The 7 Secrets of the Prolific Writer's Block (12 page)

You’ll have “good” days and “bad” days (defined relative to your own standard for writing productivity), and perhaps also good and bad weeks, months, and maybe years. You’ll also have plateaus and backsliding. A plateau is where you stay at the same level of productivity for a while; backsliding is when your productivity drops. Sometimes they happen because the work itself is tough (in which case, it might not be an actual plateau or backslide, but only tough work), other times because of personal problems or other distractions.

On challenging days, scale back your ambitions—drastically, if necessary—to the point where you no longer feel fear. Your inner bully will probably appear right on schedule to scorn you as lazy, etc., which is how you’ll know you’re using an effective strategy.
Always ignore that voice
. I promise you that the shortest route back to maximum productivity is to work patiently within your human limitations so that you have a chance to regain your confidence and focus.

If your priorities change so that you no longer want to write, or if life gets stressful enough so that you can’t write, by all means take a sabbatical. You can return to writing later, and probably will do so with even more energy and ideas and commitment as a consequence of having respected your needs.

1) Create a Lifestyle That Supports Your Writing.
It’s hard to be productive in the midst of chaos, or when struggling with an ongoing difficult personal or family situation. Some writers manage to shut everything else out and just write, but (even assuming you agree with that approach) most of us can’t compartmentalize so effectively. We need to follow Flaubert’s famous dictum to “Be regular and orderly in your life like a bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”

In
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
, Stephen King writes: “When I’m asked for ‘the secret of my success’… I sometimes say there are two: I stayed physically healthy … and I stayed married … The combination of a healthy body and a stable relationship with a self-reliant woman who takes zero shit from me or anyone else has made the continuity of my working life possible.”

Take prompt steps to resolve, or at least ameliorate, health, personal, and relationship problems as well as emotional problems such as depression and anxiety. Remember that procrastination can attack healing endeavors every bit as eagerly as it does your writing, and in particular is likely to strike at the beginning of the project. So, do what you can to get over the initial hump, and see a doctor, therapist, or other professional.

2) Create a Supportive Community.
I write extensively about community throughout this book, and devote Chapters 6, 7, and 8 largely to it. Community’s importance cannot be overstated—in fact, it could well be the determining factor in your success.

Community doesn’t just provide colleagues and mentors; it provides a powerful expectation.
It’s hard, if not impossible, to succeed if people around you are telling you you can’t.
Or if they’re expecting you to sacrifice your goals in favor of theirs. Or if they are threatened by your success. Or if they are ignorant about the mechanisms of success and vocally obstinate in their ignorance.

Writing is such a challenging vocation, in fact, that the absence of hostility isn’t enough: you need active support. Prolific people are assiduous in seeking out supporters and equally assiduous in minimizing contact with those who might undermine them, even if the “underminers” happen to be related. This may not be easy, but the prolific, in common with most successful people, tend to clearly understand the implications of their choices—in this case, the prospect of a life of bitter under-accomplishment—and it’s that clarity that gives them the courage to act.

3) Get an Instructive Hobby.
Many writers have hobbies or other creative outlets in which they are much more productive than their writing, or even wholly unblocked. Every writer should have one, and should practice working out her productivity and perfectionism issues in that realm as well. A student once told of a quilting teacher she had who chirpily told a class, “If no one’s bleeding, we’re doing great!” That’s a great antiperfectionist lesson.

My hobby is hiking, and every time I do it I viscerally re-experience the truth that progress is made one step at a time. Also, I learn important lessons in overcoming fear and asking for help.

4) For Radical Productivity, Follow the Advice in the Book—Radically.
After you can reliably write nonperfectionistically, you free yourself to write easily (without major barriers), and then almost effortlessly (without any barriers to speak of). At this point, writing becomes enthralling and even joyful. Even the “difficult” (in the intellectual or emotional sense) parts of the work become much easier. In fact, you’ll come to see that “easy” and “difficult” are largely arbitrary labels, and that there’s much less difference between the supposedly easy and difficult parts of your projects than you now think.

The state of creativity without barriers is what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihályi famously called “flow.” In flow, you’re deeply engrossed in your work and time flies.

Perfectionists fight their creativity every step of the way, while paradoxically waiting and hoping and praying for flow to arrive. Compassionately objective writers, in contrast, develop work habits and attitudes that invite flow in, and so they experience flow many or even most of the times they write.

In flow, it’s no problem to write for four, six, or even eight hours at a stretch. (With breaks, of course.) In contrast, to a perfectionist even six minutes—or thirty seconds—of writing can seem an eternity.

Do you hunger to write four or more hours at a stretch? Then
radically
embrace compassionate objectivity, and
radically
manage your time and other resources (Chapters 3 and 4), and
radically
optimize your writing process (Chapter 5). Also,
radically
come out as a writer (Chapter 6),
radically
deal with rejection (Chapter 7), and develop a
radically
empowered career path (Chapter 8). Just remember: You can’t rush the process or cut corners, especially at the beginning.

And remember that it is all founded on compassionate objectivity and short timed writing exercises.

Overcoming perfectionism is a key step toward becoming prolific, but for best results you need to write in an environment and context in which you have all the resources you need to create in abundance. That’s the subject of Chapter 3.

Chapter
3

“Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience!”

—Herman Melville,
Moby-Dick

I
n classes we do an exercise where I tell the students, “Hey, everyone, I’ve decided to run a marathon tomorrow. Why not? It’s just running—a natural activity. And I’ve got a pair of sneakers.” Everyone laughs at this obviously naïve statement. “Okay, so what do I need to run a marathon?”

The list we come up with runs something like this:

List of Resources to Run a Marathon

• Running shoes
  
• Running clothes
  
• Watch
  
• Water/water carrier
  
• Music (MP3 player)
  
• Reflectors (if training at night)
  
• Place to practice
  
• Proper nutrition before and during race
  
• Training plan and software
  
• Vaseline
  
• Heart-rate monitor
  
• Sunscreen
  
• Hair band
  

• Dedication
  
• Focus
  
• Ability to “write past wall”
  
• Self knowledge: ability to analyze 
  and improve performance
  
• Self-forgiveness/resilience
  
• Ability to tolerate discomfort
  
• Perseverance
  
• Ability to stay attached to goal
  
• Ability to prioritize and to 
  sacrifice lesser priorities (e.g., 
  to create time for this goal
  
• Devotion to self care (basic nutrition, 
  rest, mental, and physical health)
  
• Luck
  
• Clarity and strength of purpose
  
• Belief in self, the goal, the process, etc.
  
• “Runner's identity”
  

• Supportive family
  
• Supportive boss and coworkers
  
• Coach/mentor/trainer
  
• Running buddy
  
• Friends
  
• Running community
  
• Supportive crowd (during race)
  
• Medical, nutritional, 
  psychological, and 
  other professionals
  

Wow, that’s a long list for “just running.” That’s because, obviously, a marathon isn’t just running, but a kind of serious or “professional” running, and professionalism is more demanding than a casual involvement.

Same goes for your writing. If your aim is small—say, the occasional grocery list or thank you note—then you can probably do it without much preparation or many resources. (Although plenty of people have trouble writing thank you notes!) But if your aim is to produce substantive works, or a serious body of work, then you need to prepare like a professional. And you need professional-caliber tools and other resources.

Before we list those tools and resources, let’s look at some of the other lessons we derive from the marathoner’s exercise.

(1)
Ambitious endeavors require many resources.
In the case of running (and writing, as you’ll see), there are dozens of requirements, and many of them have “sub-requirements.”

(2)
Guessing at the requirements for an ambitious activity isn’t enough
—you must consult experts. Whenever I do the exercise, I ask any runners in the room to refrain from answering until the non-runners have had their chance. The non-runners typically come up with a list that’s half (or less) complete. Then the runners chime in, and typically add a bunch of stuff that the non-runners hadn’t even thought of.

In fact, you need to consult several experts. I’ve never had a class come up with anything near a complete list, and that includes classes with actual marathoners. Also, do an online search. It was online that I learned that Vaseline was a requirement for marathon training. (It prevents chafing.) No one in class has ever mentioned it, but the moment I mention it the runners all say, “Oh, yeah—you REALLY need that.”

(3)
There are three categories of requirements: Material, Psychological, and Community.
In class I don’t mention these categories until after we complete our list but just write down whatever answers people call out. Most people initially focus on the material needs and I have to prompt them to consider that there might be others. Again, the runners tend to do better than the non-runners, but even the runners must be prompted to come up with reasonably complete lists of non-material needs.

This blind spot around our psychological and community needs is a serious impediment to our success not just in vocations like running and writing, but throughout our general lives. It’s also an impediment to societies that want to better themselves. Fortunately, in recent decades we’ve seen increased acceptance of therapy and other tools for helping people meet their psychological needs, and we’ve also seen renewed interest in community.

(4)
Money is a huge blind spot.
My students rarely mention it, and yet you need it to buy everything in the Material Resources column, and also things like transportation to races, race entry fees, running club dues, and sports doctor visits. Money also lets you “buy” time for practicing and running races by allowing you to take time off from your job, work part-time instead of full-time, or hire help to cover your household responsibilities.

Why is money such a blind spot? Perhaps because it’s a “secondary” resource, used to procure others. Or perhaps my students are comparing running with a more obviously expensive sport, like skiing or golf. (Just the same way you might compare “cheap” writing to “expensive” painting or sculpting.) But I also think many people are ambivalent about money in general, and the role it plays in success.

(5)
The more resources you provide for yourself, the better your odds of success. And with every resource you lack your odds diminish.
The relationship between resources and success is direct and strong for reasons I’ll explain in Section 3.4.

(6)
It’s not enough to provide a resource; you must optimize it.
Setting aside twenty hours a week for your practice runs is a good start, but they should be at times when you’re energetic and motivated. If they’re not—if you’re practicing when you’re drained or distracted—you won’t benefit nearly as much.

That said, it’s important to be adaptable. If mornings are your ideal time to practice, you should work to hold most of your practices in the mornings. But if a morning isn’t available, it’s usually better to practice at midday than skip practice entirely.

(7)
Although there may be resources you yourself don’t need, there are no trivial resources.
The lack of a simple hair-band, for instance, could create not just a physical distraction but an actual danger if your sweaty hair gets in your eyes.

(8)
Luck is crucial.
The first time I did this exercise a student who was a marathoner said, “You could have all those other resources, but without luck you still won’t finish the race.” What a revelation! And of course she was right: if the weather is bad, or you have a cold, or you sprain your ankle, you probably won’t finish.