, the weak plot is a big deal.

There was no point in pushing through the block and forcing myself to write. I had a fully clothed mannequin of a novel outline, but much of the underlying skeleton (structure) was weak.

Right Diagnosis = Right Solution

Once I realized the reason for the block, I knew what to do. It took a week, but additional research provided a great plot twist and another subplot. Writer’s block was my friend, as it turned out.

It’s a new way to look at a writer’s age-old problem. And I think it’s going to be my first line of defense after this.

 

February 22, 2012

“But I don’t want to fail again.”

I’ve said it to myself often enough. Students over the years have said that to me countless times. That fear of failure often happens when  it is time to set goals or start a new project.

“It is wise to make a plan,” says creativity coach, Eric Maisel, author of Coaching the Artist Within. “However, since we make so many resolutions and break them, set so many goals and fall short of realizing them, and create so many plans without following through on them, we become reluctant to plan. We prefer not to plan so as not to disappoint ourselves one more time.”

I’m at that point this week, looking at two novels I worked on last year that I simply couldn’t make “work.” I started them over several times, trying different angles, but no luck. I still like the ideas a lot, but I find myself leery of making one more stab at them. I’m afraid of wasting my writing time and having nothing to show for it. I’m more than leery. I’m stuck.

One of Maisel’s solutions is to make a simple plan. He says to leave out the complexities that just make things harder. His idea of a simple plan is: I will try to write every day. (No rules or details, no set number of pages, no word count, etc.) Or even better, I plan to write today. But is that enough? Not for me.

A Simple Plan

A simple plan is well and good, but getting started is still the hardest part (for me anyway) when facing a project where fear of failure is high. (It doesn’t have to be writing the Great American Novel either. It can simply be a project I’ve “failed” on before.)

We want to change an action here—get started and keep going. It’s often not as simple as “just do it!” though. We have to back up and change the fearful emotion that drives the writer’s block and procrastination. And to do that we have to back up and change the thought that creates the emotion.

Sometimes changing your thoughts is enough to get you going. But repeating “thoughts” or “affirmations” that some articles suggest (like “I am the country’s best writer, and agents are fighting to represent me”) are just absurd to me. My brain, anyway, kicks something like that right back out. I simply don’t believe it. If I did, I wouldn’t be stuck.

What’s the Answer?

We need to back up one additional step. Your automatic thoughts come from your beliefs about yourself as a writer. The beliefs need to change before you will think healthy thoughts, that flow into healthy writing emotions, and then produce good actions (writing). I think beliefs need to be true, though, for them to be of immediate use to you.

If you are believing a pack of lies (like “I’ll never write any better” and “You have to know someone in publishing to sell a novel”) then start with the lies you are believing and replace them with truth. One good source for this is another of Maisel’s books, Write Mind: 299 Things Writers Should Never Say to Themselves (and What They Should Say Instead).

The Process

Facing a blank page or facing a revision can cause fear. We may not know what to do, or we may know what needs to be done, yet fear that we don’t have the skill to pull it off. When facing something fearful, the thoughts that automatically spring forth have to do with what we believe about staying safe and getting our needs met.

As I look at the novels I want to tackle again this year, the automatic thoughts that spring to mind include: “I’ve already wasted months of writing time on these novels, so why waste more?” and “I need to be doing work-for-hire projects instead and make money during my writing time” and “I don’t want to spend months on something just to fail again” and “I’ll never get this novel  done” and “This project is above my skill level, and I’ll never be that good.”

All those thoughts have to do with staying safe (I don’t want to fail again) and getting needs met (income from writing and feeling like the writing will matter.)

Writer’s Block Smashed: Replace Lies with Truth

Last week I made a long list of truths to replace my automatic thoughts (those “lies in disguise.”) Some of them are faith-based which wouldn’t maybe apply to everyone. But some of them apply to all writers. (I’ll list a few below.) Just the act of writing down these truths and re-reading them before my writing time in the morning is already changing my ability to tackle the first novel.

My fifty or so new truths include:

• I can have my novel written in a year. (vs. “I’ll never get this novel done.”)
• Writing is at the top of my To-Do list. (vs. “I’m too busy to write.”)
• I learn to write better by writing, and daily if possible. (vs. “I’ll never be good enough to write this book.”)
• Since I want to increase my output, I’m going to institute a new writing routine. (vs. “People make too many demands so I never have time to write.”)
• I can write anywhere and under any conditions. (vs. “I can’t write unless I have hours of quiet time alone.”)
• I don’t need to read another book on writing first—I need to write! (vs. “There must be a magic key out there, and I’ll keep buying writing books until I find it.”)

As I’ve said countless times here, and in both Writer’s First Aid and the new More Writer’s First Aid, we’re all in this together. Writers have always dealt with these issues. But instead of feeling the fear and inadequacy (and then buying a box of Krispie Kremes and turning on the TV), take the time to figure out what lies you are believing about your writing.

Replace them with truth—and see how that changes your emotions and subsequent action. You’ll write more. You’ll write better. You’ll enjoy your daily writing time. Publication will most likely eventually follow, but it will become less important than your daily experience of enjoying the writing.

Just for reference, here are the Eric Maisel books on my own writing shelf that I have found very helpful over the years:

• Fearless Creating
• Deep Writing
• Write Mind
• Brainstorm
• Coaching the Artist Within
• Living the Writer’s Life
• Affirmations for Artists
• Creativity for Life
• A Life in the Arts

February 15, 2012

Do you have the dreaded cognophobia? It’s a Latin term that translates literally as “fear of thinking,” or fear of facing your own thoughts. You may experience it as writer’s block.

“A writer must feel comfortable expressing herself in words, letting them flow before critiquing them or subjecting them to examination,” say Linda Metcalf and Tobin Simon in Writing the Mind Alive. “Many people who have an ambition to write are held back at the starting gate by some form of this [cognophobia] condition.”

Judgments From Within

Is silencing those premature judgments a problem for you? Do you sit frozen at the keyboard, considering and then tossing out ideas and sentences that sound “dumb” or “trite” or ”silly” or void of any literary content at all?

I do it–every time I try something new or try to write on a more difficult level or subject. Like this month.

I took a work-for-hire assignment a couple of weeks ago that is giving me fits. It’s for an age group new to me, and it’s a form of writing I’ve never tried before. After my first effort, the editor very kindly asked me to go back to the drawing board and try again. (He was right to ask.) If I don’t snatch myself bald before I’m done, it will be a miracle.

Advice from the Greats

Help came from an unexpected source today. As I mentioned last week, I’ve been reading and loving The Literary Ladies: Guide to the Writing Life by Nava Atlas. This morning I remembered some advice from the literary greats that helped me–and might help you too.

We are blessed to have so much written correspondence from writers of the past. I hate to think of all the wonderful material that would have been lost if famous authors e-mailed and texted back then. These quotes particularly struck a chord with me.

Edna Ferber blamed writer’s block on “trying to write better than you can.” Anna Quindlen agreed: “People have writer’s block not because they can’t write, but because they despair of writing eloquently.”

In It Together

Even Margaret Mitchell  who wrote Gone With the Wind had this trouble. She said, ”I had believed that established writers, writers who really knew how to write, had no dificulty at all in writing. I had thought that only luckless beginners like myself had to rewrite endlessly, tear up and throw away whole chapters, start afresh, rewrite and throw away again. I knew nothing about other writers and their working habits, and I thought I was the only writer in the world who went through such goings-on.”

But that was Margaret Mitchell on writing a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. What about the rest of us? While none of us may be hoping for a Pulitzer, we are hoping for a book contract, an agent, good reviews, and good sales of our children’s writing.

What’s the Answer?

Nava Atlas in The Literary Ladies says the blocked state is a “self-consciousness that causes you to seize up and shut down… the answer to this is to be where you are with your writing, and not try to write as the Pulitzer Prize-winning fantasy version of yourself. There’s no way to reach soaring heights without taking all the tiny steps to get there.”

And we all have some kind of fantasy writer version that we aspire to. You may not be conscious of it, but you do. Usually it’s helpful, but when that fantasy version of ourselves becomes an inner critic, you have trouble. This judge can kill your words before they ever reach the light of day.

How can we keep this from happening? Anais Nin said this about her own writing: ”The only reason I finally was able to say exactly what I felt was because, like a pianist practicing, I wrote every day. There was no more than that.” She didn’t study writing or go to conferences or take classes. She simply sat down and wrote about her experiences at the end of every day, without fail. She is most famous for her published diaries too.

Our Own Worst Enemies

Perhaps we make things too difficult for ourselves. Maybe our self-induced cognophobia that could be eliminated if we lowered our expectations.

I know that Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life advocates writing sh*^#@ rough drafts instead of holding yourself up to such high inner standards. As one literary lady suggested, we need to stop despairing of writing eloquently–and just write instead. Get the words down, no matter how bad they may sound. The Pulitzer-type writing (no matter who you are) comes in the rewriting.

With that in mind, I return to the work-for-hire project. Like the Literary Ladies of old, I will be content today with just getting some words down.

How about you? Is there a piece of writing that is stopping you cold because you don’t yet write as well as you want to? Would you benefit from the advice of these Literary Ladies?

November 18, 2011

Writer’s block is “the pitiable instance of long incubation producing no chick.” ~~George Eliot

Before NaNoWriMo started, I took lots of time to think about my novel idea, do character sketches and backgrounds and goals and motives, read about scene structure and plotting, research the setting and background, and write a loose plot line. I was ready!

It was fun for nearly two weeks.

Writer’s Block Re-visited

About Day 12 of National Novel Writing Month, I hit a snag. Something didn’t feel right. I pushed ahead, determined to over-ride resistance and do my allotted daily words. It worked. Each following day, though, it felt worse. I didn’t know what was wrong, but I used every anti-procrastination trick I knew, including Procrastination Tip: Jump In! Although I was able to put down the daily quota of words, I knew I hadn’t fixed what was wrong.

By Day 15 I couldn’t write. Nothing. Calling myself names, eating chocolate, going for walks, moaning to a writer friend–nothing budged the block. I couldn’t get past the insistent feeling that something was wrong.

Finding Help

On my book shelf was a book I’d never read, and so I picked up On Writer’s Block: A New Approach to Creativity by Victoria Nelson. I didn’t feel a lot of hope until I read this in the first few pages: “Writers, when they are not writing, tend to think of themselves in a number of ways, all bad. They are–so they think–lazy, undisciplined shirkers, failures, cowardly frauds…However, properly interpreted, a block is the best thing that can happen to a writer. Resistance is a vital regulator of the creative process because it obliges us to suspend our plans and reconsider.”

Hmmm…maybe instead of pushing myself to keep writing, I should stop calling myself names and “suspend my plan and reconsider.” So that’s what I did. I stopped trying to make my daily quota of new words, backed up so I could see a longer view, and studied the book idea again. I didn’t see the problem right away. In fact, it didn’t dawn on me until I was washing dishes that night.

Mid-way through the book I had changed themes.

How’d That Happen?

This book idea had been on my back burner for a couple of years, and when I first thought of it, my theme was one thing. Last year when I re-worked the book idea, I saw a much better theme that would tie together the plot and two sub-plots. Because I had salvaged some of the first outline, I started out that way, but midway through the novel, my new theme showed up, causing a 90-degree turn in the plot which took the story off in another direction. If I kept going with my outline, I could now see that the story would never hang together. I had started out making one point, but the new ending was going to show something else entirely.

That was the “something wrong” I had sensed. That was the reason I was blocked in NaNo Land. And pushing through the roadblock my writer’s mind had thrown up wasn’t the answer. I needed to stop writing, go back to my outline, and think some more. I needed to “suspend my plans and reconsider.” That’s what I’ve been doing the last few days. I think I see how the problem can be fixed, but I really need to stop, go back, and fix some early chapters to see if it will all hang together by the end.

What To Do?

I hate to do that, because barring some miracle that cancels Thanksgiving and gives November 40 days this year, I won’t make it successfully to the “winner’s circle” in NaNo Land. But that’s okay. Last year I pushed through and kept going and made it to the finish line, but I still have a manuscript that I haven’t been able to revise. I don’t want another story like that.

Next week I will get going again, but if I don’t make it to the 50,000 word mark November 30, I will let myself off the hook. When I’m done, I would much rather have a book I like and can revise–even if my National Novel Writing Month finishes at Christmas!

October 17, 2011

Is your writing project bogged down? What happened to your inspiration? Things aren’t “going well”? It may sound too dramatic to call it “writer’s block,” but it is.

Reconsider

When I’m stuck, I tend to think that I’ve tried everything, but nothing has worked. That is always a wrong assumption. There’s always an angle I haven’t yet considered. There is always other (or new) information that I haven’t factored into the equation. A writer’s block is often a mental rut.

What to do then? If the writing task you’re working on right now is going badly or at a standstill, just stop.

Writer’s Block Revisited

Get up and walk away. Do some jumping jacks. Take some deep breaths and stretch. Move to another place in the house to write. Do what is necessary to wake up your brain. And then…think about your writing project again.

BUT instead of starting where you left off, pick up the work in a completely different spot. If you’re stuck in the middle, skip to the end (or vice versa). If you’re bogged down in the middle, go back to your original notes and character sketches and the opening to get re-inspired. Do some background research for your characters. Interview your characters and ask them what they think the problem is! (This actually worked for me to get unstuck.)

Think Again

Your brain may feel frazzled and dried up, but in reality, you’re using many fewer brain cells at any given time than you have available to you. So dig a bit deeper and engage a few more brain cells. Look at your writing problem from another angle. Come at it from another direction.

Our brains are fascinating things. They will often serve up to us exactly what we expect. If we expect to stay blocked, we will–and quit for the day. If we understand that we just need to look at the problem another way–upside down, reversed order–there’s an answer.

When writer’s block attacks you, don’t grit your teeth and keep pushing ahead like a bull dozer. Stop. Back up. Walk around the problem a few times. Find another port of entry: move to another place on your time line, describe a different character, add more depth to descriptions of places or characters, or brainstorm on paper about the worst thing that could happen in a scene.

Use more brain cells. Think again.

Other Resources

If you need more ideas for dealing with writer’s block, try these places:

“Top Ten Tips for Overcoming Writer’s Block”

“The 10 Types of Writer’s Block and How to Overcome Them” (very good)

“A Block by Any Other Name”

And never fear that you’re alone with this writerly disease. There is even a Writer’s Block Festival, which was held this past weekend!

May 20, 2011

After a couple months this spring of unexpected work and lack of sleep, I’ve found myself battling severe procrastination the past few weeks. I’m getting rested up, but I’m so out of the writing habit that getting started has become a big issue.

Luckily I can usually find a resource on my own shelves!

(FYI: After you finish this post, you may want to read my article on writer’s block called “A Block by Any Other Name…”  at the Absolute Write website .)

A Different Take on Procrastination

One such resource is a book Kurt Vonnegut called “as well researched and helpful a book on writing as I’ve ever read.” It’s Write: 10 Days to Overcome Writer’s Block. Period. by Karen E. Peterson, Ph.D. [See Amazon's great used prices for this book!]

From the author’s website: “Writers want to write, but often find themselves whirling through cyberspace, glued to HBO with a box of doughnuts, careening off to the nearest Starbuck’s, and/or carving out last week’s fossilized spaghetti from the kitchen table.”

Sound familiar? This is what Dr. Karen E. Peterson— who has overcome writer’s block herself—calls ‘the write-or-flight response.’

Write? Or Flight?

In this revolutionary book, a psychologist and novelist presents an effective way to outwit writer’s block. Based on “new brain research and sound psychological principles,” this innovative program shows writers how to conquer writer’s block using:

• Exercises to conquer the “write-or-flight” response
• Techniques to create that elusive “writing mood”
• Parallel monologue and interior dialogue to jumpstart the writing process
• Checklists to see which side of the brain is blocking you

I fully recommend that little book because it worked for me. (I realize that it doesn’t mean it will work for you, but I think it’s worth a try if procrastination is an issue for you.) It explained the actual physical reasons why certain types of blocks occur–and what to do about them.

(Now, off to read “A Block by Any Other Name…” )

Before you go though, do YOU have a favorite block buster you could share?

February 18, 2011

(Due to the flu hanging on, this is another repeat from several years ago. It’s long–but I think you’ll find it helpful. I had forgotten that there could be so many causes for writer’s block–and so many different cures!)

*************

A Rose Is a Rose Is a Rose . . .
If you’ve been writing any length of time at all, you’ve experienced writer’s block. You may have read articles about it, following different authors’ recommendations to blast through your block. Did the solution you tried do the trick? If not, the reason could be that you applied the wrong answer to your problem.

Aspirin or Band-Aid?
If you go to a physician, he doesn’t doctor you with a one-medicine-fits-all or one-treatment-fits-all solution. Instead, there are specific treatments for specific ailments: the broken arm gets a cast, the cut gets stitched, the infection gets an antibiotic. Only when you identify the specific ailment can the right treatment be given, or a cure found. The same is true for writer’s block.

A Multitude of Sources
Reading an article on writer’s block might help you if you happen to stumble across a suggestion that truly corresponds to your problem. But 27 years of writing and 22 years of teaching the craft of writing have led me to believe that there is no single type of writer’s block.

If you can’t identify the origin of your block, treating it is impossible. Have you stopped writing because you can’t face any more rejection slips, or your spouse (or a parent) is/was overly critical, or you’re disillusioned with having to shape your writing for the market? Are you blocked because you eat or drink too much, sleep too late, or are just plain exhausted from trying to combine writing with earning a living for your family?

Possible Causes of Writer’s Block
1. Critical childhood voices: those voices from the past that tell you you’re not good enough, you’re not creative, you’re untalented, or lazy. They might have originated with parents, grandparents, caretakers, teachers, or siblings. While you may no longer hear actual voices in your head, you’ve incorporated their views of you somewhere along the way, and they crop up at the worst times for your writing. The resulting feelings of anger and self-doubt produce confusion, sap your motivation, and make you wonder if you should just throw in the towel.

2. Personality style: passive or aggressive, outgoing or shy, rigid or flexible, courageous or fearful. An outgoing person may be great a book signings and marketing his work, yet block when it’s time to sit down–alone–and write for three hours. The flexible person may have numerous ideas that flow effortlessly and may be able to juggle a number of different projects, yet he may block when it’s time to choose just one idea and get to work. The insecure person may write fluently and happily alone, yet block when nearing the end of her story because she’s too afraid of rejection to submit a finished product.

3. Self-criticism: harsh and self-punishing judgments on our work and marketing efforts. Even when our self-criticism is well founded and accurate, it can defeat and block us before we get started. Self-esteem plummets, courage fails, and we shut off the computer and head for the refrigerator. We’re afraid we’re deluding ourselves both about the viability of the project we’re working on and about our ability to pull it off. This can certainly stop our writing in its tracks.

4. Marketplace blues: delays and rejections. After a few months or years of nothing but rejection slips, it can become harder and harder to keep pouring your heart into your work. Sometimes, after numerous near misses and “almost” sales, writers can come to mistrust editors, agents, even the writers in their critique group, wondering if they have hidden agendas. After being rejected enough, the writer may feel unable to face another editorial comment, bad review, or misplaced manuscript, not to mention payment that never arrives and stories that never get scheduled for publication. It’s not surprising if he’s blocked.

5. Regular life: finding time and energy to write while attending to the ongoing demands of life. All the pressures we human beings face–family and financial needs, inner compulsions, leaky faucets, illnesses, difficult bosses–make us feel sometimes that we can’t have both a writing life and a regular life, one that includes time for play as well as work. When we’re busy writing, we feel guilty about neglecting friends and other interests; yet when we’re playing or socializing, we can feel guilty for not writing. This inner push/pull can eventually cause us to block.

6. Fatigue: physically worn out. Each step in the creative process requires energy. If you’re working a day job to put food on the table, coaching soccer on the weekend, and hosting a dinner party for a friend’s anniversary, there may simply be no energy left. You may still want to write, truly want to, but be blocked because for the moment your tank is running on empty.

7. Environmental blocks: too much noise and chaos in your surroundings. Writers who can’t write at home–who swear they’re totally blocked–have been able to write easily and prolifically when transported to a cabin in the mountains or an isolated seaside retreat. Why? They were removed from the noise of city streets, roommates’ stereos, toddlers crying, other people’s phones, or whatever was keeping them too distracted and on edge to write. Freed from the noise and chaos, surrounded by peace and quiet, these blocked writers often find they’re not blocked at all.

8. Information-specific blocks: when you can’t answer or solve a particular question in your writing. Perhaps it’s your first mystery novel, a private eye whodunit. You realize you don’t know how it should differ from a police procedural, nor are you sure of the legal limits on a private eye’s operations. Or perhaps the 12-year-old hero of your children’s book aspires to be an Eagle Scout someday and you don’t know just what activities that will entail. You’re blocked because you lack specific knowledge. These types of blocks can be taken care of easily, as soon as you identify what it is you need to know.

9. Skill deficiency block: when you don’t have the practical skill needed to proceed with your work. Perhaps you’re blocked in finishing your biography of the first African-American astronaut because you don’t know how to acquire permission for the photos you’d like to use. Or maybe you’ve planned to take your own photos for an article about a local nature reserve; you have the writing all done, yet you’re blocked from finishing because you realize you don’t really know enough about cameras and lighting and film speeds. These are practical skills you need to acquire before you can unblock.

10. Anxiety and/or depression blocks: nerves, doubts, worries, fears, and panic. This may be the first sign of any kind of block, and the foremost symptom to deal with. Sometimes our worries are realistic. Can we afford to spend time writing stories that might never sell? On the other hand, if we sell a book, will our insecure partner sulk or even walk away? If we write that “coming-of-age” novel, will our parents or siblings recognize themselves in our work and be upset or angry? Anxiety can produce a restless energy that keeps us from being able to sit still long enough to write. On the other hand, depression can leave us too lethargic to get up off the couch and make it to the desk.

A Tailor-Made Solution
Different blocks require different solutions. A few days of peace at a seaside cottage wouldn’t help the blocked writer who didn’t know how private eyes operate–but it could work wonders for the parent of twins. Taking an assertiveness training/confidence building course won’t help the weary postal worker moonlighting to write a historical novel–but it could work miracles for the shy, retiring writer with a drawer full of manuscripts he’s afraid to s
ubmit.

So take the time to get to know yourself. If you’re blocked, find out why. Then outline and implement a step-by-step plan for blasting through your block. Read excellent books on the subject, like If You Can Talk, You Can Write by Joel Saltzman, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamont, Deep Writing by Eric Maisel, and The Courage to Write by Ralph Keyes. Help is available if you want to break through your personal blocks and create the writing life of your dreams.

(excerpt from Writer’s First Aid by Kristi Holl, 2003)

January 31, 2011

Yesterday on a long Skype call, I talked with a writer friend about what fuels our writing.

For me, my favorite books (both in terms of the writing and how well they did after publication) were often fueled by some kind of pain or wound. Something difficult that I was going through (or one of my children) would spark an idea for a book, and the drive to solve the problem provided the passion and energy to see the story through to completion.

Negatives to Positives

Energy from hurts and wounds and pain can be very useful to you as a writer. But, if you’re just wounded, does that automatically translate into books others will want to read? No.

As Bill O’Hanlon says in Write is a Verb, “in order to have your wound fuel your writing process, the hurt or negative energy needs to be turned into creative energy, informing or driving your writing. It’s not enough to be wounded; you must find a way to turn that wound into energy for your writing.”

Pain = Energy for Writing

He quoted many authors (some quite famous) who had tragedies befall them, but they took the pain and turned around to write some of the most gripping books of our time on the very subject that nearly destroyed them.

It doesn’t have to be a wound the size of the Grand Canyon either (a child being kidnapped, losing your home in a hurricane, both parents dying from cancer the same month). It isn’t the size of the wound–it’s what you do with it that counts.

Just Let It All Hang Out?

In order for your pain to be useful to you as a writer, you’ll need to step back a bit and distance yourself from it. Otherwise you won’t be able to see the story possibilities in it. You’ll be too hung up on the facts. (“But it really HAPPENED this way!” you protest.) Yes, but facts need to be shaped a lot if you’re going to create a story or article or book from those facts. (The truth of your experience can shine through, despite changing some facts.)

Facts will need to change in order to create well-rounded characters, and the plot still needs a beginning, middle, climax and ending. Things will be added–and subtracted–from your experience to make a better story. If you can’t do that, you’re probably still too wounded to turn the experience into a viable story.

“Make no mistake. I have seen writing full of anger, self-pity, or hate that I think will never (and should never) be published,” says O’Hanlon. “They are simply expressions of the author’s pain, more like a journal entry than a book. They are self-indulgent and should be kept private… In order to turn that pain and anger into a book, the writing needs to somehow turn the personal into the universal.” In other words, the book needs to speak to other readers in a way that helps or nourishes them.

Identify Your Writing Energy

How can you tell if your pain and wounds might be energy for your writing? Here are four questions to ask yourself, suggested by the author. They can pinpoint sources of writing energy in your life just waiting to be tapped into.

• What do you care about so deeply or get so excited about that you talk about it to anyone who will listen?
• What upsets you so much that you are compelled to write about it or include the theme in your book?
• What are you afraid to write but know is a deep truth?
• Who are you afraid will disapprove of your writing or be upset by it?
• What fears could you write and perhaps work through by writing?

Take some time this weekend with those questions and a journal. Or write them on a card and take a long walk while you think about the answers. You may not be as blocked or depressed as you fear. You may simply be sitting over a deep pool of writing energy that’s just waiting for you.

January 12, 2011

Did you know that, contrary to popular belief, workaholics (and the sub-group writer-holics) don’t work all the time?

In fact the term can describe “any person who is driven to do too much, whether that person works sixty hours a week or runs around like a chicken with its head cut off…Some work addicts appear motionless, but their minds are racing.” (Diane Fassel in Working Ourselves to Death.)

Three Faces of Writer-holics

While my goal and life-long desire as a writer has been to be consistent with my writing output, it is seldom that way. Sometimes I work long hours with a huge output (like NaNoWriMo month), sometimes it’s in spurts, and sometimes approaching deadlines make me freeze (afraid that I can’t do what I promised in the contract.)

I knew my writing output was sporadic, but I thought each style was a problem by itself. I am beginning to see that they’re all just different faces of perfectionism.

Obsessive Writers

 

This writer works long hours, taking on project after project. She feels compelled to do what she needs to do to keep going. I used to blame it on the financial needs of raising children alone–and that certainly contributed to the pressure–but after the need passed, the behavior remained. According to Webb, “it is a matter of identity for her. If she stopped to rest, it would prove she is inferior, lazy or both–and that would be unthinkable.” BINGO.

Binge Writers

This writer works in spurts, but with great intensity and energy and focus. These intense bursts of work are sometimes (for the writer-holic) ways to avoid dealing with other issues (children’s problems, marital woes, a looming health concern). “Work, projects, tasks and accomplishments become the medication of choice so that she doesn’t have to feel her emotions, deal with her disappointments or ask deep questions,” says Webb. I’m guilty of this one too–maybe not as much as in the past, but it’s definitely a factor.

Anorexic Writers

Deadlines can often turn me into this type of writer. The perfectionist in me isn’t satisfied with writing “sh****” rough drafts, as Anne Lamott calls them in Bird by Bird. After having had 35 books published, you’d think this would no longer be an issue! But it is. Webb contends that the work anorexic is “afraid she’ll do it wrong, so she procrastinates, and the resulting guilt immobilizes her.”

What Type Are You?

Do you identify with any of the above perfectionistic descriptions of writers? (If so, these tendencies probably show up in how you  approach other things in your life, like your fitness efforts and your relationships.) I hope you’ll leave a comment and share your own experiences in this area.

December 17, 2010

Busyness is very deceptive. We may feel productive–but often we’re just busy. Despite the fact that my children are grown and out of the house, I lament to myself that I never have time to just think anymore.

These days, with the emphasis on marketing, a writer’s day can be full of busy work that won’t improve your actual writing one bit. Why does that matter? Time to think (to ponder, to ruminate) is absolutely critical to your writing life–especially if you write fiction. What can be done about this?

What’s the Problem?

I have been puzzling over this for about ten years, and I had an ah-ha! moment yesterday as to the real cause–and some remedies.

I was at my daughter’s home. They had returned from a trip to Alaska with their seven-week-old daughter (to see relatives), and my daughter had been up roughly 36 hours. I spent the night so she and her husband could sleep without interruption.

My granddaughter slept for four hours, but then was up for quite a while in the night before going back down. We walked, we talked, we sang, we read books–but mostly I thought. The next day I held her while she was sleeping for a couple hours–what joy!–and was thinking. Sometimes I took her outside to the swing (we’re in Texas), or we just sat by the Christmas tree and looked at lights. Lots of time to think…

I wasn’t thinking about my novel on purpose at all. It just came to mind fairly often. And I noticed that by the time I returned home, my mind had worked out three knotty plot and character problems I was having.

I Remember This!

This was my ah-ha! moment. I remembered this happening a long time ago. I had started writing when I had three children: a baby (ten days old), a toddler (two), and a preschooler. I had lots of non-writing “think time” back then: while folding diapers, nursing, pushing kids on swings, weeding a huge vegetable garden, quilting, and walking a colicy baby (or a dog or the horse).

It’s no wonder that when I had fifteen minutes to write that I could whip out a page or two. I had it thoroughly “digested” before I ever sat down.

How Things Changed!

Despite being alone during the day now, my life is busy (mentally) all day and most evenings. I no longer garden, quilt, fold diapers, walk a dog, or have hours of non-thinking child care duties every day. That formerly empty head space is filled with study, blogging, teaching, critiquing, reading newsletters, tons of email, taking classes, and a dozen other daily jobs.

I love most of it too. BUT there is precious little down time, or “think time,” in my life anymore. It’s now no longer a mystery to me why, when I sit down to work on my novel, I spend so much time stuck and staring at the screen with a blank mind.

A Paradigm Shift

Thinking is NOT wasting time! We need to get over thinking we’re doing anyone a favor by being so busy all the time–even with good things. If you, as a writer, don’t have enough thinking time in your lifestyle, build some in. I intend to!

I’m going to walk without head phones. I’m going to dig up a flower bed. (Yes, flowers grow in Texas in the winter.) I’m not getting a dog, but I sure intend to put the grandbaby in a stoller more often and hit the road! And I refuse to feel guilty about any of it. I refuse to be too busy to think anymore.

That’s my first New Year’s resolution! Take a moment and share one of yours!

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