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 … More Step Away From the Marshmallow 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 … More Step Away From the Catnip and No One Gets Writer’s Block
Frustration and rejection are the tuition for persistance. … More Learning to Be Brave, Not Blocked
The effective writer’s personality is not at the center. Her talent isn’t at the center. Her ego and self-worth are not at the center. The writing task is at the center.
This is how writers can quiet the conscious self and all the inner chatter that is the origin of resistance. The better we direct our attention away from our own qualities – our expectations, nerves, reputation – the easier it is to lose ourselves in the creative flow. We can prevent ourselves from thinking too much about ourselves as writers or about the quality of any given day’s writing – which is death to flow performance.
If you don’t think of writing as something you have to do, you never find time for it, but if you do make writing something you have to do, it leeches all the joy out of it.
Here’s where a Product Time habit comes to the rescue.
… More Keep Writer’s Block at Bay by Keeping Writing Something You Get to Do Part 2
This blog is two years old today and I’m so glad I get to write it today. (Mini-brag: for two years, I published at least one post per week, which was my commitment when I started. Hooray for me!) How often do you talk about writing as something you “get to do today”? When you … More Keep Writer’s Block at Bay by Keeping Writing Something You Get to Do Part 1
That’s the magic of taking even just a small step: movement begets movement. Just one email can trigger an avalanche of activity. The trick, of course, is to make sure you’re moving in the right direction. But if you’re feeling immobilized by resistance, just about any movement is a good idea. It’s a lot easier to adjust the direction when you’re moving than it is from a dead stop.
Is there a real difference between a creative flow state (while writing or engaged in any other creative activity) and being lost in a digital trance (which could include being absorbed by TV, emails, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, shopping, etc.)? For most of us, the digital trance is so close to what we’re really looking for in the flow state, we keep going there, hoping that this time it’ll be all we need without enduring the risk and fear that come with surrendering to the flow. What happens in the brain with addiction and resistance are very different processes. But the search for something that’s almost what you need is remarkably similar. … More Does Your Writer’s Block Rely on a Digital Trance?
The idea that only certain writers get writer’s block is snobbery and classism. There is nothing inherently noble or damning in being blocked or feeling resistance. … More Only the Good Get Blocked
Do you hear the whisper of self-doubt or the roar of criticism whenever you even think about writing? Do you have a collection of excuses and reasons not to write? Do you have other behaviors and beliefs that undermine your writing? That’s the Saboteur at work. But you don’t have to let the Saboteur run … More Want to End Writer’s Block? Stop Feeding the Saboteur!
Bane of Your Resistance 