Posted tagged ‘writer’s block’

« ManicDDaily home page
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Blocking Writer’s Block – Find Your Asana (Like Pearl)

October 5, 2010

Pearl Precarious.

I’m back to blocking writer’s block today, inspired by two main muses–yoga (my practice) and Pearl (my dog).

The Sanskrit term for a yoga posture is “asana,” meaning seat.  As many yoga teachers will tell you, to get into a posture–even a standing pose–you need to find your seat.  This does not mean to find the spot where you are at ease, but a spot where, over time, you may find ease–that is,  a posture that you steadily maintain for that time.

Pearl, my fifteen-year old dog, is a master of finding such ease even in the most precarious of positions–the edge of a bed, the center of a stack of clothes folded into a suitcase, the bag that we jam her into when we are trying to sneak her into some dog-free zone.

Despite her adaptability, however, Pearl can be quite particular about her chosen “seat.”  If left to her own devices, she will almost always seek out the softest spot–the one place on the bed where she can get down to some high thread-count sheets, the piece of paper or pillow that has  inadvertently dropped onto the floor.

Pearl Left To Her Own Devices

Neither Pearl nor many great yogis suffer much from writer’s block.  Their presence alone tends to be their message, their written words immaterial.   Nonetheless, they offer valuable lessons to the struggling writer: learn to make yourself comfortable wherever and whenever you are.  Your seat is your page.  Settle into it without too much regard to external circumstances–in a subway car, for example, or train;  while waiting in line or for a doctor’s appointment;  whenever you have a moment–even when you are not sure whether you have an idea.

In the midst of your openesss to circumstance, however, be choosey!  Like Pearl, exercise a certain discrimination as to where you and your page physically plant yourself within the parameter of anywhere.  On the subway, for example, if one seat feels better than another–for me, it’s the ones at the ends of the cars–sit in that seat.  If one side of a cafe isn’t working, change to the other.

Up to a point, that is!  The yogi takes his asana slowly, careful of alignment and placement, and then, when all that’s as good as it will get,  the yogi makes, through his breath, space.   (BTW, by his, I mean, her.)

Use your writing as a kind of breath to open up your physical and mental space, as a breath to make your page a place where you can survive.

(If you feel like someone is looking over your shoulder, congratulate yourself on finding a reader.)

In Her Preferred Position

Categories: writer's block
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 2 Comments

Writer’s Fatigue – Watch Out For The Burn.

September 8, 2010

Washcloth washcloth burning bright!

I’ve written a lot about blocking writer’s block; usually I’ve talked about blocks caused by insecurity or fear of failure, indecision, just plain stuckness.   I’ve advocated various exercises to limber up pen-holding or keyboard-typing fingers.

What about writer’s block caused simply by fatigue?

Sinking eyelids, molasses mind, slurring fingers.

I inadvertently set a washcloth on fire a few minutes ago.  In two places.  That kind of fatigue.

It’s not all that easy to set a washcloth on fire.  It wasn’t even on fire until I took the symmetrically charred fabric out into the night air and lay it down on some stiff, humid Florida grass–really called  Bermuda grass–grass that my crabbed mind thought would dampen all embers.

But something about that combination of night air/grass/stretching and glowing washcloth out set off actual flames.

That kind of fatigue.

That kind of block.

Avoid, during such moments, writing while operating heavy machinery.

Categories: Stress, writer's block
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Blocking Writer’s Block – Love Your Elephant

July 11, 2010

Love Your Elephant!

Readers of this blog may not realize it but I love Virginia Woolf, Walt Whitman, Dostoyevsky, the plays and poetry of Shakespeare (who doesn’t?), Rilke, Wallace Stevens, John Donne, Sharon Olds.

But what comes out half the time when I sit down to write this blog is…Robert Pattinson….

And when I write my non-blog work (aside from legal memos and poems), I often end up with children’s novels about talking dogs, teen novels about oversized noses, young adult fantasies about Royal beauty and magical gifts.  (Yes, I’ve written grown-up types of things too, but the number of pages devoted to the talking dogs and magical gifts is undoubtedly higher.)

I love Goya, Velasquez.  Matisse and Giotto.  Fra Angelico, Francesco Clemente, Kandinsky, Anselm Kiefer, Alfred Jensen;  I have a great deal of respect for Tintoretto. (The Scuolo di San Rocco is not exactly my style but absolutely amazing.)

But what (more than half the time) comes out when I put my own pencil to the page?  Elephants.

The curves of trunk, humped back, toe nails, seem to just form.  I long ago stopped fighting against it.

I’m not saying that it’s not good to rail against one’s natural tendencies;  to stretch one’s self.  But it also can be both skillful and liberating to just accept where your energies take you; especially if you are suffering, or have a tendency to suffer, from writer’s or artist’s blocks.

I would be the first to admit that it can be very embarrassing to hieroglyph in pachyderm.  If you have any pretense of sophistication, you may hate that all your cuneiforms are cutieforms.

You may feel disdainful of your talking dog.  (His name is Seemore by the way; as in see—more, since he’s so very observant.  He has taught himself to read and is an amazing speller.)

You may give up re-writing your novel about the beautiful princesses with magical gifts, not because it’s derivative (it really isn’t), but because it’s feels just sort of… silly.

Don’t.  At least don’t give up on these things because of embarrassment.

If your voice or vision tends towards another direction—science fiction, prose poetry–camels!—check it out!    (I don’t mean here to try a lot of different things—I mean if you happen not to be interested in children’s book or elephants, but in something equally unhip—check it out!)

What you are ultimately looking for is authenticity, a channel for energy, a bunson burner to create energy (which really is difficult to sustain if you are not genuinely caught by your material. )  Don’t be put off if what is authentic to you takes an odd, or unexpected, form.  The fact is that your own voice is by its nature somewhat unique (and, if you are anything like me, it may also be kind of odd.)

For more on writer’s block, check out the category from the ManicDDaily home page, and for more on elephants, check out 1 Mississippi by Karin Gustafson on Amazon.

Categories: writer's block
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 2 Comments

More on Blocking Writer’s Block – Maintaining Bad Habits (Advice from the Dalai Lama?)

May 25, 2010

Rotating Storm

At the Dalai Lama’s lectures in New York City over the last weekend, he advised (naturally) meditation as a means to slowly effect change in one’s life.  “One lecture not enough,” he chuckled.

He encouraged the audience to start a practice even if their beginning steps felt very small.  He advised just “five minutes” every morning, particularly if the five minutes were “quality time;” that is, five minutes spent with some attempt at genuine focus.  A small period of quality time seemed better to him than a longer, more wandering attempt, simply because it helped one avoid bad habits.  In His Holiness’s view, a bad habit was harder to break than a new habit to instill.

All of that sounds right.   And I hesitate to argue with His Holiness the Dalai Lama.  Particularly about matters related to meditation.

So I won’t.  Still, I was thinking this morning as I did my slightly desultory, bad-habit-infected, yet daily, yoga practice that I’m not in complete agreement with these principles, at least not when they are applied in areas other than meditation, such as a practice of daily writing.

Here’s my problem:  of course, quality time writing is better than going-through-the-motions time.  But what if you are faced with a choice between going-through-the-motions-time vs. zero time?  Is a bad habit really worse than no habit? (That is, not writing at all?)

I am concerned that many people when starting any kind of discipline make a good and earnest beginning–then, things bog down, especially as the glow of initial results fades, and the hard slog begins in earnest.

I don’t know what His Holiness would advise for a bogged-down meditator—I’m guessing that it would be a combination of continued effort, and a little less fretting.

I would co-opt that same (surmised) advice for a writing practice.  At times, it is likely that some bad, escapist, habits may creep in;  they may in fact be all that keeps you going–the background distraction of a book on tape; the muddled support of three cups of tea and a glass of wine;  writing on the elliptical machine;  relaxing with vampire novels so as to avoid the schaden freude of more challenging works.   Perhaps it does make sense to scale down during such a period–when you are having a hard time finishing anything, you may be better off working on a short story (or  blog) than the great American novel.   Still, it’s important to keep putting in your five minutes, even a fitful five.

The most important caveat here is not to get smug about your fitful efforts.  Stay honest.  Sometimes you may not feel capable of more than a thread of creativity; but don’t assume either (i) that it’s all you will ever be capable of; or (ii) that it’s enough.

One other suggestion (taken from a yoga teacher, David Life, who was trying to help me with backbends)–if you need to cheat a little to do your work (or pose, in the case of yoga), try alternating your form of cheating.   Rotate your bad habits to avoid letting any single one become the norm.  In the case of backbending, that meant sometimes turning out my feet too much, other times, bending knees.  In the case of a writing practice, that may mean sometimes just writing a very boring journal entry; other times, a very boring prose poem!

Categories: Uncategorized, writer's block
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Blocking Writer’s Block: Don’t Worry About the Where

May 11, 2010

Writing IN Your Notebook

I am returning to my series of posts on blocking writer’s block this morning at one of my favorite secret places for writing—the New York County Supreme Court building at  111 Centre Street.

Yes, the downstairs lobby is a bit tacky.  From the outside, the place looks dark, shut down; you feel almost certain from the sidewalk, that the main exterior doors will not open when you push.  (In fact, they do not open–much.   They squeak, scrape, and stick; with a lot of force, you can just wedge yourself through.)

But when you do get inside the building, past the metal detectors, beyond the dingy elevators, up to a highish floor, a sea change occurs—the main corridors here are lovely, with granite floors, marble (or faux marble) walls, and tall windows edging the South, West and East exposures, looking out over lower Manhattan.

I’m not saying that these corridors are particularly posh—there’s a definite utilitarian cast to the white plaster-board of the dropped ceilings.  Even the granite and marble look as if the colors were chosen not to show dirt.  (These are public buildings, after all.)

But the wooden benches that line the windowed walls are smooth and comfortable,  sunny and light, and, if you are not on a floor of bored and disgruntled jurors, the corridor carries such a serene hush that when, in the midst of muted steps, you hear a murmur about “what street informants want,” you are definitely taken aback.

I have to say upfront that I’ve never gone to New York Supreme just to write—I’ve always had some official purpose, and had to sit there waiting to fulfill it.   But it is nonetheless a very good place for writing.  (If you haven’t been sub poenaed, virtually no one bothers you.) Important caveat:  I think that coming in here just for a quiet place to work might actually constitute some kind of crime; it’s probably best not engage in it in a place filled with cops.  (They tend to be big cops, their hips bulging with handguns and, well, hip.)

So now, I’m on the subway writing.  It’s also not bad.  Yes, an unseasonably cold day makes the seasonal air conditioning drafty; the mechanized voices jabber nonstop, and there is the constant loud whir, bing, squeal of the engine, wheels, track.  Still, I have a seat.   (It’s not a rush hour train.)

More importantly,  I’m not just writing on the train right now—I’m mainly writing in my notebook. Which is about as quiet and uncluttered and spacious as lined white paper can be.

The point of all this:  don’t worry about where you are doing your work.  Don’t put it off because you don’t have the right space (a writer’s room, cabin, desk, even computer).  Don’t put it off even to wait for  the right moment.   I know it sounds clichéd, but the fact is that the only place you ever have to write is the place you are right now;  the only moment you ever have is this one.

To some degree, the same reasoning can be applied to drawing and painting. Again, of course, it’s wonderful to have a lovely studio, easel, table, but your drawing is not made only in your studio.  The place it truly inhabits is the page (or napkin or envelope.)

Of course, some places are genuinely more inconvenient or conducive than others;  if you have access to a convenient, conducive place, take it!  But the factor that most quickly makes a space workable is simply working in it.  Engagement is a great architect/decorator.

I don’t write this to be annoying, or to tout my own powers of concentration.  (They are not very good–when I write in a public space, I sometimes just follow my mind’s meanderings.)  I write to help counteract the many forces that lull one into procrastination.

If you want to work, then get to work!  Wherever!

(P.S. For more on blocking writer’s block, check out the writer’s block category on the ManicDDaily home page.)

(P.P.S. Computer problems delayed the posting of this post beyond my daily deadline, drat!  Sorry!)

Categories: Uncategorized, writer's block, writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 2 Comments

Blocking Writer’s Block – Post-Partum Embarrassment

March 25, 2010

 

Circle of hell for one's own work

 

Embarrassment is not so much of a problem when one is writing as when one has written. Shortly after the piece is more or less “done”, the excitement, the satisfaction, the engagement, of doing the work peters out.

Okay, sure, there’s a moment of “whew”.  Maybe even “wow.”  And then, like carefully-cut fruit turning brown around the edges, the whole thing seems  tawdry, sour, over-ripe.

This feeling often sets in around the time you start showing your work to others. When you glance at the piece through their imagined eyes, you wonder how you were ever satisfied.  You feel exposed, ridiculous.

It’s worse than seeing one’s self in a bad photo, in a brightly-lit mirror, at one’s worst angle.  When looking at a depiction of one’s physical self, feelings of inadequacy are often tempered by surprise, even disbelief—( Is that really what I look like?)  Even as one cringes, one’s image is so different from the self one imagines it hardly feels possible.  Besides that surprise, we are most of us well trained enough in the idea of people not being able to help their looks to have some grudging acceptance of our physical aspect.  (Other than of our fat, I suppose.)

A special circle of hell is saved for the sound of one’s own voice, either heard or read.

This hell, this embarrassment, can make it almost impossible for a writer to get his or her work out in the world.

Despite the daily appearance of blog, I really do have some problems with this.  Nonetheless (with typical “do as I say, not as I do” bravura), I’ll posit some suggestions:

1.  Collaborate.   Share the work process before your work is finished so that it’s less of a struggle to share it afterwards.  There are many different levels of collaboration, which may or may not include co-authorship.   The simplest may just be doing writing exercises with someone—writing at the same time as they are, then reading your writing aloud to each other.    (This is like taking your clothes off absolutely simultaneously with someone else.  Easier if you both pull down the pants at one time. )

The frigid sea (of exposure) also feels better if you hold hands with someone and run into the surf together.  Meaning, if you want to try to read in public fora—poetry readings or slams—go with a writing buddy first;  make yourselves both sign the sign-up sheet.  No turning back.  Clap loudly for your friend.

2.  Shut your eyes.  Get your piece as good as you can, send it into the world,  and then, if you can’t bear to face it again, don’t.  Don’t re-read it endlessly once you start circulating it (at least not for a while.)   If it’s published, and you can’t bear others to know, just don’t tell them.

3.  Understand that you are not your work.  It is, at most, a glimpse of your brain’s inner workings for one relatively short period of time;  a simulacrum of a synaptical dance.  If someone doesn’t like it, it doesn’t mean they don’t like you.  If someone reads it, it doesn’t mean that they actually know you.  Distance yourself from the content of the work;  distance yourself from the feelings of exposure.   This takes discipline.  Don’t wallow.

4.  Don’t worry that everything you do may not be your best work.  People’s taste run wide gamuts.  Sometimes you/they are in the mood for brown rice; sometimes you/they are in the mood for whipped cream;  sometimes for oranges.   (i.e. you can’t please all the people all the time;  actually,  you can’t even please some of the people all the time.   And maybe, well, you should worry a little less about pleasing. )

5.  Be happy that you have completed some work at all.  Always keep in mind how wonderful that feeling was when you first finished, how wonderful to have just slogged through.

Categories: Uncategorized, writer's block, writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 3 Comments

Blocking Writer’s Block – Ironing Out Problems With Confidence

March 10, 2010

Iron

I walked back home from my subway stop this morning (a trek) thinking I’d left my iron on.  I imagined my old, blinding, dog, Pearl, knocking it down (the iron was sitting on the floor in a far corner of  one room of my apartment).  I imagined terrible damage to Pearl, and then, in the ensuing conflagration, the destruction of all my worldly possessions .

Even as I hiked back to my apartment, getting later for work than ever, I knew this scenario was unlikely.  First of all, I’ve left the iron on before and its heating element always turns off quite quickly automatically.    Secondly, Pearl diligently spends just about all day in her “office”, that is, my closet, which is far far away from the nook where the iron sits.

When I let myself back into my apartment, I found the iron already unplugged, cool.

We tend to doubt ourselves.   This doubt not only affects our lives, it also affects our writing, actually any artistic endeavor we may try.

Some people (often the young) believe that every thing they produce is terrific.  They save every napkin doodle; they keep copies of every draft–bags and bags of them, whole old computers’ full.  Often, however, as both rejection notices and non-writing responsibilities mount, we tend to lose confidence in whatever voice works its way through our fingers.

This  self-doubt can lead to writer’s block, or at least, writer’s….lethargy.  We tell ourselves that if we only had a contract, an editor, a salivating agent, we’d produce tons of stuff, but we don’t feel adequate authority to keep working on our own.   What’s the use?  How can we keep up our confidence if  the only light at the end of the tunnel seems to be another blank page?  ( Blank screen?)

Two tools jump to mind (other than the one I’m always citing which is, well, discipline.)

1.  Knowledge.  Knowledge is power here; luckily, knowledge can be acquired a lot easier than other kinds of power.  By knowledge, I mean, knowledge of what’s out there in your field; knowledge too of human nature.

To get that knowledge, read.  Read good writing;  read “bad” writing.  Read intellectual texts, if you like;  don’t forget popular schlock.  Broaden your sense of the types of expression that are considered “valid”; think of how you fit in, how much better you feel than some writers, how awed and humbled you feel by others, consider what you can learn from everyone.

In addition to reading different kinds of work, consider reading about the lives of writers and artists.    Understand that your travails  may be your strongest basis for a spiritual camaraderie.

2.  Connection.  Learning about the lives of other writers is part of developing a sense of connection.   But it’s also useful to be in actual contact with actual living people.   If you write poetry (or even if you write prose that you can read paragraphs of in a poetic manner), go to open mike readings.  Make yourself read aloud.   The other poets may not make you feel liked, and you may not like them;  remember that you are not necessarily looking for friends, but a sense of validity.    Make yourself go more than once.  (Poets are a finicky, stand-offish, bunch; they may need to know you pretty well before they even smile.)

If there is no open mike in your area, consider a class.  Or host a little writing session. Try an internet site where you can post work.   In seeking a compatriot, an audience (even just an audience of one), look for  a person who is also interested in writing.  A non-writer is likely not to understand your problems with confidence and may, accidentally, make you feel worse than ever.  A fellow writer will respond to your work with some measure of attention simply in the spirit of quid pro quo.  (Take what you can get.)

Finally, even if the people with whom you try to connect don’t seem to like your work, don’t be discouraged.  (The differences in peoples’ taste is a source of continual amazement. )  Check to see whether you like their work.

Remember through all of this that you did turn off that iron, or, at least, you did not burn down your apartment, or damage your dog.  Translation:  you do too do some things right.

For more on writer’s block, check out posts in that category from the ManicDDaily home page;  for more on Pearl, check out posts re dog.

Categories: Uncategorized, writer's block, writing
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Blocking Writer’s Block – The Pen Is Mightier than the Word*

March 4, 2010

The Pen Is Mightier than the Wor(d)

The downside of being manic is, well, the down side.  There can be depression, of course, but what  I am writing about tonight is simple fatigue:  what’s left when the exhilaration, silliness, determination wears down.

For those who write, this fatigue can function (or cause not functioning, as the case may be) like a kind of writer’s block.  The feeling is not so much paralysis as apathy, apathy colored by exhaustion.  When this fatigue descends, you may feel as if the whole of your forehead (frontal cortex) is taken over by a block of blankness.  If the blankness takes the trouble to enunciate anything at all, what it usually tells you is that (a) you have nothing to say, and (b) even if you did, you’re too tired to say it.

Here are a few tools that can help when this blankness descends:

1.  Habit/Discipline. Forging a daily habit of writing, and disciplining yourself (with soulless rigidity) into maintaining that habit helps to carve a chink of opening in writer’s fatigue.   The writing habit will probably need to be started and cultivated during the non-blank times.  This sounds easy, but unfortunately, when writing is going well, you may not feel a need to set up any habitual framework for it.    Still, it’s useful to try, even when working well, to set some requirements for yourself, such as amount of time you want to devote, an amount you want to produce, a time of day, a place or notebook that you habitually use.   These requirements (even just one of them) can operate as a groove you can slip into when the blankness descends,, a practice you can use discipline (rather than inspiration) to maintain.  Use this discipline to get yourself to pick up your notebook or turn on your computer and set yourself down to it.

2.  Trust/ Let Go. After mustering the discipline to set yourself down,  let go of that same disciplined, planning, decision-making part of your brain.   Pour what’s left of yourself into your fingers, your pen, your keyboard.  Try not to think about what you are going to write, just write.   Move ink (real or virtual) across the page.

The thing to remember is that the pen is mightier than the word.   The fingers (unless you have been doing carpentry or weaving or playing Scott Joplin or Chopin on the piano) are generally less tired than the mind.  And the unconscious is usually quite happy to take over for if you allow it.

How do you access the unconscious?   How do you allow it to move into your hands?  For some this is easier than others.  Probably the most important step is to stop being your own audience.  The unconscious is shy.  It doesn’t like to interrupted; it doesn’t like to be judged.    Of course, once you start writing, your conscious brain (even your fatigued, blocked, conscious brain) will sit up and take notice;  still try to keep this conscious brain to the sidelines.  Make it a silent, unobtrusive witness, a deaf-mute who, sadly, never learned sign language.

These techniques may not give rise to deathless prose (though you may surprise yourself).  But they will help you work through the fog of fatigue (both true mental tiredness and a tiredness of the spirit).   And usually, once the unconscious mind moves into the open,  the fatigued, blocked, conscious part of your brain will also pretty quickly wake up, become engaged.    (It doesn’t really like being a deaf-mute.)

This, frankly,  is when your problems may really begin.  Your unconscious mind may be a much better writer than the conscious mind; they may have different techniques, subject matters.    But at least these are problems with writing, and not with not-writing.

*I have to give credit for the phrase “the pen is mightier than the word” to my husband, Jason Martin.

PS- I have written many posts on blocking writer’s block.  Check them out by going to that category on the ManicDDaily Home Page.

Categories: Uncategorized, writer's block, writing
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Blocking Re-Writer’s Block. Keep the Faith. And the Moocow.

January 9, 2010

I have written several posts in the past about blocking writer’s block.  (If you are interested, these can be found by clicking the category “writer’s block” from the ManicDDaily home page.)

I am extremely lucky that I don’t typically suffer from writer’s block.  I can usually write something. The quality of that something may not be great, but I can put words down on the page.   A harder problem is re-writing.

The wonderful glow that comes from a first draft, or even a first edit, is generally not available in the hard, repetitive, slog of revising a major project.   When one first writes something, one often feels happy simply at finding coherence, flow.  For someone who grew up before the days of the computer, there’s a wonder simply in seeing one’s thoughts set out in typeface (rather than scribble).

But as one’s investment and expectations grow, the re-writing can become onerous.  Questions plague every re-writing session.  They tend to run along the lines of:

1.  What else can you cut?   (It’s still too wordy, boring.)

2.  Have you cut too much?  (You’ve squeezed all the life out.)

3.  Are you really making it better?

4.   How can this take so much time?

5.  It was a dumb idea to begin with.  (And that’s not even a question.)

6.   Maybe you should just quit.  (After all this time?)

Avoiding the burden of extensive revision is one of the joys of a daily blog.  (While you have to worry about coming up with something all day long, at least you know you won’t have much time to re-write it!)

But if you are a attempting a novel, a story, even a poem, you usually have to rework it quite a bit.   And, unless you are lucky enough to have a deadline and an editing staff, this process simply takes as long as it takes (often long enough for you to get thoroughly sick of it).

Sometimes you have to cut out whole sections, sections that you have labored over for weeks, sections that you had a particular love for.  (These may be the most suspect.)  You will feel a bit like you are working on a  crossword, and a whole corner needs to be erased.  (Only, frankly, you’ll likely feel much much worse.)

For me, the most important rule in re-writing is simply to keep faith with yourself.  You must be open to cutting, but if you constantly question the worth of your entire project, you will not be able to go through the hard slog of making it better.

Perhaps the concept is not worthy of James Joyce.  (But remember, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, begins: “once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road…”  This, though recognized as great prose now, undoubtedly took a fair amount of ego and faith on Joyce’s  part.)

Even so, you must accept that you write about the kinds of things that you write about.   Even the moocows.  (Especially the moocows.)

Try, at least, to make your writing the best that it can be before giving into the urge to throw it away.   (Even then, keep the moocow.)

Categories: writer's block, writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Blocking Writer’s Block – When Escapism Hits (Hard)

December 3, 2009

Sometimes the mind needs candy.  It just can’t bear to chew over ideas of substance; it’s too tired to wrestle with gristly debates; it doesn’t want to pick nuance from its teeth.

No sirree, what it wants are donuts.  (It’s not even up to “doughnuts”.)  And it wants them all night long.

Who knows what makes the mind revert to pablum?

(Actually, I think it’s stress, a rebellion from pressure, an internal decision not to bullied by one’s own sense of responsibility.)

During such periods, some minds, usually of the male persuasion, will watch sports  or play video games; some females will watch several seasons in one sitting of Grey’s Anatomy, even though they well understand that both McDreamy and McSteamy are McStupid, and that Meredith Grey would be more properly named “MiMi Beige.”

In my case, the reversion is to puerile, but somehow, entertaining books.  (And, of course, a certain new movie star whose name is only known to regular followers of this blog.)

I’m not quite sure what to advise when times like this arise.  I guess the most important question is—are you getting your work done?  By work, I mean your day job, your school work, your obligations to family, friends, dog, your toothbrushing and hairwashing, your eating and some minimum amount of sleep.  Hopefully, most of us can put down the mind’s donutty distraction for the hours it takes to perform the tasks that keep us in the daily life business.

But what about that creative work that we think of as a second career (or a true vocation)?

Unfortunately, it can be very hard for creative work to serve as a significant block to a donutty mindset, especially if you are not getting either money or acknowledgement for the creative work.

Luckily, the mind has some natural defenses:

  1. Boredom.  Most escapist fare does not, per se, hold an overwhelming amount of food for thought.
  2. Pride.  An OC (obsessive-compulsive) attraction to escapist fare can become really embarrassing.    It’s true that innocuous plastic book covers, and a Kindle can go a long way towards mitigating that embarrassment.  Still, when you mother keeps telling you how much she’s enjoying Cormac McCarthy while you are obsessively reading Charlaine Harris (author of The Sookie Stackhouse novels, the basis for the series, True Blood), it gets a bit much.
  3. Duty.  Trees.

While you are waiting for boredom, pride, and duty to kick in, here’s another trick:    try to find something useful in your mind candy.  Look at it from a “maker’s” point of view.  If you are interested in writing, read the dumb books with an eye for their plotting, their narrative structure, their momentum, their sex scenes (!)   (Yes, it’s all a bit of an excuse, but there can be some valuable lessons there.)

Finally try to just enjoy yourself a bit.    Be giddy, stay up late, read while you walk to and from the subway.   More importantly, get some much-needed confidence.     And don’t worry too much.   If you are truly interested in doing creative work, the angst will be back soon enough.

Categories: Stress, Uncategorized, writer's block, writing
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: 3 Comments

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »