New Year Resolutions are worse than a waste of time. Depending on what statistics and studies you look at, anywhere from 78% to 92% of the people who make resolutions fail to keep them. New Year Resolutions train you to break promises to yourself, which is the opposite of what writers who want to move … More Abandon New Year Resolutions
If you’re surprised by how long it’s been since you spent time with your writing, you’ve fallen into the trap of unrecognized resistance. It’s an easy trap to fall into – you don’t write for a day or two, so you don’t track your writing for those days. Two days stretch into three or four … More Avoid the Trap of Unrecognized Writing Resistance: Tricks of Tracking #1
How could writer’s resistance steal your creativity without you knowing it? Doesn’t every writer who’s blocked know s/he is blocked? I’ll answer those questions with another: Have you ever gotten to the end of the week and suddenly realized you didn’t show up for Product Time (aka your writing), Self-Care or Process the way you … More Is Writer’s Resistance Secretly Stealing Your Creativity?
As a writer, what do you give thanks for? Your computer? Teachers who taught you to read and write? Writers who inspire you? Your vision and the flexibility of your fingers and brain? Can you see how resistance, even full-fledged block, might be something to be thankful for? When we feel resistance, we both want … More What Are You Thankful For?
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?
If you’ve wondered what the heck is going on in your brain when you want to write and can’t or don’t, you’re going to love this! I’m teaching a two-hour class called “Why Is It So Hard To Write Even When I Want To?”Absolutely free! This and two other classes I’m teaching at Scott County … More More Free Writing Classes!
Writing habits trump resistance. If you want to make it easier to write and write regularly, you need writing habits. (I suggest regularly showing up for short sessions of Process, Product Time and Self-care as the basic habits every writer should give her/himself.) To create or improve your writing habits (or to change any other … More Track Your Way Past Writer’s Block to Writing Success
“Part of what helps me stick with my writing is the chance to reset my commitments every week when I check-in with my writing buddies. If I fall off the wagon (in other words if I don’t do everything I committed to doing), I get back much sooner. It’s easier to get back into the … More Avoid Writer’s Block with Weekly Check-ins
Susan, a student in my Entering the Flow class this summer, mentioned a great exercise she’d done in Rebecca Kanner’s single-session Loft class, Silencing the Inner Critic. I thought the exercise sounded like a brilliant way to see the Saboteur from a different perspective and asked Rebecca to write a guest post about it. Here … More Pass the Critic
Writers hate to make mistakes in print and the fear of that is a common source of resistance. But Niels Bohr defined an expert as a person who “has made all the mistakes that can be made in a narrow field.” I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but I don’t think I’m anywhere near making … More Embrace Mistakes to Sidestep Writer’s Block
Bane of Your Resistance 