Photo by Nationaal Archief
With a clear conscience, I can promise that desire had little to do with the conception of this post. If my desires dictated when this would be written, I would put it off a few more days.
Fortunately, my will, and not my feelings, determine my actions as a writer.
An underrated attribute—the will of a writer
What separates the in-shape person that works out year-round from the unhealthy one that each new year vows to start working out again? The unhealthy one is riding the emotions of the new year, banking that they'll feel those same emotions for the next 365 days.
Every day is a new decision with new circumstances. Extra work. Early morning. Other priorities. As the emotional high lessens, so does the frequency of their ‘yes,' until finally, the question no longer exists.
For the other, the decision has already been made. Each day from that point on confirms their decision to be healthy. There is no longer a choice, the only option is to be in-shape.
I love writing. I desire to write. But I'm not thrilled about writing every single day. Some days, I'm distracted. Other days, my brain just isn't working, or I'm not feeling confident. Of course, the desire is to write when inspired. There's nothing wrong with that. We're artists. It's the days that don't inspire that separate an in-shape writer and an unhealthy writer.
“A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.”
Don't be a New Year's resolution writer. There is a cycle for this kind of writer:
Inspiring high -> emotionally-based decision to write -> inspiration lessened by time ->which lessens willpower ->which lessens confidence ->personal disappointment enters ->willpower gone -> writing ends until next inspiring high.
Three Ways To Break Your Dependence On Feelings
1. Realize Writing is a Privilege
Without realizing it, we look at writing as a sacrifice. The late nights, the writer's block, the low pay, it all leads to a self-pity way of thinking that weakens our will to write consistently. Calling yourself a writer is a privilege that many wish to do, but never will. When that privilege is understood, you'll take a new approach to your writing.
2. Practice Undesired Writing
Look at those times you don't feel like writing as gifts to practice – like swinging a weighted bat before stepping up to the plate. When you don't even feel like a writer and can still write well, you know you'll be ready when that moment of writing inspiration shows up.
3. Decision Is a Noun, Not a Verb
Don't struggle anymore with the daily decision to write. The only decision that needs to be made is, “Am I a writer?” If the answer is yes, the actions will follow. Writers write. If it's who you are, you won't be able to make any decision other than to write.
The posture of our thoughts will decide if writing will be an aspect of day to day life.
Are you relying on feelings and desires to write consistently?
PRACTICE
For fifteen minutes, write as if you have no desire to do so, but know you must!
When your time is up, post your practice in the comments section. Be sure to comment on posts from other writers.
Sir you are just describing how I feel everyday of procrastination by putting up work, striving for perfection, making a resolution to commit and forget all about it the next day..this post is simply brilliant ! thank you for sharing 🙂
that’s great to hear, thanks a lot!
This post is spot on. Willpower has everything to do with writing and quite often I let all those other “ride the tide” excuses get in my way. Thank you for the reminder and the push.
ok, I am posting this just as I wrote it, raw and unedited. Stream of conscious.
Today I’m giving a tour of the Antonito Depot. I have been planning on writing about it for several years now and the time has never been better. For some reason I don’t follow through and don’t put all those research notes together into anything useable. Why not? Why am I stuck in the research phase and yet store all the bits in so many different places that it becomes a horrible chore to put them all together into something meaningful. And never mind that I don’t take my non-fiction to the level where it becomes a cohesive article, what about the countless story beginnings, great titles, pieces of writing and other things that I think are important enough to keep in drawers in boxes, in digital files, in my head, but not good enough to finish? Can I finish just one? And then another one, and then another one? There has to be some way to break out of this loop and into finishing what I start. It’s not just the writing it’s the many thousands of other projects all milling around like guests at a cocktail party that don’t know who to talk to or why they are there, and can’t finish one solid conversation because of constant distraction. It’s like listening in between radio stations. A little bit of music, a little bit of news, a little bit of dj banter and stories that fade in and out. Maybe a commercial or two. But not really listening to any of them and not really hearing any of them long enough to make any sense. Lots of static. No commitment to a project. I don’t want to waste the rest of my life listening to static and hearing nothing. I want to tune in to a true story and get it down and get it out and
suffer the consequences good or bad. It’s about commitment. It’s about willpower. It’s not about the whim of the moment or the emotional high or the guilt trip that leads to sloppy, bad writing. Embarrassing writing. Or just plain disgust with myself for turning out something sloppy because I am up against a deadline and I’ve procrastinated to the point where I can’t finish. It’s about getting the story out there, but getting it out in a way that tells who I am as a writer, not turning out half-assed drivel. Not turning out something that I wouldn’t want to read myself. I like the analogy of the person who exercises because it’s the same and I have the same trouble with both. I have desire, I have emotion, I have ambition, but I don’t have follow through, I don’t have willpower. I think I have to want it bad enough to follow through, and it’s a lie. I don’t have to want it bad enough. I have to be willing to do it bad enough. Do it every day . Do it with enthusiasm. Do it as if my life depended on it. Do it as if there were no choices to be made, it is just there and it has to be done. Ray Bradbury, my inspiration, began writing in the basement of a library on a typewriter that cost him 5 cents to borrow. And for the rest of his life, from age 12 until his last breath, he wrote 1,000 words every morning. EVERY morning. And not on a computer. And he did it, not to publish, though he did
publish lots and accomplish lots, and he was brilliant, but he did it because he was a writer and he had to do it. He had to do it. So do I. And so I will be a champion of history today. I will give tours of the old railroad station and talk about the history of the area with other people who love history. And I will enjoy all that. And then I will write. And it will be good, and people will want to read it even more than they want to hear me talk. Promise.
Love it. I can totally relate with the hundreds (or thousands?) of projects that I have been started but never finished. Or, never “followed through with,” if you will. As you wrote I couldn’t get the image of a baseball batter out of my mind. They spend hours upon hours training and honing their skill. They delve into technique and practice with specialists. But even so, if a batter approaches the plate, steadies his bat, waits, and then swings at a pitch but suddenly stops at the point of contact (and not following through with the typical near-360 degree swing) the ball will only pop off the bat and barely reach the end of the infield at best. No batter hits a homerun by swinging halfway or half-assed.
This was gold: “I have to be willing to do it bad enough. Do it every day.”
Any batter who isn’t willing to risk, to swing all the way through and potentially miss the ball completely, isn’t willing to do it bad enough in order eventually get good.
Thanks for your piece, Jay. Here’s to homeruns every once in a while, but even more, to swinging all the way through every time we write.
Absolutely. “I don’t have to want it bad enough. I have to be willing to do it bad enough. Do it every day.” 1,000 words every single day? omg.
A well written inspiring blog post. I enjoyed reading it a lot. Wanting to be a professional writer myself, I understood clearly each step you wrote about and I shall try my best to apply to myself. Thank you
Thanks for the kind words, Bethan!
Sometimes I write for work. I wish it were more. I wish all I did was write for pay. But really, when I actually think about that, what I wish is that I could get pay for writing what I want.
Typically (and I mean for the vast majority of us), money for creativity is not a luxury we get to swaddle ourselves up in. But hard work, whereby we sweat and ache and yearn to be out, living, running, laughing, and doing things our souls feed on is more typical.
Yesterday, I didn’t get to write for work, but instead spent the whole day updating product information online, over, and over. A monkey would have been better at it than I–or at least wouldn’t have been cursing as much. While I fished around the backend of my company’s website, entering dollar values and product variants, I could hear two other employees out in the warehouse hollering, swinging hammers, and getting their work done. Both were tasked to cut an 8×8 hole in the warehouse roof (getting to let the rubble fall to the floor fifty feet below) and slide a skylight over it. Circular saws echoed across the walls and high-fives and whoops of manly triumph carried into the office and swam around my desk, circling, like gawking buzzards, jeering at me with imaginary index fingers.
I put the Moth podcast I listened to on pause and leaned back. I allowed a deep breath to pass in, and out. A moment of nothing. Then, like resolution could wash up the shore of my bored spirit, I was reminded that it is the exciting, suspenseful, tragic, joyous, nerve-wracking, AND dull times in life (to name a handful) that need to be written about. They are components within the human experience, and everyone can relate.
And, so, here I am.
Not going to lie, I DESIRED to write about this topic, so maybe I cheated 🙂
Isn’t it funny how we can end up being inspired in the middle of what felt like the very opposite, the drudgery, the feeling separated from the “real” living others, i.e. the guys in the warehouse were doing? The larger realization leads to renewed inspiration, or so it would seem.
Absolutely.
I can certainly relate to the mundane and dull moments of life. I work retail, where it’s repetitive: stock this, straighten that, give customers false hope. But reading about what was going on around you reminded me the importance of observation, to keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Because of this, I am getting back to enjoying what I loved about what I do for a living (which, I have to admit, is working in the Electronics department.)
Well said! I laughed while reading this because at some point or another every writer can relate to your experience in the office. I know I can. Enduring the dull moments to get to those moments we really live for…
Dear Diary,
“Matty, baby, please don’t do that” I said, “come here and sit with nana.”
Matt, my only grandson, stopped sucking on his thumb and slowly walked towards me. As he reached me, I extended my arms towards him and lifted him up, placing him gently on my lap. He chortled as he got into a comfortable position.
‘Poor child, doesn’t even know what life will be as he grows older!’ I thought.
(I know that I’ve written about this a million times over the past few months, but as the pain increasingly weighs on my heart I need to write or talk about it, and you my dear diary are my only companion.)
You see, I took in Matty just a few months ago. Both his parents (ie., my son and his wife) and he were driving down a road when a drunken truck driver smashed his vehicle into their car. Both the parents died on the spot and by Lord’s loving grace, my Matty was spared. So I took it upon myself (for the sake of my son) to nurture and care for Matty to the best of my abilities.
I don’t know how he’ll cope with having no parents as he grows older. I don’t know what he’ll be… will he be an image of my lost son or will evil rule his mind, for his loss is not a puny one. I don’t know all the questions and I definitely don’t have any of the answers. All I do hope for, is that I can teach him how to become a good human being.
Love,
M
What a tender and loving post. The ties between a grandparent and grandchild are eternally special. Yours even more so. A diary is a patient listener to our thoughts and a writer’s best friend.
thanks a lot.. just something I thought up.. not really easy to write about something you have no idea about !!
If this is fictional as your reply indicates, you’ve done a good job of creating the thoughts and actions of a sympathetic character. Good work!
thanks… means a lot!! :))))
thanks.. means a lot!! :))))
You have a story here I think. Great practice.
really?? i’ll have to think about that one… but thanks for reading!!
really???..hmm.. i guess there is!! anyways, thanks a lot for reading!!
Nicely put. I identify completely.
No special topic, just glad to be alive today.
After the chill of winter, every blossom and leaf look pure and new. When did the birds sing with this much style and gusto? I can smell the damp earth, hyacinth blossoms and the clean scent of sheets swaying in the breeze.
Could I capture in a paint pot the spring sky’s shade of blue? The sun’s warmth surrounds me like a child’s impulsive hug. Today might be an icecream cone day.
Life is good, just as it is, just for today.
wow!! short but sweet.. I especially like the last line… kind of seals off what you wrote before…
😉
Sweet take on the new spring. ” . . . the clean scent of sheets swaying in the breeze” takes me back. “pure and new”. — yes!
Beautiful Eva!
I’m on the other side of the world waiting for winter. After an exceptionally long and dry summer here in New Zealand, I’m looking forward to cooler temperatures – and tempers – even greyer skies and the rumbling relief of rain that they bring. I miss my snug uggs.
Thanks for the “resolution writer” piece, Joe. That’s me to a T. Must learn to write (well) from the troughs…
The western swing CD I had put on ends. My African-American neighbor, standing on his landing fifteen feet away, hawks noisily and spits wetly, giving his apparent review of the concert. Inspiration wilts. That’ll teach me to leave the patio door open.
As the man said, it’s not about feelings. To me, it’s about recording what I see and hear — not without fear, but declining to indulge in it. Today I’ll be a Grace Walden to this culture’s character assassinations, not pretending to be good or whole, simply telling what she lived and heard and saw even as sequestered by those whose interests would not be served by listening. Dull, clunky words form on the screen, dead rattles from a dry and desolate voice, perhaps — not likely, but perhaps — to be heard someday, somewhere, a witness to the road not taken. But that’s not up to me.
Grace, from her vantage point at the memory of events on April 4, 1968, would understand. Get back to work.
Okay, here’s my draft of “For fifteen minutes write as you have no desire to write but you must.”
{As told to a therapist}
I hadn’t written in years. No, I don’t mean that I hadn’t created something noteworthy in years. And I don’t mean that I had only written the mundane things of life. No. I mean I hadn’t written anything in years. Nothing. No sentences. No stories. No books. No magazine articles. No newspaper articles. No letters to friends. No private journal pages. Nothing. Not a single Christmas letter or thank you note or words of sympathy attached to a card of a dear friend who lost her son in a tragic accident in front of my very home. Nothing.
How many years had it been? When I took the pen in hand and held it over the blank page, my hand quivered. Had it been so long that I’d need to relearn it, like a rehab patient needs to learn how to walk again after being confined to a hospital bed too long following a tragic accident that severed his left leg?
With pen in mid-air, I stared at its nib (did they call it that any more, I wondered) and willed myself to push the piece and make contact with the yellowed paper below, pulled from a long neglected pile stashed in the back of my bottom desk drawer.
How long had it been?
Nelly had still lived at home when I last wrote anything other than my name on any sheet of paper. I’d given up valuable opportunities by my refusal to write anything, ‘cept my first and last name. But no middle initial “N.” in my name. That will still too painful.
I’d been busy writing the day she came into my room.
“Mommy, can I get the mail?” she’d asked me. Consumed by a conversation in a land that never existed except in my novel, I hadn’t really paid attention. “Yeah, yeah,” I’d said. Anything to get her out of my room at this crucial moment of conflict in my story. If I lost this train of thought, it may be days before I get the flow again.
Nelly asked again, surprised by my yes. “I can?” she asked incredulously.
…The flaming arrow burst through the broken glass and plunged into the floor, setting the dry boards aflame. She had a choice. If she moved to put the flames out, they would know she was indeed still in the cabin. But if she ignored the flames, would they leave before the smoke choked out the last of her life’s breath…”
“Yes, yes!” my mouth commanded, apart from my mind which was torn between being captured or burning to death. “Just leave me alone, for heaven’s sake!” my mouth demanded.
How old was Nelly then? Old enough to toddle to the doorway, lift the latch and let herself out without closing the door behind her.
Deciding that death by smoke and flames left little hope, but capture always offered a hope of another escape sometime, she grabbed the tablecloth and began beatting the flames in my mind. Of course they captured her. She was dragged away, thrust into the dungeon and there she sat in the silence, listening, wondering what she would do.
The silence brought me back to reality. It was never silent in my house. The dog or Nelly or both of them always performed their daily concerts of noise from the playroom while I wrote. So why was it so quiet?
Leaving my dungeon world, I turned and looked out from my writer’s nook in the back of dining room in the back of the house. From there I could see the kitchen door open. But where was Nelly? Where was her constant companion, our little dog? I started to look as I called her name, but from some distant recess of my mind, the words “…get the mail…” clued me in.
I dashed to the door, running down the steps and towards the driveway. The long driveway that twisted around a corner –it was for privacy Jack had said–before it wound its way to the road a couple hundred feet down to the road.
“Nelly!” I screamed. “NELLLY!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, running wildly around the first corner, hoping, demanding, praying that I’d see her playing or picking wildflowers or just lollygagging her way back from the mailbox still so far away.
There was a splotch of red by the road. My heart stopped.
“NELLLY!!!!!” I yelled again and again.
I stopped beside the little red slipper, covered with dust in mounds of roadside scuffled sand.
“NOOOOOoooooooOOOOOOO!!!!!!” I screamed. “NEEEEELLLLLLLLYYYYYYYY!”
My pen barely touched the surface for a second before I rasied it and speared the paper, dragging massive Zs and Xs smashing down again and again.
I threw the pen across the room, snatched the paper and shredded the mess into a thousand bits of paper sand that I scooped into my hands and crushed with all my heart.
How long had it been since I wrote anything? Ha. It didn’t matter. It could have been a week, a month, a year, a decade, a century.
They never found our little Nelly. Or the dog. There was no clue other than the dusty little slipper. I’d had to fight with them to give me back her slipper. They wanted it for evidence. I wanted it for hope. Hope that someday she’d forgive me for writing.
I picked the pen up from where it lodged in the drapes tieback. I picked up the rest of the pens on my desk and in the drawer. I scooped up the paper hidden in the back of the lower desk drawer.
I stepped, one step at a time towards the woodstove. I rested on hand on the handle to the fire inside. But paused just a second too long. I collaspsed to the floor, the pens and paper scattering around me. My hands in my arms, I wept and wept again, muttering, this would have been her birthday… What present would I have given her at this age? What present could I give her now?
I grabbed a mechanical pencil mixed in with the pens, on the paper nearest me, I began to scribble words long locked inside of me.
“No Nelly. Wait one minute and we can walk down to the mailbox together.”
Tears stained the page.
“I am sorry, Nelly,” I wrote.
“A thousand times sorry.” I forced myself to write.
“Love, Mommy,” squiggled itself across the page.
“I will love you forever.”
The first words I’d written in how long? Yet they betrayed me! They accused me! Interrogated me as the police had done again and again.
Purposefully I pulled myself up, and opened the door on the woodstove. The flames took only a second to lick at the words and burn them all, every single one of them, away from my eyes, away from the world.
I would never write again. Never. Nothing could ever make me write a single. Word. Again. Ever.
I would see to that.
I plunged my hand into the flames, hoping to burn away the part of my body responsible for my daughter’s death–or worse.
How long could I keep those fingers in the flames?
It didn’t matter.
I would never write again. Ever.
###
Oops. Fifteen minutes became 38 minutes.
That’s powerful. You should use that in a story.
Thanks, George. When I finished writing this, I hung my head and wept at the depth of emotion it stirred up within me. Thanks for your encouragement to use this in a story. I’m not a fiction writer; I write almost exclusively nonfiction except for when I write writing prompts like this. Maybe it is time I stop fighting against writing fiction?
I have no desire to write today. My head hurts and I feel as though I got about two minutes sleep last night. I dragged myself to the computer anyway, and painfully wrote a few paragraphs. Was it hard? Yes. I didn’t enjoy the words I wrote, I couldn’t see the picture I wanted to piant. I have to hope the words are good enough. Even while I struggled though, I was developing the plot, fine tuning my character. I think he’s clicked into place at all. I can see what comes next. Even when I don’t want to write, when it’s hard and feels uninspired, it’s worth it.
way to will yourself through! ha, great job, Giulia.
Thanks!
I’m just tired and have nothing worthwhile to say. The white page is intimidating with all its’ blankness. White in French or Spanish I think is “blanche.” Just the thought of writer’s block scares the pads off my fingers. My vision is blurred by blizzard white-out.
I talk to myself, “But, I am self-driven. I don’t need a coach to work out, or a personal trainer. I don’t need the gratification of being published. I just like to write for the sake of venting all my stuff.” Instead of the computer, I’ll cull out my spiral notebook and write a letter. If I focus on a loved one whom I’ve not connected with in awhile, it helps to write “to someone.”
Whenever I start a new essay, I use the spiral for that too. I like the feel of a blue gel sliding across the page. I’ve read that the brain thinks differently writing with pen in hand on clean tangible papyrus. I think it helps creativity, because I’m not too concerned with mistakes or who will read it. After all, it’s only a first draft. The re-write is the real deal. Starting from the spiral and then dictating to that white blank slate, my fingers come back to life. They awake from that shocked coma. They thaw from that frost bitten state in which before I couldn’t feel for the cold numbness. Now they tap tap to life, warm by the fire of inspiration.
This is elequent. I apply the same practice of writing my drafts on paper rather than typing them on a computer. I was never able to get things done because I was so obsessing with getting it right the first time, every time. Then, I ended up wiping the screen clean and end up wasting my time and energy. It was frustrating. Now, I see the value of actual writing, of applying pen to paper. It’s a lost art, even if it is a draft, journal entry, exercise, etc.
Hello, (I like the way you write, very acutely, with clear and short sentences blank of useless words that, nevertheless, leaves a poetic “something”, in the end…) Well, now that that’s said, I wasn’t there to compliment you but to let you know that the french expression is: “l’angoisse de la page blanche”, (nothing less than “the white page’s anguish”… Brrrrrr…!)
Have a nice sunday, writing!
Klamath Falls, Oregon 8:27 PM
Writer’s Block
Writer’s block? Oh, you lucky one! …my hands are like blocks. My body, arthritic, is a block.
I have as much worth in life as a doorstop. Yes, a doorstop! Consider that, foolish young one! Be glad that your dexterous hands have the strength to move a pen across a page! You, with your fancy computer, typing away as if there were no tomorrow! Enjoy it while you can, ingrate! As if YOU have a story to tell… Don’t you realize how much I could share, if only I could? If only I had the strength to write, as you are physically able! To dictate….? My strength is failing me even now as I speak.
Why is life is such?! Those who have cannot possibly appreciate as those who have not if only they could! People take their own lives every day– so many would give everything for another breath and yet they helplessly perish. If only I could write! My soul cries out for it even as yours does. No, more. More, do you hear me? More!
I, yes I am a writer’s block! A writer who is a block–what is that but a writer’s block? I prevent no one else from writing; like all writers’ blocks I prevent myself! Yes, wallow in your so-called sorrow. Believe me; those who can write and yet do not what to write– aye, even those who can write and yet do not WANT to– they are nothing. They have no difficulties compared to me, to the one who has so much and yet is dying in a block of a body, the one who has such stories!
Write while you can!
Take nothing for granted.
There is no such thing as this…this writer’s block. Except for me.
I am a writer’s block.
wow. Bold and poetic, well done. Also, don’t forget that a powerful simple sentence can be just as effective as an exclamation point.
sorry this one is impossible for me – desire may not be the w/right/e word, but writing is as almost as much a part of me as breathing and therefore to ‘act as if I don’t desire it’ would be to die.
That said, I do agree writing is a privilege – as is thinking and feeling, and being able to do it alone or with others or lead groups of others who haven’t yet figured out what it even means for them to be able…
often that kind of session starts with them considering the privilege of reading: of sharing the ideas and stories of others, having insight and gaining more of their own through what others choose to share. Then it might mean using collage techniques of images and words from wherever they tend to read now, and reflecting back their agreement and disagreement with what has been presented to them. Then if we are lucky, a moment might come still within the session where the desire to write a word that is not in the books, magazines, newspaper articles becomes so strong that they have to pick up a pen/texta/paintbrush and make a mark of their own.
Many don’t realise it, but that is the moment of discovery of their own will. The moment when they separate from the social setting which has long told them what to think and say and where and when… To birth that moment for another in their own writing is a much greater privilege than to simply write for and by myself.
And I have been so privileged a number of times – including to the point of ‘students’ winning thousands of dollars for a single story I lead them to begin.
I agree, if writing is a privilege, then awakening others to write is a gift and a privilege.
I hate to admit, but I’ve been that “resolution writer.” I blame time constraints, family life, work life, writer’s block, and so forth. The truth is that I was neither consistent nor persistent in my writing. Furthermore, I had no desire to read to learn from others and adapt. It was very problematic and frustrating putting my pursuits on hold or shove them “under the bed.” The issue I had was that I didn’t have a concept of balance, of making the most of opportunity.
Now, I am beginning to understand. Like religion, careers, and the like, writing is a lifestyle. You have to apply yourself on a daily basis. I carry my notebooks to work and use my breaks to write drafts, exercises, journal entries, whatever it may be. (When I don’t have a laptop nearby, I do my exercises in my writing journal. Then, “transfer” the exercises to the board.) I carry a mini notebook at all times to jot down anything that piques my curiousity. It can be a color, a name, character sketch, conversations, etc.
For this exercise, I applied the second tip: to practice undesired writing. In my journal, I wrote about something I am not comfortable writing about: death. It’s interesting because I killed off characters or relationships in drafts, and I have personal experiences with death of loved ones. My first real experience with death came from the news of a student’s suicide when I was in high school. I remember it so well because I spoke with the person just days prior, and a grief counselor visited my Theatre class specifically. I went past the alloted time because there was so much I needed to purge. I had to “detox” from writing for a moment to recollect and focus. But, I am learning to find balance with my writing. I may not write to earn a living, but it’s a desire I am nurturing every day.
I sure can relate to the need to purge and detox through writing!
so good to hear you’re bouncing back strong from an ’emotional writer!’ Lifestyle – Keep writing!
Thank you. I appreciate the comments I receive, as well as any critiques that will come.
I have no inspiration whatever to write this. Non, nix, zilch. So I write under a sort of protest. To fill fifteen minutes with this is a travesty. Yet on I write filling the space with words no-one will want to read, and will regret if they do read. Why do this at all? Because I call myself, at least on occasion, a writer. Not a great writer, not a good writer, just a writer, with a writer’s ambition to be read and even appreciated some time. So I continue and try desperately not to be hated or ignored or thought a bore. Yet I suspect all these things will happen at some point, simply because I am a writer.
Yes, I tell myself, I am a writer, and immediately thoughts of needing to churn out words, day after day, makes me anxious. Can I do it? Well yes, because I have done it, for many months now. Not a lot of words, but words nonetheless, with very few days off. Actually I take weekends off, though I have been know to write on Saturday to fill a gap from a previous day. So I have a target for each day, and an aim above that target. On good days I reach the aim, on not so good days I just reach the target. Very rarely I under perform and don’t reach the target. On these days I just shrug and say, better next time. I have given up berating myself for the failure. So now I have written for fifteen minutes. Is it great writing? No.Is it good writing? Only my readers can tell that, but I suspect no. Still, I have written and after all, I am a writer.
really enjoyed this – raw and a feel of self-pity but surely what writers often go back and forth with in their own head as they sit to write something they’re just not sure will be a hit.
I love the idea of “practicing undesired writing” because I struggle with sitting down at the computer. Once I’m there, it’s fine. I just have to schedule that time in no matter what.
Here’s the issue I have with write no matter what: sometimes what I have to write about– oftentimes, maybe always– I don’t want to write about and I need to let my self lay fallow and rest and get ready until I am ready to make the approach. Then I do with strength and focus.
That said, I spent many, many years writing every day– cause I needed to, really needed to– so I do know that I will go back to my writing just like I will go back to yoga and swimming and hiking when I lay fallow there. Writing and movement are my lifeblood.
I am using the word fallow intentionally because the metaphor of allowing a field to rest while you use another field is very applicable to creative life. We are so imbued with the assembly-line model as a way of life, as the way life is, that we forget that, really, we are much more free-flowing and complex than widget in, next!
Hey Amy! I agree, it’s definitely wise at times to rest on a subject before making the approach. Other times, though, when we’re struggling with writing something, whether it’s writers block or lack of desire, the best formula is to just… write.
I resonate with your words Amy. Sometimes I just have to let an idea brew in my heart and take hold of my life before I can write it down. I also find that on occasion I have to kick myself into gear and keep moving because I’m really just procrastinating.
Lately Ive been eating when I am hungry, sleeping when I am tired. Life’s misery has become a comfort. Numb to its unpleasantries. A writer must forgo a meal or two for the sake of feeding his dear characters, water his plants when he is thirsty. A writer must be lonely and yet mirthful. He must feel the earth beneath his raw feet, each step. And really feel each stone and soft blade of grass. He must expose his vulnerabilities, courageously share his truth. I am too fearful to be a writer. A writer requires so much solitude, so much forgiveness.
I began writing as a child. It was so easy then. When I was seven I wrote my poems on white t-shirts. Can you imagine! Sharing has become so hard.no one ever really asked about my poems or seemed impressed. I wasn’t searching for praise or acceptance. So, for me the demon that prevents me from writing is the typical plague: fear of failure.
This is a post I will have to wrestle with. I struggle with writing when I’m uninspired. Sometimes I write, but it’s not pretty, other times I pitch a fit and refuse. (Temperamental artist, I know!) I’m still growing in this area and I’m sure I will continue to.
Practice:
Today I don’t feel much like writing. I woke up at 3:30 this morning. I was catapulted from sleep by my distraught 9 year old bursting into my room with the announcement that he had just barfed. Oh yeah, it was bad! (Sorry Joe, this is what you have to look forward to in the years to come.)
I put him in the shower and assessed the damage. Barf and shag carpet, ugh. After I had done what I could to contain the situation I settled my son on the sheet covered couch and armed him with a trash can.
In the wee hours of the morning we watched “Despicable Me” and dealt with the affects of the tummy bug. Minions in the morning are only mildly funny. As the first bird began it’s sweet song in the dark, promising that day was coming, I dozed off.
That little nap, scrunched on the love seat, was short lived. My curly girl found us in the living room as day broke.
So far we’ve watched “Despicable Me” three times. It’s not 10:00 am yet. It’s going to be a long day. Not only do I not want to write, I don’t want to be awake, and I certainly don’t want to deal with any more barf.
That’s life though, isn’t it? There are lots of things we don’t want to do but in the long run these very things remind us we’re alive.
I can do the hard, ugly, mundane because I’ve done the sweet. I’ve held my precious babies, nestled in the crook of my neck, and listened to their musical sighing. I’ve had chubby hands bring me fistfuls of dandelions. I’ve seen my big boy close his eyes at night and pray for me, thanking God for the mommy he loves.
The beautiful prepares us to endure the boring and painful. The hard moments enable us to delight in the swelling of the creative bud. The inspiring and the mundane wrap themselves together and create life. I’m satisfied with that reality, but I don’t think I can watch “Despicable Me” one more time today!
15 minute practice: I’ve lost all ability
to be creative. To either write snatches of literature here and there when
stricken with inspiration, to sit down and paint the landscape i am looking at,
to sing words which have just popped out of my head. Instead I am actively trying
to destroy that creativity, to hide it in my everyday chores, studies, jobs. It
is my reaction to the late feeling of dissatisfaction, of incapacity to be what
i had always wanted to be. I am hiding it in mechanical things like doing
sports, working in a restaurant, learning a new language (grammatical exercises
require no creativity whatsoever), taking the same bike-routes wherever I go,
wearing the same clothes. My last piece of creative work was a love/goodbye
letter to a Portuguese man. I was actually impressed at what came out of me….we
had watched Forrest Gump together so I made him a card that opened like a box
of chocolates and each chocolate could be lifted and underneath would be
written a memory that we had shared together. When I was a little girl I would
make these sort of cards to all my family for Christmas…I can no longer be
bothered. Now…I, well I live in a condominium of sorts in Amsterdam and I love
making up stories about what’s happening within the windows I can see from my
kitchen. And I really enjoy making up these stories….and this seems to be the
one single hope I am hanging on to as to think that I might still be a writer
somewhere within. Maybe my tiny story about the lady that bought a magazine,
spinach in a box and arugula today at the store will become a character of a
tragic story à l’style Victor Hugo or Dostojevski. But I am also glad that
there are blogs and so on that attempt and sometimes succeed in inspiring souls
abandoned in the ashes of fireplaces.