The 7 Secrets of the Prolific Writer's Block (8 page)

Blind spots.
Perfectionism is fundamentally delusional, so I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that, in classes, it commonly happens that, a few minutes after reviewing the list of perfectionist symptoms, someone will come out with a blatantly perfectionist statement that they don’t recognize as such. Remember: Any harsh judgment, dichotomization, negative reductive labeling, fetish, etc., is probably perfectionist.

Sometimes a student will say, “I actually don’t mind my perfectionism,” or, “I don’t think perfectionism is all bad.” They are confusing perfectionism with having high standards.
Perfectionism is not about setting high standards: it’s about setting unrealistic or unachievable standards and then punishing yourself harshly for failing to meet them.
It is a form of delusional thinking that is always antiproductive!

So that, in a rather large nutshell, is perfectionism’s repertoire. Pretty extensive, isn’t it? It is hard to overestimate perfectionism’s impact on our lives since it tends to distort our thinking at a fundamental level. Someone will be telling me about their writing, or another difficult challenge, and my half of the conversation will go: “That’s perfectionist ... That’s perfectionist ... That’s perfectionist, too ... And, wow, that’s
really
perfectionist.” Perfectionism, as I mentioned at the very beginning of this chapter, is not a behavior or habit but a toxic filter that can grow to pervade every aspect of our thinking and behavior.

Fortunately, however, there’s an equally powerful repertoire of behaviors we can use to overcome it! I’ll get to those shortly—I know you’re waiting for it—but first let’s do a quick overview of the common causes of perfectionism. It’s important that you recognize them so you can defend yourself against them.

I
’ve already mentioned a prime source of perfectionism: the media (Section 2.2). The media are soaked in perfectionism, which means we basically swim in an ocean of perfectionism our entire lives.

Dramatic narratives of stupendous success achieved under adverse conditions, including “rags to riches,” “overnight success,” “accidental success,” “self-made success,” and “teenage billionaire” stories are, overwhelmingly, perfectionist bunk. If you can find a story that talks honestly about how someone achieved their success, including the role that family connections and luck played, and the compromises and sacrifices he and others made (in the latter case, often not entirely willingly), that might be an exception—but these truthfully told success stories are so rare as to not be worth your time to look. (You can get real stories of success from your colleagues and mentors.)

Perfectionism is also ubiquitous because it sells products. If I can convince you that your clothes are unfashionable, your house unclean, and your kids subpar, I can sell you products that supposedly solve these supposed problems.

Perfectionism also sneaks into our media through advertising slogans (“no pain, no gain”), movie clichés (“they all lived happily ever after”), and television shows that depict easy living or easy success (most sitcoms).

You must be vigilant about not buying into any of the media’s perfectionist fantasies even a little. Be aware, though, that society acts on us not simply through overt perfectionist messages, but also by creating a perfectionist context fundamentally hostile to creativity—see Section 6.7 for more on that.

We also get perfectionism from our
parents and other relatives
, who say things like, “Is this the best you can do?” “Why just a B?” “Why can’t you do as well as your sister?” “It’s not about trying, it’s about succeeding.” “It’s easy! What’s your problem?” And, “If you don’t get into the Ivy League [or become a doctor or lawyer], you’re letting the whole family down.” These are the kinds of statements that turn up years or decades later in people’s self-abusive litanies, in addition to the many nonperfectionist misguided or outright abusive messages many parents convey, including “You’ll never amount to anything,” “Who do you think you are, wanting to be a writer?” and “Girls can’t do math.”

Many procrastinators grew up in neglectful or abusive households
and learned to survive as children by hiding (figuratively or literally; see Section 6.1). Invisibility is a great strategy for a kid who doesn’t have a lot of other options, but it’s a terrible strategy for adults, including writers who need to be able to show their work and interact within professional communities. Chapter 6 is all about how you can overcome the strong tendency toward invisibility and isolation that many procrastinators have.

Bosses
are often perfectionist, especially those who expect us to produce in chaotic, badly managed workplaces or without adequate resources, and those who see us as “resources” to be exploited rather than human beings with full lives. (“It’s too bad your kid is sick, but I still need you to come in today.”) Like all oppressors, they inevitably blame the victim, and therefore many people carry around a burden of shame for work “failures” that were either not failures or not their fault.

Teachers
are a prime source of perfectionism. Along with saying the kinds of dumb, perfectionist things parents say, or expecting results that conflict with their own poor performance, like some bosses, teachers also often deliver the kinds of toxic rejections that lead to trauma and blocks (see below, and Chapter 7). There are a lot of bad teachers out there, unfortunately, and at all levels—and students can often quote me verbatim harsh or callous remarks that a teacher made years or decades earlier.

I particularly regret to say that there are many, many bad
writing
teachers out there, in part because many writers teach only to make money and have no real love or affinity for teaching (Section A.8).

Below is a list of teacher malfeasances; it’s long not because I want to pick on teachers, but because I don’t want you to blame yourself if you have been victimized by a teacher who behaved in any of the ways listed. I strongly believe that, except in unusual circumstances, learning failures and fiascos are never the student’s fault. Students
come to their teachers with legitimate needs, expectations, and dependencies, and are also relatively powerless. Teaching is not an easy job—and many teachers are, of course, themselves disempowered by their institutions or other forces—but that doesn’t excuse unprofessionalism. Although an oppressive teacher will be quick to blame the student in case of problems, the student should never believe that.

Teacher malfeasances:
harshness (attacking); bias (against you, your subject matter, your style); rigidity and dogmatism (only one way to succeed or make progress); pickiness (lack of proportion; attacking); fatalism (about you or your work); overgeneralization from one work; jealousy; competitiveness; unresponsiveness; criticalness (of you, your life, and/or your values); unpredictability; erraticness; lack of compassion, empathy, or kindness; playing favorites (with or against you); coming on to you inappropriately (in friendship or sexually); stealing your work; not admitting his/her own mistakes or limitations; admitting problems but not apologizing, atoning, or rectifying; lack of preparedness or other unprofessionalism; dishonesty; denial of truth about writing process or careers; obfuscation or mystification; aggressiveness; condescension; patronizing attitude; inadequateness (intellectually or otherwise); lack of time for you; laxity; uncaringness.

“Innate perfectionism.”
People often ask whether someone could be “born perfectionist.” It’s true that some kids are born with a more critical or judgmental temperament than others—any parent knows that. So it would be fair to say that some kids have a
propensity
for perfectionism. But compassionate parenting and teaching can help kids avoid perfectionism. Remember that criticality itself is not perfectionism: perfectionism is when you set unreasonable standards and punish yourself harshly for failing to meet them, are grandiose, emphasize product over process, etc. Criticality itself, in the sense of being able to make meaningful distinctions, is a good thing.

Unfortunately, perfectionism is so pervasive that most kids wind up having their perfectionist tendencies reinforced.

T
rauma is what psychologists call the collection of psychological and physiological changes that can arise from incidents of profound helplessness in the face of threat. You may be familiar with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which happens to victims of war, violent crime, or natural disaster; its symptoms include intellectual or emotional rigidity (inflexibility), dichotomous (black-and-white) thinking, and attempts at control.

Notice how those behaviors also characterize perfectionism. In fact, I’ve learned that
many cases of writer’s block are really a kind of trauma catalyzed by a traumatic rejection or criticism (Section 7.1)
. The way I learned this was that I would be discussing a cause of perfectionism in class—say, bad teaching or a callous rejection—and a student would say something like, “I just realized that something like that happened to me, and I never finished a work after that.” Or, “I never submitted anything after that.” Or never workshopped a piece again, wrote fiction again, etc. This happened over and over again until I realized that traumatic incidents were very common causes of blocks.

Maybe you can look back at your writing history and find a similar traumatic catalyst for your underproductivity.

It’s important to realize that what makes a rejection traumatic is not simply what is said, but its context (Section 7.2). Relatively mild criticism from a writer whom we revere can be much more devastating than horrible criticism from a clueless relative. Also, rejection will tend to be felt more keenly by those who overidentify with their work or are otherwise perfectionist.

If you’ve suffered from professional (or other) trauma, you should see a therapist or other specialist.

Many events will cause your perfectionism to spike, and when that happens I call it
“situational perfectionism.”
A harsh rejection or criticism will do it, of course, but so, paradoxically, will a success, if it causes you to raise the bar for future achievement or focus on external rewards. Here’s how one particular writer reacted to the unexpected success of her first published novel: “For the first time ever in my life, I got writer’s block. The stakes seemed to have gone up a lot, and I attracted a lot of publicity in Britain for which I was utterly unprepared.”
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The famous “second novel problem” is classic situational perfectionism, as is the situation when a precociously successful young writer shuts down after getting seriously critiqued or rejected for the first time. To make matters worse for that second group, their early success means they typically never got the essential lessons in coping that the rest of us got perforce—a problem J.K. Rowling addressed in her brilliant 2008 Harvard commencement address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination.
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” There is also usually an element of blindsiding to these types of rejections, which only makes things worse (Section 7.2).

Another common type of situational perfectionism is when someone who’s been blocked starts writing reliably, but then gets cocky and expects too-fast improvement. They’ll use the timer (Section 2.14) reliably for ten minutes a day, for instance, and then all of a sudden decide they’re “cured” and set it for thirty minutes—thus triggering perfectionist anxiety. (Devious procrastination will actually militate for you to do this.) That’s why the timer should never be increased more than around 25% every week.

And yet another example of situational perfectionism is when you have made a financial investment in your writing, such as a new computer, redecorated office, babysitter, or class or conference, and are now telling yourself you
must
write so that the money isn’t wasted. Ditto for a time investment, such as taking a leave from your job or switching to part-time work.

A particularly dangerous time for situational perfectionism is just after you’ve finished a class or workshop, or graduated from a program.
Suddenly, you’re much less supported than you were—no writing community, deadlines, mentorship, etc.—but also under pressure to not only maintain your productivity but recoup your educational investment. There’s also a natural tendency, after a workshop, to feel ready—or wish we were ready—to begin a more ambitious work.

In general,
transitions and re-entries (e.g., from vacation to “real life”) are tough
, and we tend to lose productivity during them. As noted in Section 2.5, the transition from undergraduate to graduate school is often especially tough, in part because of the poor job many graduate programs do in preparing their new students for what’s to come.

As with all cases of perfectionism, your rationalizations for your situational perfectionism will probably be compelling. But you need to see through them and categorically reject all forms of perfectionism.

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Margaret Weir, “Of Magic and Single Motherhood: Bestselling Author J.K. Rowling is Still Trying to Fathom the Instant Fame That Came with Her First Children’s Novel,” Salon, March 31, 1999 (www.salon.com/life/feature/1999/03/cov_31featureb.html).

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Rowling, J.K., “The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination,” (Harvard Commencement Address), June 5, 2008, (harvardmagazine.com/commencement/the-fringe-benefits-failure-the-importance-imagination).

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he major solutions to perfectionism and procrastination are: