5 strategies for moving through “writer’s block”
It is not neurotic to sit at a desk all day devising an imaginary world. It is not even neurotic to sit all day at a desk trying to devise an imaginary world but not succeeding in doing so. What is neurotic is to hate oneself for doing or not doing either of these activities.
—Victoria Nelson
[This post is a follow-up to The art of the coddiwomple (or, “writer’s block” revisited).]
Drafting is joyful again, though it isn’t enough to feel relieved and grateful. I’ve been asking myself, What has helped? And why has it helped? How do you channel your creative energy while you’re waiting on that breakthrough? I’ve teased out several distinct practices and ways of being, which I have semi-consciously employed in tandem. Only one or two of these suggestions may resonate for you, so let’s just say the point is to keep close this one pure nugget of truth:
It may look to all the world like you are “stuck,” but you are actually in DISCOVERY MODE.
Stay curious and reflective and you’ll come up with more than a few solid strategies of your own.
I’ve settled upon my own definition of discipline.
Counterintuitive as it may sound, thinking of myself first and foremost as a “soft animal body” (thank you, Mary Oliver!) has done a world of good for my creative discipline. When I talk to friends about Kate and Nancy’s excellent parenting of my nieces and nephew, I characterize their approaches as love and discipline in perfect balance, and that’s something we can employ in our relationships with ourselves too.
For example, I have often called myself “clumsy” out loud when I’ve dropped or knocked into something. The other night, when my boyfriend dropped something and reacted the same way, I said: “What if we promise we are not going to call ourselves clumsy anymore, no matter what?” He readily agreed.
The next morning, I bumped my elbow into a carton of blueberries, a handful of which went scattering across the kitchen floor. “Aha!” I cried. “I am not allowed to call myself clumsy!” Instead, we arranged the fallen blueberries into an arrow pointing toward the dog, who promptly gobbled them up. We got a good laugh out of it, and though I can’t quantify this, I feel sure I poured that positive feeling into my workweek, which has been extra productive and joyful. (Note to self: research the research on reparenting and creativity!)
What discipline is:
Setting an intention to do a certain type of work (drafting, revising, admin, etc.) at a certain time of day, for a certain length of time (or until I feel jangly-brained, which happens after two to four hours of drafting), with distractions minimized; and following through on that intention to the best of my ability.
Setting reasonable boundaries with regard to my working conditions (see what I wrote in my last post about the DC Writers’ Room).
Preparing for productive work sessions by either packing lunch and snacks for the day (which entails meal prep and grocery shopping) or deciding on a solid takeout option (read: good value and keeps me full for hours, like a Chipotle sofritas burrito) ahead of time.
Also discipline: A willingness to recognize when the work I planned to do isn’t actually the most effective or fulfilling work to be doing that day after all, and pivoting accordingly. Reaffirming the value of scratching.
What discipline is NOT:
Inward name-calling or other forms of self-beratement. (No more “lazy” either!)
Setting up an unnecessarily complicated productivity system that I will inevitably not adhere to for more than a day, leading us back to habit #1.
Trying to adhere to a 9-5 Monday-Friday work schedule because that is what is understood and respected in this culture.
Revising a manuscript from 10am to 11pm (or later) with very infrequent bathroom and meal breaks. (It may look like I am “working hard,” but it is certainly not healthy.) In general, being “so in flow” that I forget I have to pee.
All this amounts to setting healthier boundaries with oneself. Remember Victoria Nelson’s adage that creative discipline arises naturally out of one’s deepest preferences? Many of the most profoundly contented moments of my life occur at a desk in a shared space where silence is the rule, with a pile of notes and a thermos of Earl Grey. Those are my preferences. Notice what your preferences are and then do your best to live by them.
More than ever before, I am continually on the lookout for a reason to laugh.
I want to improve my comedic writing skills, and I want to get better at not taking things personally and taking myself less seriously in general. But the pursuit of these worthy goals isn’t what’s making a difference.
I believe this meme originated with Merry Blacksmith, but please feel free to correct me.
I figured out pretty early on that as a creative person, it is critical to surround yourself with folks who’ll only say “You’re so silly!” or “Man, are you WEIRD!” in a tone of astonished admiration. Admittedly these folks are rare birds, as clearly implied by the Apple Dictionary thesaurus:
Having friends who truly appreciate one’s quirks is necessary for the maintenance of one’s self esteem. Yet it hadn’t occurred to me that being in a relationship with someone who actually enjoys me randomly speaking in cartoon voices, and with whom nonsense song lyrics and groan-worthy puns are a secondary love language, could have such an amplifying effect on my creativity. No coincidence that the middle-grade novel I’m drafting right now is the funniest thing I’ve written (and that includes Petty Magic). Of course, part of this newfound facility with jokes and wordplay is the result of the foundational work of character development, but where do hilarious three-dimensional characters come from?
“Would you still love me if I was a worm?”
“Well, dear, that would all depend on whether the scenario owes more to Kafka or Rick Moranis…”
Or let me put it to you this way: how conducive are etiquette and convention to creativity?
It doesn’t matter if it’s comedy in a more structured form or indulging one’s absurdist tendencies in private—it seems obvious, doesn’t it, that “silly people” are more likely to think thoughts no one else has ever thought before? (Okay, so we won’t ever know for sure—suffice to say it is possible.) Think of the jester of medieval legend, who was the only one allowed to point out the absurdities of the court. In this sense, to be “foolish” is to be wise.
So go ahead and rejig the lyrics to a cheesy ’80s power ballad on the fly. Sing at the top of your lungs. Giggle uncontrollably. Repeat.
And see what happens next.
I have re-immersed myself in children’s lit.
Last Christmas I gave my niece a copy of Phoebe Wahl’s Little Witch Hazel, and we love it more every time we read it together. The summer chapter is the most thematically relevant for (most) grown-ups, but my favorite is the winter chapter, in which Hazel spends all day helping her neighbors (tending to wounds, caring for newborn bunnies, and so forth) in the shadow of an impending blizzard. I revel in the moment when Otis swoops down to gather a lost and tired Hazel up out of the snowy darkness, and I get to hoot like an owl.
When Heather visited last year I shared the book with her, and of course she saw right away how nourishing this book is for one’s inner children. In a recent newsletter she wrote,
“As a child—okay, even now—I wanted to live at the base of a tree, with a rounded hobbit door. I'd wear felt slippers and sleep under quilts and live by candlelight, eating berries from my neighbors, the deer. Braided rugs under my feet, cups of hot cocoa, a roaring fireplace despite the fact that I live in a tree.”
Heather surprised me with this Little Witch Hazel print for my birthday! (Photo by Jason.)
The material comforts and aesthetic pleasures of such a fantasy life are actually about cultivating a sense of safety and belonging, whether the reader is four, a hundred and four, or anywhere in between. Cozy children’s lit puts us in the best possible head- and heart-space for creative renewal.
As for middle grade, I’ve listened to many old favorites on the Libby app, like Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, The Egypt Game, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (the version narrated by Brooke Shields). I finally “read” Howl’s Moving Castle—I did not enjoy it as much as I expected to, although I will certainly be reading more Diana Wynne Jones—and I can also recommend the audio versions of Karen Cushman’s The Midwife’s Apprentice and Catherine Gilbert Murdock’s Da Vinci’s Cat (her Newbery-honored The Book of Boy is one of my all-time favorite middle-grade novels).
In general, when you’re feeling creatively pinched it’s one of the wisest things you can do to immerse yourself in categories and genres you wouldn’t normally read. Little Free Libraries are the perfect resource for serendipitized book selections! (More on LFL in a future post on systematically “redistributing” my home library.)
I have analyzed the narrative structure of novels (and films) I remember fondly.
I’d been wanting to reread my favorite Neil Gaiman novel, and it turns out the plot of Neverwhere corresponds quite neatly to the 15-beat Save the Cat! formula apart from the transposition of beats #11 and #12 (“All is Lost” and “Dark Night of the Soul”). This makes sense given that Save the Cat! is largely (if arguably) a distillation of industry conventions, and that Gaiman conceived of Neverwhere as a television mini-series and novelized it in the midst of the scriptwriting process. Richard’s misadventure in Neverwhere maps even more neatly onto the Heroine’s Journey, since his descent into the underworld is a literal one, and he makes it through his ordeal with help from a cast of newfound trickster-frenemies who eventually become true friends. (There’s more, but in case you haven’t read this novel yet I don’t want to spoil it for you.)
I enjoyed this exercise so much that I want to make this an official (if occasional) practice. Once Rebecca Roanhorse’s Black Sun trilogy is complete (June of this year!!), I plan to analyze the overarching plot strands Book-Architecture-style, though realistically I may not finish this exercise before 2025. (Please leave a comment if this is something you’d find helpful to have in PDF format inside my resource library!)
Depending on the novel (or film) you choose, a closer reading can open up many more fruitful avenues of learning. I gained a whole new level of enjoyment (and more to the point: writerly insight) in reading this feminist essay by Belle Waring on the hidden narrator of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, for instance, and from a fascinating film studies dissertation analyzing the 12-beat story structure Frank Capra used in several of his best-known films. (Thank you, Brian Geoffrey Rose!)
I practice “selfish creativity.”
“Going pro” means that nothing you write is purely for your own satisfaction. Even lines from my private writing tend to worm their way into my novels. (Yes, I want to see how many times I can drop a “worm” in this blog post.) Have I ever promised myself I’d write a story “just for me” without thinking at least fleetingly about eventually publishing it?
…Nope.
With all my talk of creative cross-pollination [here’s a YouTube link from 2021], I’ve been dancing around this concept for a long time now. “Selfish creativity” refers to a creative practice that IS solely for your own delight and satisfaction. It’s not something you’re secretly hoping to make a living at someday, or something you feel like you “should” be “into,” like baking focaccia because everybody else is (apparently) doing it. It’s something you do because it makes you feel radiantly happy to be alive.
(The first thing that popped into your head when you read that last sentence? That’s probably it.)
Since I was a little girl I’ve wanted to sleep under a quilt I sewed for myself. For a long time, I made quilts and gave them away. Often the same with my knitting. I’ve been talking in therapy about my tendency to overgive, so designing (and finishing!) things for my own home and person has become a therapeutic exercise as well.
Working on this project (the pattern is “Minnie Stars” from Quiltfolk) in the midst of “writer’s block” has allowed me to feel much more serene about the situation than I would have otherwise. Because how could I berate myself for not being creative enough when something so colorful and comforting was taking shape under my own two hands?
It’s taking forever to quilt it by hand, and I’m okay with that. I’ve bound it so I can use it on the bed now, and will finish the handiwork next summer (…perhaps? I’ve got a bunch more projects waiting!)
Do you know how good it feels to fall asleep all warm and snuggly on a cold winter’s night, under something you made?
Maybe quilting’s not your thing—it could be something else. But find and do the thing that gives you the shimmers, and watch how it changes your writing practice (not to mention your inner monologue).
I’m going to save a discussion of private writing specifically for moving through “block,” and how best to approach writing about your writing, for a subsequent post, because I know not everyone has the time to settle in for 4,000+ words.
Let me know if you have tried, or intend to try, any of these strategies—and how it’s worked out for you! 🪱
