Tips For Writing: Overcoming Resistance
I’m taking a quick break from my current ghostwriting project to give you a tip for writing, specifically, overcoming resistance.
But first, I want to remind you to enter my writing contest. Its easy–all you have to do is answer a few simple questions in the comment area and you’ll be entered in a drawing for the prize of a free coaching session. The post is called Another Writing Contest: What Are Your Writing Problems? and you can read it here.
Thank you to everyone who has commented so far–I’ll be responding to comments soon and I so appreciate y’all taking the time to look at the survey.
Now, onto writing resistance. This is a tip that I learned from my wonderful coach, Tess Daniel, and like everything that she teaches me, it applies to every aspect of life. But, like pretty much everything that comes my way, I look at it through the lens of writing.
If you are stuck and can’t seem do move yourself forward in your writing project, ask yourself one simple question:
Do I know what the next step is?
Do you know what scene comes next in the novel? Or what character you need to introduce? Do you need to rewrite the current chapter before you move forward? Or do you just need to keep writing and get words on paper?
The good news is, if you know what the next step is, odds are that you aren’t blocked. You know what to do, you just aren’t doing it. At least you have something to work with! And one way to get yourself to work again is take pen in hand, number a piece of paper from one to ten, and quickly, write all the reasons you are not taking this next step.
One of two things will happen: you’ll either realize there is a very practical reason that you aren’t taking that step, or you’ll realize that in truth, you were wrong.
The practical reason is the easy one. You don’t have a fact you need, or you need to print out the chapter to edit it and you don’t have enough ink in the printer. That kind of thing. Once it is committed to paper, its easy to see what you need to do and remedy it. Sometimes we just get so overwhelmed we go into brain fog and we can’t see the forest for the trees, or the tree for the forest.
If you uncover reason number two, that you were wrong, that’s really not so bad either, because at least now you know. You might have been laboring under the delusion that your characters needed to go to a funeral, for instance, when in reality that character isn’t dead.
Putting things down on paper has a way of uncovering what you need to know. But what if you asked yourself the above question, do I know what the next step is? and the answer was no?
Well, sorry, you’re out of luck. No, I’m just kidding. The wonderful thing about being creative is that there is always an answer. While not knowing is the wee-est bit more complicated than knowing, it is also in some ways more freeing. If you don’t know what the answer is, after all, you can make anything up.
And that is what I recommend for not knowing–make it up. Just pretend you know the answer and write it down. If you knew what was supposed to happen next in your novel, what would happen? If that feels like too much pressure, ask yourself what the silliest thing that could possibly happen be? Write it down. Go to the thesaurus or dictionary, open it randomly and write down a word. Now do that two more times and make it into a sentence. Set your timer for 15 minutes and write. The idea here is to start writing, in case you hadn’t guessed. Start putting words on paper and see what happens.
This is a gentle way to trick the brain. No pressure, no worries about figuring what is supposed to happen next in the novel (or your life, for that matter). All you are doing is playing with words, putting them down on paper.
It may take several of these brain-tricking Not Really Writing Sessions in order for the old brain to start feeling comfortable enough to engage with the novel or short story or article you are trying to write, but eventually it will.
And now that I have given my brain a bit of a break, I’m off to work on the ghosting project again.
horatio salt
Great stuff, as usual. I like the random kickstart ideas. Here’s another. When you’re stuck, bring in a dog. Not a real one. Just start writing a scene where your characters – the ones you’re blocked with — don’t have to lead the action. Describe a dog walking in to their scene, whether they’re on top of the Empire State Building, in a sauna, in a submarine, in a funeral home, wherever. That canine will loosen things up. Then open a door and let him out…and get on with it.
Jen
Pretending you know the answer… It seems so obvious for a creative writer, but it never occurred to me! Thanks for some great tips!
Robyn
I enjoyed your advice to trick your brain!
David
When I am blogging I go from being writer to being photographer to being poet to being marketing representative (of me). That’s a big stretch. It is easy to get away from writing when doing the other things.
Charlotte
I love the bringing in the dog idea. I’m going to try that. I kinda like bringing in a real dog, too. If I get too stressed with all the resistance I go pet my pug and listen to him snore. Its very soothing.
Jen, I hope the idea works for you. And David, I hear you, I think we all wear so many different hats these days we need to develop the ability to switch back and forth between them. And that can be difficult to learn.