Years ago, when I imagined the lifestyle of a writer, I envisioned myself sauntering along the streets at dusk, sitting at cafés while stories unfolded magically in my imagination, the whole world seemingly at the tip of my pen.
Now that I've been writing for a while, I've realized that creative breakthroughs do happen, and when you experience them, they're better even than how you imagined them to be. But they come at a terrible cost.
For the last few months, I haven't had time to write creatively. I haven't even had time to read things that weren't work related. But yesterday, I finished the book I'm ghostwriting, and to celebrate, I spent a few hours writing on my new project, Goodbye Paris (which just now reached its Kickstarter goal, by the way. Wow. Thank you so much! Let's keep it going!).
It was breakthrough. I wrote outside and the horizon seemed to glow. Everything I wrote was funny and meaningful and inspired. I wanted it to go on for days.
It didn't of course. We had dinner guests and they arrived earlier than expected. The moment was over, and today, words are coming as they almost always do: with toil and trepidation.
Creative Pixie Dust
We have an idea of the creative class as elites. Wouldn't it be nice to sit in a coffee shop and write blog posts and post interesting things on Twitter?
Perhaps if we didn't have to work in an office and could sit in coffee shops all day we would be able to soak up some of that creative magic pixie dust, too. Perhaps then our lives wouldn't be so hard and our work so dull.
The truth is coffee shops start to feel like the office. Creative work is often dull. Too often than I'd like to admit, being a writer is just a job. I love my job, certainly, but that doesn't stop it from feeling like a job.
You don't have to be an elite to be a writer. You just have to be willing to do the work, just like everyone else.
The Secret to Your Creative Breakthrough
Here's what it took me too long to learn:
You can only have a creative breakthrough if you endure the inevitable breakdowns (share that on Twitter?).
The reason I had a breakthrough moment yesterday is because I endured months of writing that wasn't easy or fun. I earned the breakthrough through toil.
Jeff Goins says this about creative breakthroughs:
I hate to state the obvious, but in order for a breakthrough to happen, something has to break:
- Maybe it’s you.
- Maybe it’s your job.
- Maybe it’s Resistance.
But. Something. Has. To. Give.
Are you ready for that? Can you commit to enduring breakdown? If you can't, there's a word for what you're doing:
dilettante
noun
a person who takes up an activity, or subject merely for amusement, especially in a desultory or superficial way; dabbler.
It's fine to dabble, if that's what you want. There is nothing wrong with being an amateur. I'm not an elitist.
Be Prepared for Struggle
I do want you to be prepared, though, because I wasn't. I thought I was going to feel inspired all the time, as if I was rolling in rose petals with poetry shooting out of my fingers like laser beams. It wasn't.
Instead, it was kind of like work. (Actually, it was exactly like work.)
If you want to be something more than an amateur, if you want to make writing your life, you will struggle. You will feel uninspired and out of place, like you were never meant to be a writer after all. You will have breakdowns.
And that's okay. It's good, even, because you can't have a breakthrough until you have a breakdown.
When was the last time you had a breakdown in your writing?
PRACTICE
Sure, you'll have breakdowns, but today, let's have a breakthrough. Free write for fifteen minutes. Let loose, relax, let the words flow. If it helps, read a few pages of a book that inspires you.
When your time is up, post your practice in the comments section. Then, keep writing! I hope you enjoy it as much as possible.
Love this! And you’re completely right!
Thanks Monica. 🙂
You’re right. Breakdowns are inevitable. The same goes for writer’s block. Sometimes, you have to work through them. And sometimes, you have to let your mind wander. Not too long, but take a moment to recharge. Maybe the next idea for a story comes. Or, an idea on how the story progresses. There have been moments where I’ve had breakdowns. I started writing, and then, I couldn’t stop. It was a wonderful feeling.
Isn’t that the best? Thanks George. 🙂
Okay. Here goes…
TRAGEDY UNFOLDS
I decided one day to write a flash fiction tale, maybe 800 to 1000 words. Okay, about what? How do I squeeze it into such a short word count? So many stories need room to blossom, to reveal the heart motives of the protagonist.
I pictured a young woman, upstairs in a big old farm house. She’s apart from the family…doing what? Perhaps making a gift for someone. Like a mother making presents for her children after they are in bed. She looks out the window and sees…what? Who’s sneaking around out there? What are they up to? Let’s make this interesting: she sees smoke, a flash of flame, a tall dark form dashing into the woods as their barn suddenly blazes.
Someone set their barn on fire! Perhaps the intruder turns to look; she catches a better look at him in the moonlight. She may not know exactly who it is, but she knows who it’s not – and later when she hears a certain person accused of this dreadful deed, she knows he’s not the guilty party.
So why is someone framing him? Maybe they want to drive him from the district for some reason. Maybe they want his land? So the guilty ones torch a few barns and start accusing this innocent one until pressure from the community leads to…
Tragedy! My thoughts have taken me around to the story of the “Black Donnellys.” A century after this disaster a reporter went back over the records of this horror and learned that the Donnellys weren’t half as black as they were painted. Barns were torched and they were accused, but no one could prove they were involved. Social pressure built up. The local priest got involved, urging his flock that these people need to be dealt with.
A group of vigilantes get together and plan how they should execute justice. They go over at night with rifles and try to lure the Donnelly men out of the house…but the father senses danger and refuses. Now what? All fired up now, they storm the place, murdering women and children, an old grandmother on her knees praying for mercy. The one they actually went for escapes.
But a witness survives that scene: a hired boy hiding under something sees the whole event unfold. He identifies the perpetrators to the law, and later he’s called to testify at the trial. But he and the jury are so thoroughly intimidated, no one is convicted.
Not long ago I read about the Hatfields and McCoys. Same story. A self-appointed posse goes to punish Randal McCoy for his sins and ends up not getting him, but killing the innocent women and children in the house. Justice served? Hardly.
It just seems to work this way when people take it upon themselves to mete out justice. It may be a well laid out scheme, but plans go awry and in desperation, afraid of being identified and brought to justice themselves, they end up committing far worse crimes than the original guilty ones.
Now, back to my flash fiction… No wonder I never get anything written!
Great story, Christine. I particularly liked the section about the Black Donnellys. Ripe for a retelling, I think!
Hi Jo
good post, thanks
I feel lucky in that I write every day and haven’t yet had that moment where i feel blocked. But there are definitely days where the magic isn’t there. I notice it when I edit, entire paragraphs of nothing much that are deleted far more easily than they were created.
I like the Jeff Goins quote. I think resistance is the thing that many people struggle to recognise. It can be very easy to blame work or some other circumstance, but those things are there to test you and see what level of resistance you have to committing. It’s like always finding an excuse not to travel, or get married. Huge decisions that can be as easy as the small ones, if the resistance is recognised and worked through.
Food for thought, thanks
Mike
Mike you echoed my thoughts. I don’t get block, I get resistance. I just get times when I don’t want to write, or write this particular thing, and it’s usually a sign of something else going on in my emotional or mental life. I’m pleased I am not the only one who sees it like this! -Sef
Well said. “… there to test you and see what level of resistance you have to committing.” I’ve definitely failed at that test enough times to know what they look like.
I was a financial journalist for 15 years. As a reporter/journalist/editor, with deadlines and editors demanding copy NOW, I performed every hour, every day. Even with that, though, currently I’m finding it a challenge to come up with new words on the page.
I’ve told myself that I’m not really a novelist unless I can come up with at least this second one, a process that is turning out to be torture. But I know that once I slog it out, the rest will flow. At least I hope so. I mean, it did during all those years. You think?
Yes it’s hard isn’t it Laure, especially with no editors hovering over us.Good luck;)
You ARE a novelist, Laure. You just don’t have that external demand you used to, and sometimes we resist the internal one. Would it help to give yourself a deadline? Or even do what I did, put your next novel on Kickstarter with a small goal (like an advance) so you have a group of people you’re accountable to?
Your prompt was timely as I have been resisting writing fiction for a couple of weeks now and tonight decided to write something factual and life based instead, and ultimately e-publish it. So then I read your prompt and this possible opening fell onto the page:
I was working in Southampton at the time. Well, not really, it was Bath, but I was three years out of Bath and with no plans to ever leave the south coast when I walked across a sandy common one Sunday morning and realised that instead of making fantasy escape plans for my fictional supernatural heroine, I ought to be making real survival plans for myself.
It stopped me dead. I stood by a shrub, a coastal evergreen thing with needles like gorse but not gorse, nor was it broom, my mother would know but she wasn’t there.
Looking back now I recall this as the moment I first saw a goldcrest, Britain’s smallest bird, but I suspect that was another occasion, earlier, and that I have merged the two memories because each was so striking and awe inspiring and took place beside an unidentified bush.
Sounds like an interesting beginning!
Your third paragraph starts with “It stopped me dead.” What stopped you dead?
We writers need to beware of fuzzies like ‘it is’, ‘that is’ and ‘this is’ — because it is not always evident what “it” refers to. Normally the answer is self-evident, but I’ve seen sentences where, after a subordinate clause or two are thrown in, I’ve lost track of which nouns the pronouns “this” and “that” refers back to.
I really like your tone, and the very descriptive meandering of your prose. I think this is going to be really interesting. Like Christine, I did find a few moments confusing. You seem to like to make distinctions (Southampton vs Bath, broom vs. gorse), but I don’t know enough of the context of British shrubbery to really understand the significance. Perhaps the slight confusion is intended or worthwhile, especially as a way to bring up your mother, which seems like it will be a good vein for you throughout the story. But I wanted to bring it up in case you’d like to simplify or make it more clear. Overall, this feels like a brilliant start!
Ok here goes 15 minutes of unthought, go with the flow, break the doubt, break the drought, effort to write.
So I am stagnant.
My river ain’t flowing and
my babbling brooks of sweeping prose have stilled to muddy puddles.
A sludge that slows my inspiration seeps between my toes.
Yet my heart knows this is simply a slowing down.
A chance to reflect look at the ground;
steady my itch to resist
resistance.
A spiral ripples from my sinking foot and flutes the murky surface into an unexpected dance.
I see an opportunity.
I seize the chance
to dance my inner pen across the lazy puddle tide.
And suddenly my eyes open wide.
I smile,
for all about me glides….
…today’s story.
Refreshed in the inwardly imposed stillness, I feel again.
The gentle rain of inspiration tugging gently at my name.
Gently whispers me forth
Into the so far unexplored.
Landscapes and territories
That somehow I have feared
Yet in this muddy puddle are becoming ever clear.
It’s hard to with words explain
But inwardly I’m reassured
This pen WILL write again.
dance my inner pen across the lazy puddle tide – what a gem of a phrase
Thanks. Sometimes it’s a good idea to just let of and free form. Most often a couple of shiny little gems will find their way out…into the light of day.
I can relate to this!
A bit of whimsy. Glad you can relate….it’s largely a dribble of stream of consciousness….but could be shaped up to some reasonable prose… Maybe in the future. I find doing this type of writing relaxes my creative muscle, allows it a little time to wake up and stretch. And sometimes there is the added bonus of some sweet gems or useful insights. All good practice.
🙂
Wow! I felt the mud squishing between my toes, and your words swirled around and carried me to the end, bringing a joyful feeling and quenching a desire for inspiration.
Cool:-) thanks for reading and sharing. It’s very encouraging to hear that some of my words reach others.
Awesome fifteens, Dawn! Let it flow!!
Congratulations for making the target Joe. I’ve been away and wasn’t watching how the kickstarter went.
Thanks Audrey! I’m excited (and a bit terrified that I now have to do this grand adventure). Pushing for $3,000 now so I can release the print edition.
All my life, since as far back, as I remember, I have always heard the words “gGet your head out of the clouds”, or, “You live in a dream world.”
I look upon these words with fondness, though, and acceptance and feel as though my head belongs within my ‘dreamworld’.
But that is not the sentiment that those words are said to me!
I understand my loved ones, (the people who express those phrases) care for me, and though they often say those things out of their love for me, they do so because they fear for my failure.Possibly even more so than, myself, fear for my failure?! And though they probably do not intend to patronising or offend me, those words are expressed with a condescending undertone, even throughtheir most greatest intentions for my personal success.
I let it ride though.
I deflect the eventuality of the offence their words are capable of causing! Because I understand the motivation behind such expressions: My loved ones simply want me to approach my life with realistic expectations.
But they. are their expectations, and their ideas, based upon their own experiences and individulities.
Not mine!
And we are all unique, deriving inspiration and drive from the things that spurn each and every one of our unique qualities. and ‘ism’s’.
Our soul desire’s.
Deep down, I do genuinely, believe that my ability to envisions ideas, as the things that cause the somewhat adverse reactions (from the people around me), is my TRUE calling in life.
My forté.
My ‘thing’ in life!
And, anyway, whilst I’m deep in ‘conjuring’ of my concepts, my theories, my philosophies and my creative solutions, I am simultaneously in deep meditation. Which is good for the mind, body and soul, all at once. And I have, as I told you, earlier, ALWAYS. been subject to the expressions of other’s assumptions that I’m always ‘Away with the faeries’.
I must be one healthy individual?!
And with that, I am truly content! In all my entirety.
Nice. I liked how you are so confident with yourself and realize that these people simply love you. Nice ending.
Thank you Elise, your feed back is greatly received and much appreciated.
I’m well chuffed that, through all of the typo’s, wrong full stop’s, and chunks of sentences missing, (actually, only one chunk of a sentence is missing) through my old device not holding up too well, now days, you still managed to receive my actual purpose for this piece, and dug the concept of my confidence in my own abilities.
Bless you fot taking the timeand effort to show an interest.
The ending is as it should be and is how it is!
😉
Peace.
No problem. I can sympathize with typo’s and computer problems 😛 🙂
I hope this is ok. I free wrote and this is what I came up with. I don’t know if I would call it a breakthrough but it was fun. Thanks 🙂
Should I do it? It has been so long since I have done this simple thing at this hour. I don’t know. What if something bad happens? But it really wouldn’t take long. No more than three minutes.
I can already feel the steaming water caressing my wintery chilled skin. The drops drip down my hair and into my eyes. I can feel the tiny bathroom heat up like a Russian sauna. I imagine the coconut smell of the blue shampoo tickling my scalp and then the cream soap bubbling on my fingers. I see myself leaving the relaxing room with a cloud of hot white air trailing behind. In my mind the tension leaves my body and I am ready to face the day all because of a quick morning shower.
That’s it. I’ve decided to just do it. I look at my sweet son watching cartoons and rush to a shower that will take less time than putting the laundry in the washing machine downstairs. I leave the door open a crack to listen for little noises.
I worry the entire time.
I love the way you capture the bliss of the escape from real life and put it with the contrast of the concern… Great piece of writing!
Thanks nicolaticola 😀
Hi Eliese.
You’ve captured a slice of domestic, housewife, mother time. Shall I? Shan’t I?
Yes I will. Fear/worry all the while you’re do in it.
Nice descriptive terms ‘caressing my winters chilled skin’, the smell of coconut, bubbles.
Thanks for sharing
Thanks Dawn for the lovely comment 😀
And so goes parenthood = ) You swept me back a decade to our toddler years (come to think of it, the feelings don’t change over the years, just the circumstances). Great imagery.
So true. Thanks Susan. 🙂
Ok… here’s what I wrote…
I think I am a writer. I am a waitress. I use to be a realtor. Now I
haven’t done a formal survey, but I’m guessing that at the beginning
of most writers careers the first two are a relatively common
combination.
I’ve been writing since the age of 13 when I sat down and tried to pen a
point horror (you’ll remember these if you are old enough and from
the same part of the world. Teen fiction with a horror twist).
Unfortunately, after long conversation with my family when it was
time to choose my direction in life, it was decided that writing was
never going to be a stable source of income and off into the world of
the corporate rat race I went.
I was successful. I made money, but something was always missing. I was
never truly happy. The question for me always was ‘Is my writing good
enough for me to give up a lucrative career to pursue?’ I don’t yet
know the answer. I did, however, take the plunge.
So what am I doing? Currently I’m sitting in a coffee shop on the other
side of the world to my family. Waitressing to pay my rent in a bar
where the owners motto is ‘Short skirt, boobs out, lets make
some money’. I’m reading every writing blog I possibly can (there
really are some great ones out there). I’m taking every free creative
writing course I can. And I’m hoping that, just maybe, one day, I’ll
be a writer.
Your personality, hopes and dreams came through nicely in this! I wonder what it takes to a be writer today? In my eyes you are already one. P.S. Yay for waitress writers. 🙂
Thanks for the lovely comments Eliese! Its really encouraging that you see me as a writer… Lets hope my fiction work gets comments like this 🙂
So you’re a writer who thinks she’s a waitress :-).
Nice sharing and a reflection on the pathway to becoming a ‘ successful’ writer (whatever that is!).
Loved the description of the waitressing business code, boobs out and so on…
It’s great doing these short practices because they simply encourage action no matter what and by that very action we are able to pour out or purge our blocks and doubts. We all have them at some point. Well done.
Hi Dawn, Thank you for the great comments. I hope i’m on the path to becoming a successful writer 🙂
So, you’re really a writer, working undercover as a waitress to find inspiration for your next novel (now there’s a plot idea). Good choice!
Everybody has a story to tell, and (almost) everybody wants to tell that story. Preferably to strangers, I’ve noticed, because it’s a safe way to vent frustration.
That’s probably why bars and taxis were invented in the first place. In my days as a taxi driver, I’d get total strangers as passengers, but by the time I dropped them off at their destination they would often have shared a lot about their relationship trouble, work conflicts and medical history. It’s amazing how much personal details people will share with total strangers, given the opportunity. And every story they tell could be your (or my) ticket to the #1 spot on the NYT Bestseller List. 🙂
Hi Jeroen, It is helpful to tell ‘our’ stories. I read somewhere that one of the hardest hurdles to overcome with people newer to writing is their ability to talk about themselves and lose the embarrassment angle that most feel.
I particularly like the idea of thinking of myself as undercover rather than a full time waitress!
Thank you,
Nicola
I screamed at nothing and threw the paper at the wall. The uselessness of myself brought me down greatly. Your worth it. They say. I laugh in their faces. I took a swig of whiskey and sat down in the chair the darkness taking control of me. The stillness of the empty house filled me of regret of my life. I brushed my red hair out of my face. Why did I do this. I thought. I’ve turned into a manic. Nothing happens to me at all. I only sit and wait for death. The disappointing look on my face only made me scream louder. I walked shakily and grabbed the knife and brought to my neck.
Hi Chloee, I’m feeling the pain…
The short sentences made this piece punchy and fast yet at the same time managed to ‘show’ so much about the characters mental state, her writing frustrations and her ’empty house’. (Which I guessed could be empty or may be a nice metaphor for her currently ’empty’ creative space.)
Put down the knife; pick up the pen. This is a breakthrough. 🙂
So I, like George F. Babbitt, have chosen this time to be, well, Lewis wrote “publicly liberal”, but I’m not sure what that term even means anymore, there’s neo-liberal and “progressive” which both smack of complacency and cock-sureness and money, always money. I think Hedges and Taibbi got it goin’ on, but what do I know. I can’t give out with these ideas at the local community center without being more or less politely muzzled. It is what it is.
I like the idea of the fairy-child though, Babbit’s personal muse/haunting. So very politically incorrect both from the standpoint of the modernly feminist and the carefully moral. Can’t be seen in the philosophical company of suspected pedophiles. Narrow, suspicious gazes across the table, no, I’ll keep my trap shut a while longer.
And scan the dark horizon.
Nice piece of work John. Shows so much about the character in so few words. I actually re-read it several times; I realised I was trying to get more/deeper. I wanted to know more about what was going on.
Thanks for sharing.
Thank you Dawn! I actually paused for more than just a moment over the SEND button on this one — your comments are very encouraging. Back to work.
I have to say, I was slightly alarmed by the title of this post when I first clicked on it. I thought it was going to be about having mental breakdowns!
I’ve definitely had a few mental breakdowns over writing. Haven’t you?
As I feel like I’m struggling all the time lately, this post made a lot of sense. Kind of feeling like all of my writing is a breakdown right now. Maybe that means the breakthrough is just around the corner. Thanks for the encouragement.
Sorry to hear that, Kari. Stay firm and keep going. I think you’ll be surprised at how soon breakthrough will come. Best of luck.
This is all so true. I hope my next breakthrough doesn’t take month of writing that wasn’t easy or fun. But if it does, I’m game.