Writing is Ugly Truth #387
WRITER’S BLOCK? Revised Eat, Shower Sleep Approach
Today’s post is about what to do when you are so effing frustrated with All Things Writing that you literally can’t write anymore. What many term Writers Block. There is deffo value in exploring some of the brain science behind the root causes of this brain-born obstacle, but this is not a brain science post.
THIS post is more of a let’s-get-on-the-ground-and-fight-over-the-meat approach. Less introspection and more raw action. It’s based on steps I’ve developed through experimentation [mmmwahahahahaha] when experiencing writer’s block in ways that felt insurmountable. When I hit a point where I genuinely didn’t want to write. Hefty resistance for me to even get started. And I hated everything that I did manage to eek out. I was utterly uninspired and a little bit happy about it. (“Maybe I can have a life now”) Until I wasn’t. (“I like the people in my head better than these people in the world, c’mon brain get me out of here!”) Until I genuinely did want to write again but couldn’t get my brain to comply.
Maybe you’ve heard the following advice:
When you feel like everyone hates you, sleep.
When you feel like you hate everyone, eat.
When you feel like you hate yourself, take a shower.
I concocted a similar triumvirate approach to writing when I really didn’t want to write anymore.
This is for deeper afflictions, maybe, than what we tend to label writers’ block. For, like, Chronic Writers’ Block…? Maybe the result of one too many rejection letters. Yet another critique that sent you off with more work than the original piece. Maybe you thought that you would be writing for a living by now. Maybe you’re feeling a little long in the tooth to be pursuing this writing thing. And you just kind of want to throw it all away. This is advice for you guys, from someone who’s been there. It helped me maybe it will help you.
My three approaches, instead of the very physical needs of eat sleep shower, are psychological approaches to your writing. Attitudes that will get you past the frustration you’re feeling.
If you’re feeling like everyone hates your writing, return to writing from a place of joy.
If you’re feeling like YOU hate your writing, write to satiate curiosity.
If you’re feeling like you hate writing in general, write to market. (This last one is controversial and comes with caveats. All will be discussed.)
JOY – I’m doing this for the love of it. Like when you were a kid. No grades, no thoughts of where can I sell this or how will I market this. Just writing to tell a fun story. Go back to that. Don’t worry about what anyone else will think of it, even your critique group. Let those guys pound salt for a little while. Forget about getting published, or agents. They are not the point. The point is the fun. Stop caring about sales, book deals, or voracious readership on Amazon. Those things are fantastic, sure. But they’re icing. The cake is the writing itself.
This cake is NOT a lie.
The feeling that everyone hates your writing is typically the result of rejections and critiques. Even if these critiques may be spot on, it is a hard blow to submit something you were in love with and thought was good, only to be told how much work it needs. Ignore all that stuff for a while. Write things that want to write, only because you want to write them. Because you love it. Forget about the rest of it for a while.
This is I think an especially good approach for people who have a day job. When you are commissioning yourself, you can write whatever you damn well please. But even if you do have an external deadline, forcing yourself to write isn’t always the answer. Sometime that works, but sometimes you need a secret side door to get back into the flow.
Rediscover the joy of writing. The thing that brought you to it in the first place. Because there’s no reason to be a writer unless you can’t not be a writer. Which you probably already know. You’ve probably tried to quit. And writing has stalked you like a stanning fan. Giving you fantastic story ideas when you are trying to sleep or shower. You’re stuck with it. You may as well enjoy it.
If you feel like everyone hates your writing, eff those people. Write for yourself.
CURIOSITY – I’m going where this story takes me.
If writing is more work than fun, you’re forcing it. Sometimes, even for plotters, it’s nice to let the story unfold on its own. Necessary, even. Follow the ideas in your story that intrigue you, regardless of how undeveloped or inconsequential you think they are.
It’s like if you’re not supposed to eat chocolate cake. But there is one in your vicinity. You turn away from it. Eat an apple. Some rice cakes. A banana. You can still smell the cake. You eat some celery, dip it in peanut butter. This reminds you of that ants-on-a-log snack from when you were a kid, which reminds you that you have raisins. You eat some raisins. Usually, you eat raisins in oatmeal. You have oatmeal. You’re pretty full now. But you STILL WANT CAKE. You “cave” and EAT CAKE. Unfortunately, because of all the fuss you made and all the food you ate in lieu of cake, the Eating of Cake, which should feel triumphant and celebratory, is instead pyrrhic.
What if you had just eaten the cake in the first place?
What if you follow your mind’s lead about that tiny subplot? Or that NPC your Protagonist meets at the coffee shop? What if you put your current project aside and work on that other thing that’s been nagging at you persistently? (NOTE this is only encouraged if you are in a Dark Period of the Muse, i.e. truly stuck and have been for a long time. Because dumping a project to work on something new and shiny can be its own trap.)
Writing to satisfy your own curiosity is linked arm-in-arm with writing for the sheer joy of it. Let your first draft be whatever it wants. When it’s complete, (Beginning, Middle and Ended) then you can tailor it, reign it in or cannibalize it for something more marketable.
Feeling like you hate your writing typically comes from a place of being dissatisfied by the process. Eating everything BUT the cake. If you hate your writing, eat the cake. Write something fun just because it intrigues you.
MARKET – I am writing what sells. Eff it!
People will tell you not to do this. Which is good advice—usually. Trad publishing takes two years to get a book out. This lag can mean that the Hot New Release you are banging out from sheer spite is a topic that will be down-trending by the time you have it ready for submission. It can be risky to invest a year of your life on a novel that no one wants because the market is saturated ask me how I know.
BUT, if you have become jaded and cynical about All Things Writing, what have you got to lose?
There are several big-name authors who wrote to market and were very successful. I personally know an author who targeted a very specific niche magazine, and it was the first thing he sold, after trying other stories for more than a year. And I am acquainted with a playwright who cynically forged ahead with the reminder “This crap is what sells” … and it did.
Writing to market is also a practical necessity if you are writing for Evilzon Amazon.
If you’re willing and successful at it, you can land assignments. I know a children’s writer who submitted her book to an agent. The agent did not buy that book but asked her if she wanted to write something from his wish list. Some poor fucks writers had to write the Fruit Ninja movie. They were assigned that, based on their previous work and their willingness. And now with self-publishing, and the opportunities afforded by Evilzon Amazon, it’s possible (not easy) to become a self-sufficient author with this approach.
ALL THAT SAID, it takes a certain mindset to write to market. A bit mercenary, I do my job and you pay me. I encourage a shift: Give the people what they want and they will love you in return. And you have to, at some level, enjoy the project. Even if it’s just the silliness of it, or a particular character that you root for, or the challenge of coming up with a story around something as vague and plotless as Slice Fruit Not Bombs. If you don’t find something to like in your own work, readers will sense that and they won’t like it either.
If you hate writing in general, but writing to market feels dirty to you, don’t take this approach. Skip to…
TAKE A BREAK
If none of the above suggestions work for you, take a break. It’s healthy to shut your brain off once in a while, to let it rest instead of occupying it with tasks. Be intentionally lazy and see what happens. The writing will lure you back like a stranger with a van full of kittens and candy.
Leonardo da Vinci is reported to have said, “the greatest geniuses sometimes accomplish more when they work less.” You want to argue with da Vinci? Well, you can’t, he’s dead.
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#387 Writer’s Block
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