Have you seen the Marshmallow Test? Four-year-olds are given a marshmallow and told that they can eat the marshmallow whenever they want, but if they wait until the researcher comes back, they can have a second marshmallow. The videos are sometimes funny, sometimes poignant as the kids devise different strategies to avoid the temptation or […]
Archive | May, 2011
Step Away From the Catnip and No One Gets Writer’s Block
My intuition tells me there is something more significant about multitasking than just “don’t do it.” It’s about focus; it’s about the ability and freedom to choose what to pay attention to. Without that ability to focus, our struggles with writing resistance will be futile. My next couple of posts will explore this connection between […]
The Right to Write What’s Right for You
Identify the Opportunity and Desire Take a few minutes to complete this sentence (on the page or screen or in your head): “I want to write…” Did you write mainly about what content you want to write (e.g. a story about a rodeo clown, or poetry that moves people to tears, or an essay about […]
Multitasking Kills Creativity and Causes Writer’s Block
If you think you can carve out time for your writing by multitasking, think again. The cortex cannot truly multitask; you can pay focused, conscious attention to only one thing at a time. When you attempt to multitask, you actually shift your attention from one task to another and back again. Every time you shift […]
Learning to Be Brave, Not Blocked
Frustration and rejection are the tuition for persistance.
Do!
Since the heart of writer’s block is “Don’t Do It!”, the solution must be “Do!” Thanks to Susan S. for sending me a link to “My Favorite Artistic Advice,” a YouTube animation based on a letter by the artist Sol LeWitt, written to the artist Eva Hesse, with slight alterations (and animation) by Levni Yilmaz. The animation is […]
When Your Writing Is Stuck, Hold On
Pam McAlister (who we met in the previous post When Your Writing Is Stuck, Let Go) was able to let go of expectations because she had assumptions to hold on to. She assumed she would keep honoring her writing commitments, she assumed she had people to rely on and she assumed her writing had purpose. […]
When Your Writing Is Stuck, Let Go
Expectations and demands that our writing MUST be something are a great way to get ourselves stuck. It’s a paradox: you can only do what you really want to do when you stop trying so hard to do it. Creativity thrives on these kinds of paradoxes.
Contact Rosanne
rosanne@rosannebane.com
Bane of Your Resistance 