Feeling overwhelmed? Have so many things on your To Do list you don’t know where to start? Tempted to postpone your writing – again – so you can take care of all those other things that somehow you ended up being responsible for? You need the new, patented UnCommit Yourself Method to create spare time! … More Want More Time to Write? Uncommit Yourself
In response to previous posts on humility, Liz Ward asked, “Could I be humility on steroids? If someone compliments my writing, I dismiss them because I KNOW I’m merely an adequate writer with only a hope of being better–it doesn’t matter that I’ve been trained and have made writing a part of a 30-year career. … More Balance Pride and Humility to Reduce Writing Resistance
Sound familiar? Well it is summer and that means re-runs. Here’s why I’m repeating a previously published post: I talked with my editor about revisions on Around the Writer’s Block last week and that’s where my focus is right now. I tried drafting a new post today but realized it’s just not ready for prime-time … More 10 Reasons Every Writer Should Have a Dog
New York Times columnist David Brooks is a writer worthy of respect, a writer to emulate. Brooks consistently sifts through a vast array of research from credible sources, combines and interprets facts to create new insight and wisdom, and then wraps that intelligence with delightful humor that engages his audience. I highly recommend his book … More Recommendation: David Brooks Delivers a Modesty Manifesto at Aspen Ideas Festival
The blank screen or page can be dangerous – stare at it too long and every idea you ever had can be wiped away. Avoiding the blank screen/page until you know exactly what to write is just as dangerous. Some days you’ll be blessed with ideas and images that inspire your writing and make it … More Don’t Know How to Start Writing or Where to Go Next?
(In Part 1, we identified the Poop Principle; in Part 2, we saw how love brings us back to our writing.) We love writing (or love at least a significant part of writing), yet we all have excuses and ways to avoid writing. Why this is so puzzled me for years. I explored and reflected … More Poop on Writer’s Block Part 3: A Habit of Love
Part 1 invited you to write your Writer’s Poop List of the things you don’t love about being a writer. So why do we deal with all this s**t? Why do I pick up what a friend euphemistically calls “recycled dog food”? Because I love my dogs and that is part of having dogs to … More Poop on Writer’s Block Part 2: Love Brings Us Back
“Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.” – Pablo Picasso Creation and destruction are opposite ends of the Transformation Continuum. You can’t create something without destroying something else. Create music, destroy silence. Create a garden, destroy weeds. Create a story, destroy all the other possible ways you could have told … More 10 Ways to Break Writer’s Block – Literally
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
Bane of Your Resistance 