Breaking promises to yourself damages your trust in yourself, increases resistance and makes it harder to do what will work for your writing. Norman Mailer points out in The Spooky Art: Some Thoughts on Writing: “If you tell yourself you are going to be at your desk tomorrow, you are by that declaration asking your […]
Archive | 2012
Why New Year’s Resolutions Are Bad for Writers
Question: What’s the difference between a New Year’s resolution and a broken promise? Answer: About three to six weeks. Research shows that 78% to 88% of New Year’s resolutions fail. Resolutions are destined to fail in part because they rely on will power, which cannot last. Applying will power is repeatedly making a decision to […]
How to Build Stronger Writing Habits
In the previous post, you identified your writing habits and your resisting habits. To transform those resisting habits into writing habits, it helps to know just a bit about how habits work in your brain. When you think a certain thought or take a particular action, a series of neurons fire in sequence along a […]
Do You have Writing Habits or Resisting Habits?
Anything you can do to strengthen your writing habits and weaken the resisting habits will make your life so much easier and satisfying. Resisting habits are the thoughts and actions that make it less likely you will write. For example, consistently checking your email and Facebook when you think about writing decreases the chances you […]
Writer’s Block Is Rare, But Real
In a previous post, I invited you to share your definition of writer’s block. Here’s how I see it. True writer’s block – the full-fledged aphasia and paralysis of wanting and needing to write, making yourself available to write, and consciously enduring the agony of not being able to eke out the words – is […]
Response to Silas House’s Essay “The Art of Being Still”
Note: I’ll pick up the discussion of whether real writers get writer’s block later this week. Silas House recently published “The Art of Being Still” in the New York Times. I agree with everything in this intriguing essay about the writer’s need for stillness except this comment: “We writers must become multitaskers who can be […]
Do Real Writers Get Writer’s Block?
Is writer’s block, as one writer described it in a LinkedIn discussion forum, nothing more than “a psychosomatic illness which afflicts wannabe writers or poseurs”? Is this a fair assessment or the equivalent of a man who’s never seen combat declaring “Shell shock, battle fatigue, PTSD, whatever you call it, is the refuge of cowards […]
What Do You Want More of in Your Writing?
Even though there’s a risk in publishing a blog about writer’s resistance, I’m grateful for the opportunity to exchange ideas with talented writers like you. The risk? In a nutshell, we get more of what we focus our attention on. According to extensive social science research in the field of Appreciative Inquiry, what we expect […]
Do You Love Writing… Or Are You In Love With Writing?
Are you passionately in love with writing or are you and your writing an old, married couple? When you’re in love, you tingle with passion, desire, excitement. Every moment is an opportunity to discover another fascinating detail about your beloved. Even the risk of being disappointed, rejected or broken-hearted is thrilling. When you love, you’re […]
Weird Ways to Get Rid of Writer’s Block and Resistance
The next time you have a weird dream that makes no sense, celebrate! The brain practices what we need to learn and/or remember while we sleep. Nonsensical dreams are your brain’s way of practicing stepping beyond the limits of rational thinking. Of course your rational, practical mind wants to call that kind of thinking “illogical” […]
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Bane of Your Resistance 