The 7 Secrets of the Prolific Writer's Block
Read The 7 Secrets of the Prolific Writer's Block Online
Authors: Writing
Tags: #Non-fiction, #Guide, #Perfectionism, #Writer’s Block, #Procrastination, #Time Management
Seven
Secrets
of the
Prolific
Hillary Rettig
by
Barry Deutsch
The Seven Secrets of the Prolific
Copyright © 2011 Hillary Rettig. All rights reserved.
Illustrations by Barry Deutsch,
www.amptoons.com
Cover design by Lee Busch/LBDesign,
www.lbdesign.com
Layout and interior design by Chris Sturr/LeftUp Publishing,
leftup.org
Section 1.1 Procrastination is Disempowerment
Section 1.2 Procrastination vs. Problem Solving
Section 1.3 The Seven Secrets of the Prolific
Section 1.4 Procrastination’s Quintuple Punch
Section 1.5 Block vs. Spaghetti Snarl
Section 1.6 Who’s on Your Path? The Woodland Trail Metaphor of Writing
Section 1.7 Write Out Your Snarl
Section 1.8 Procrastination’s Duplicitous Strategies
Section 1.9 Two Commonly Overlooked Barriers
Section 1.10 Procrastination’s Denial of Self: Selling Out and Stalling Out
Section 1.11 The Heart of Procrastination
Section 2.2 Perfectionists are Grandiose
Section 2.3 Perfectionists Prioritize Product Over Process
Section 2.4 Perfectionists Over-Rely on External Rewards and Measures of Success
Section 2.5 Perfectionists Deprecate the Ordinary Processes of Creativity and Career-Building
Section 2.6 Perfectionists Overidentify with Their Work
Section 2.7 Perfectionism’s Toolkit
Section 2.8 Perfectionism’s Origins I: Social and Cultural Causes
Section 2.9 Perfectionism’s Origins II: Trauma and “Situational Perfectionism”
Section 2.10 Cultivate a Mindset of Compassionate Objectivity
Section 2.11 Develop a Habit of Abundant Rewards and No Punishments
Section 2.12 Compassionate Objectivity as an Antidote to Fear of Failure and Success
Section 2.13 Use the Three Productivity Behaviors
Section 2.14 Build Your Capacity for Fearless Writing via Timed Writing Exercises
Section 2.15 Choose the Right Project(s)
Section 2.16 Moving Forward: Your Post-Perfectionism Writing Career
Section 2.17 Anticipate Plateaus and Backsliding
Section 2.18 Other Antiperfectionist Techniques
Section 3.1 So You Want to Run a Marathon...
Section 3.2 More Lessons from the Marathoners
Section 3.3 Resources for Ambitious Writing
Section 3.4 What the Prolific Know
Section 3.5 Generous Writers vs. Snobs and Obfuscators
Section 3.6 Your Hardware and Software
Section 3.7 Your Writing Space and Furniture
Section 3.9 Mentors and Writers’ Communities
Section 3.10 How to Work With Mentors
Section 3.11 Critique Partners, Workshoppers, Alpha Readers, Beta Readers, and Your Audience
Section 3.12 Other Key Community Members
Section 4.1 The Crucial Importance of Time Management
Section 4.2 The Five Foundational Principles of Time Management
Section 4.3 Time-Management Principle #1: Time is the Most Valuable Resource
Section 4.4 Time-Management Principle #2: Always Strive to Invest, Not Spend, Time
Section 4.5 The Other Time-Management Principles
Section 4.7 The Time-Management Process, Step 1: Budgeting
Section 4.8 Be a Specialist/Don’t Overgive
Section 4.10 The Rest of the Time-Management Process
Section 4.11 Saying No, Delegation, and Cooperative Problem-Solving
Section 5.1 Tempo and Your Need for Speed
Section 5.2 Use a Freewriting-Based Process for All Your Work, and Do Many Drafts
Section 5.3 Develop a Smooth Writing Process; Minimize Interruptions
Section 5.4 Write Nonlinearly; Leverage Your Project’s Easy Parts
Section 5.5 Work Backwards in the Piece
Section 5.6 Show Your Work Frequently; Read It Aloud
Section 5.7 Learn to Write on the Fly
Section 5.8 Achieve (and Enjoy!) Mastery
Section 5.9 Other Tempo-Building Techniques
Section 6.1 The Problem with Invisibility and Isolation
Section 6.2 How the Public (Including Your Family!) Sees Writers and Writing
Section 6.3 How Some Highly Successful Writers See Less-Successful Ones
Section 6.4 The Glorious Truth About Writers and Writing
Section 6.5 The Importance of Overcoming Ambivalence
Section 6.6 How to Come Out as a Writer
Section 6.7 Pervasive Deprecations
Section 6.8 Coping with Difficult Questions
Section 7.1 Rejection or Harsh Criticism Can Foment a Block
Section 7.3 Minimizing the Odds of Traumatic Rejection
Section 7.4 Coping With Routine Rejection: Taking Your Power Back
Section 7.5 Coping With Traumatic Rejection
Section 7.6 Writing on the Internet
Section 8.1 One Writer’s Career
Section 8.2 More Disempowerment
Section 8.3 The Bad Deal for Writers That Is Traditional Publishing
Section 8.4 Self-Publishing: The Only Way to Go
Section 8.5 Disempowered vs. Empowered Careers
Section 8.6 Empowered Careers Begin with a Clear Vision and a Plan
Section 8.8 Marketing (and Sales)
Section 8.9 Another Writer’s Story
Section A.2 The Rules of the Game
Section A.3 A Symposium on Academic Oppression
Section A.4 Advice for Graduate Students I: Managing Your Relationship with Your Advisor
Section A.5 Advice for Graduate Students II: When Researching and Writing Your Thesis
Section A.6 Regarding Academic Couples
Section A.7 Advice for Advisors
Section A.8 Some Unvarnished Thoughts on MFA Programs and the “Literary-Industrial Complex”
Section A.9 MFA Programs Cost Too Much
Section A.10 Don’t Procrastinate by Going to School, or Staying in School
To George Lewis
I gratefully acknowledge the support of:
Christopher Castellani, Sonya Larson, Eve Bridburg, and the wonderful staff and students at Grub Street Writers in Boston, who helped me find my mission.
Carolyn Benedict-Drew, with gratitude and respect.
Richard Stallman, an inspirational activist and stalwart friend.
Dan Krotz, a valued friend and mentor extraordinaire.
David Karp, who made just one suggestion but it was prime.
My wonderful landlords, Dorothy and Jack Benoit. And the crew at John Smith’s Auto Body, including John Smith and Lenny Petrone. And everyone in East Boston, MA, a community full of friendly people and interesting ships.
And Gunnar Engstrom.
Procrastination is the problem of not being able to reliably do your writing as planned.
A writer’s block is a severe, prolonged bout of procrastination.
Throughout this book, I use the noun forms of these words interchangeably. Whenever you see me refer to “writer’s block,” you should assume I’m also talking about procrastination, and vice versa, unless I specify otherwise.
When I need a verb form, I generally use “procrastinate,” and my preferred adjective is “underproductive.” With each word, I’m again referring to the entire spectrum of underperformance, from slight procrastination to being hugely blocked.
For reasons that will become clear, I avoid using labels like “procrastinator” and “perfectionist” in conversation or when teaching, but I do use them in this book for brevity and clarity.
I use the word “prolific” not to indicate some fixed arbitrary standard of productivity, but someone writing at their own full capacity. Everyone’s situation and capacity are different, and your own capacity will probably differ at different times.
Ditto for terms like “successful” and “underproductive”: their meanings relate not to some arbitrary measure but to what you achieve relative to your own goals.
I use phrases such as “your writing career” and “your writing profession” to indicate any path involving a long-term commitment to writing, whether or not that path earns money—although I hope it does!
Throughout the book, except for Chapter 4 for reasons I will explain, I use the gender pronouns interchangeably.
The information in this book is presented without warranty of any kind. It has helped many people, and it is my sincere wish that it help you, but I can’t accept responsibility for any negative result you feel you may have obtained from using it. If you are suffering from anxiety, depression, addiction, or any other psychological or physical condition, please seek professional help before following the advice herein. If you are making choices that affect your financial well being, please consult your accountant.
Hillary Rettig is an author, coach, and workshop leader who specializes in helping people improve their productivity and build effective and empowering careers and businesses. She is also a vegan, kidney donor, former foster mother to four Sudanese refugees (“Lost Boys”), and lover of dogs and other animals. The text for her previous book,
The Lifelong Activist
, a self-help guide for progressives, is available in its entirety at www.lifelongactivist.com.
For more information on Hillary and her work, including abundant free downloads, visit www.hillaryrettig.com. Hillary also invites you to:
Email her at [email protected]
“Friend” her on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/hillaryrettig
And follow her on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/hillaryrettig
For more on Hillary’s coaching or to invite her to give a class, workshop, or speech, see
hillaryrettig.com
.
Chapter
1
“I have known authors whose lives have been troublesome and painful because their tasks have never been done in time.”
—Anthony Trollope,
An Autobiography
1.1 Procrastination is Disempowerment
P
eople who procrastinate or are blocked almost always think it’s because they’re lazy or lack an essential character trait such as willpower, commitment, or discipline, but that’s never the case. As the phrase “writer’s block” implies, you aren’t missing anything, but blocked from using what you already have: your skills, talents, energy, vision, commitment, etc.
A good synonym for “blocked” is “disempowered” (get it? dis-empowered), which also helpfully denotes that there are forces acting on you that are causing your underproductivity. In other words, you procrastinate not due to any intrinsic deficiency or deficit on your part, but to outside forces.
Because we can work to uncover and ameliorate (or eliminate!) the forces disempowering you—and rather easily, once we clear up some misconceptions—the idea of disempowerment should bring hope. Regardless of how many years or decades you’ve struggled with your procrastination problem, it is solvable.
In the productivity classes I run for writers, we do an exercise where I say, “It’s Monday at 10:00 a.m., and you’re supposed to be writing your novel (or, nonfiction book, thesis, grant proposal, business report, etc.), only you don’t feel like it. What might be some of the reasons?” The answers typically fall into eleven (!) categories: