You know the feeling – the adrenaline rush of fear that makes your stomach queasy and your mouth dry; the frenzy of desperately searching through papers, files, folders, books, clutter; the insistence that “It has to be here, I can’t have lost it.” “It” is the draft that disappeared when your computer crashed, the mind … More I Can’t Believe I Lost My Writing!
Natalie Blake, an online instructor at the College City, shares her “field research” on the many forms of writing resistance. I stumbled on the Bane Of Your Resistance blog by accident, but after reading through her description of resistance, I decided Rosanne has been peeking over my shoulder. Boy, did she peg me but good! … More Writing, How Do I Resist Thee? Let Me Count the Ways… A Guest Post by Natalie Blake
You can stop feeling regret about not getting around to writing and start feeling proud of the progress you make! The rest of your summer will be so much more enjoyable because you’re taking action. I’ll read and respond to ten pages of your writing when you enroll in any of my Loft Summer Classes: Writing … More 7 Reasons to Join Me in a Loft Class This Summer
Another solution suggested for the dry well problem (which we looked at in previous posts) is to beg, borrow or steal water/writing. Or as I prefer to think of it: invite, cite and rewrite. Invite: Come On In, The Writing Is Fine The point of begging is to get something for nothing because you’re perceived … More Can I Borrow a Cup of Inspiration?
In the previous post, I observed that sometimes resistance is not so much a tangible obstacle as it is an absence of creative inspiration, energy and initiative. Following the metaphor of a dry well, the solutions we would take if our water source disappeared can tell us what to do to restore our creative wellspring. … More Can You Dig Your Way Out of a Creative Dry Spell?
Imagine you depend on a well for all your water. What would you do if that well ran dry? How many alternative solutions can you think of?” That’s the question I posed to the writers attending a First Pages workshop last Saturday. (First Pages are FREE writing workshops co-sponsored by the Loft Literary Center and … More The “What If” Cure For Writer’s Block
Are you editing too soon? Do you eliminate ideas before you even get them on the page? Do you think of a sentence, decide that’s stupid, try to think of another, which you think is just as stupid? Do you give up just when the editing should really start? Editing and Drafting Don’t Mix Many … More Want To Break Writer’s Block? Timing Is Everything
You’ve seen dozens of creativity quizzes (and probably scored very nicely on them), but have you ever seen a destructivity quiz? If you did see one, would you take it? And how would you want to score? The unwillingness to see ourselves as destructive is a subtle, but significant, source of resistance. Because drafting is … More Destructivity Quiz
I’m delighted to introduce today’s Guest Author: Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew. Elizabeth is the author of Writing the Sacred Journey, Swinging on the Garden Gate, and On the Threshold: Home, Holiness, and Hardwood. I’ll give the rest of Elizabeth’s bio after she’s charmed you with the post (it’ll mean more to you then). I just came … More Seeing Again… and Again and Again
Some writers don’t realize that they’ve got writer’s resistance. They think they’re lazy or undisciplined, untalented or don’t really want to write. All of this is Saboteur-speak, the self-destructive lies we tell ourselves when we’re in the clutches of the Saboteur. It’s important to recognize resistance for what it is: natural, normal and most importantly, … More Still Lazy After All These Years?
Bane of Your Resistance 