Writer’s Block is Always Caused and Curable

This essay by Fairfield University professor Elizabeth Boquet on how her writing productivity suffered when she switched from teaching to administration is a perfect illustration of the principles that:

1) procrastination/writers block/underproductivity are always caused (versus being some kind of intrinsic moral flaw like “laziness” or “lack of discipline”);

2) the causes are always outside ourselves, in our current or past contexts; and

3) it’s *far* more productivite to problem-solve around the causes than succumb to shame, blame, or guilt.

Oh, and

4) THE PROBLEM IS SOLVABLE.
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Terre Roche: Happiness Comes From Focusing on the Song, Not the Success

Terre Roche and her sisters were substantially more than a flash in the rock ‘n roll pan in the late 1970’s. Their debut album, The Roches, was number one on the New York Times list for the year 1979. But as she describes in this moving article, massive critical acclaim does not always translate into vast wealth. The band of sisters parted ways with their high-powered manager without ever delivering the commercial triumph he wanted.

Now in her sixties, Terre has long since come to terms with that chapter of her life, and has grown in her art. Now the music is for the music, and she is excited about the quality of her new song, Maxwell. (You’ll find a link to the song in the article.)

“Maxwell is complete. It’s not a hit song. It’s probably not going to make any money. I’d rather listen to it, as if it were a teacher. I have friends whose songs have made lots of money. I envy them. But personally, I’ve given up on the idea of writing a commercial song. And when I did that, I entered into a deeper, more fulfilling relationship with songwriting, unencumbered by the demands of the marketplace.” (Bolding ours – ed.)

Terre focuses on the creative process now, not being driven by the validation of any external party or a fixation on the finished product. Ironically, this attitude usually leads to a higher quality of finished product! Ask yourself, how many novels and movies have been made about arriving at a destination, and how many more have been made about “the journey?”
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In Defense of Self-Help Books

I’m totally loving this Psychology Today post by Deborah Hill Cone on how it’s snobbish to put down self-help literature:

I will come clean. At my grimmest moments I would turn again and again to books which helped change my perspective and get “another way of thinking about life” although they might not be the ones I put on my bookshelves alongside high-brow economic texts or prize-winning novels. But hidden under my bed, as though too risqué, are the books I find most medicinal during the long dark tea time of the soul. They include The Grief Recovery Handbook by John. W. James and Russell Friedman, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers and You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay. Lately I have also found The Tools by Phil Stutz and Barry Michels very helpful. “The motivation book that everyone in Hollywood is obsessed with,” as Vanity Fair described it, niftily avoiding the S and the H words.

I’m not the only one who has a secret self-help book stash.

You don’t get anyone more intellectual than the flat-out genius David Foster Wallace, After his death The Awl’s Maria Bustillos went through Foster Wallace’s book archive and said she was surprised at the number of popular self-help books in the collection and the care and attention with which he read and re-read them. “I mean stuff of the best-sellingest, Oprah-level cheesiness and la-la reputation was to be found in Wallace’s library. Along with all the Wittgenstein, Husserl and Borges, he read John Bradshaw, Willard Beecher, Neil Fiore, Andrew Weil, M. Scott Peck and Alice Miller. Carefully.”

I would add, however, that self-help books are entirely defensible even without the implied endorsement of the uber-profound Wallace. What’s wrong with people trying to help themselves?

Of course, there’s a political dimension to all of this:

People on the right, politically, often view those who struggle as weak, and (often) immoral and a threat to the established order. They are also often more inclined more toward punishment than help. (Cognitive linguist George Lakoff writes on all this.) They often therefore deprecate their own or others’ need for help, and exaggerate the virtue and effectiveness of simplistic Calvinist-style repression and coercion as solutions to even life’s complex and subtle problems. (E.g., “Just get on with it!” and “Straighten up and fly right!”)

People on the left often believe that focusing on the self is a self-involved distraction from more useful work in improving society. Or, they may feel it’s misguided in the face of systemic societal discrimination or other oppression. This is undoubtedly true of some self-help approaches, but as you and the smart people you cited obviously know, there’s no reason one can’t work simultaneously on helping oneself and bettering society.
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New Parenthood Can Lead to Situational Perfectionism

A new parent writes to syndicated advice columnist Carolyn Hax about how stressful it can be:

The “stressed parent” images were too stressing, so here’s a beautiful flower instead.

I’m a new mom of a pretty but challenging 6-month-old boy. I am a naturally decisive person; however, the anxiety I’m feeling over making the “right” decisions or providing him the “right” things has been difficult to cope with.

For example, since I’ve gone back to work, I haven’t been able to pump enough milk, and I’ve needed to start supplementing with formula. I intellectually know this is fine and many babies have formula, but for some reason I’m beating myself up over it. Why can’t I produce enough milk, why can’t I provide what I’m supposed to for him, etc.?

Also with regard to other things — like when to stop swaddling at night, how and what solids to feed him — I feel so worried I’m going to do something that is less than optimal that might hurt his development. I’m second-guessing myself very often and starting to drive myself crazy, and I know that isn’t good.

Do you have any suggestions for how to calm my anxieties so I can just do the best I can and be happy with that place?

Hax wisely advises her to remember she needn’t do everything right, and also to avoid competing with other parents.

I would add that the very best thing the questioner can do is find a community of nonperfectionist/noncompetitive parents and hang around with them. They’ll help keep her grounded. Perfectionism is a complex behavior and nonperfectionism is also complex and best learned experientially from mentors. (Make sure some of the parents are more experienced; a group of new parents, however well intentioned, probably won’t do the trick!)

New parenthood definitely qualifies as a trigger for situational perfectionism.

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Harry Potter and the Boggart Perfectionism

Harry Potter fans recall boggarts as creatures who live in dark household spaces like cupboards and closets and who, when you encounter one, take on the appearance of whatever it is you are most afraid of. In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, there’s a great scene where Professor Lupin and his students provoke a classroom boggart into repeatedly changing appearance:

• To terrorized student Neville Longbottom, it appears as Severus Snape in full glower.
• To arachnophobic Ron Weasley, it appears as a gigantic spider.
• And to ultra-perfectionist Hermione Granger, it appears as Professor McGonagall telling her she “failed everything.”

Perfectionism works the same way! It will not just manifest itself as your worst professional fear, but if you do manage to dispel that fear, it will gladly morph into any other fear you might have.

Boggart Snape: Pre- and Post-Riddikulus!

Some forms your perfectionism boggart might take include:

• “My work is unoriginal.”
• “My insights are mundane.”
• “I can’t do characters.”
• “My book won’t sell.”
• “I’ve got to get an A!”
• “I’ve got to get this done NOW!”
• “If I don’t succeed, I’ll be a loser.”

But underneath, it’s just plain old perfectionism, a kind of professional trauma that manifests itself in harsh self-judgements, an over-focus on product (versus process), an over-reliance on external validation (versus intrinsic rewards), shortsightedness, pathologizing of the normal work process, dichotomizations, invidious comparisons, etc.

You may recall that the solution for a boggart is to impose your own image on it via the Riddikulus charm. Neville replaced Scary Snape with a vision of Snape looking ridiculous in his grandmother’s clothing, Weasley took the legs off the spider, and Hermione re-visualized the boggart as Professor McGonagall giving her an award.

Harry Potter himself had a special problem: for him, the boggart assumed the appearance of a terrifying, soul-sucking dementor. Lupin therefore decided Harry should use it to practice not Riddikulus, but the more difficult Patronus charm, so that he could use that charm when attacked by actual dementors.

Two Spells to Vanquish Your Perfectionism

You, too, can use Riddikulus and Patronus! Every time you feel yourself becoming critical or despondent about your work, try this two-pronged approach:

1) Use Your Riddikulus Charm. Say to yourself, “Wait a minute! I’m not really falling short; it’s just the boggart perfectionism making me think so!” This should help defuse the perfectionism.

Harry Potter’s Patronus

Then, to finish the job:

2) Invoke Your Patronus, a.k.a., Compassionate Objectivity, as defined in The 7 Secrets of the Prolific:

“She also eschews invidious comparisons, dichotomization, rigidity, unhelpful labels, hyperbole, negativity, shortsightedness, fetishes, unconsciousness and blind spots.”

Just like Harry had to practice his Patronus, you’ll need to practice compassionate objectivity. Eventually, however, you’ll be able to maintain a compassionately objective mindset and to use compassionate objectivity to drive off any perfectionist boggarts and dementors you encounter.

Images and lots of information from The Harry Potter Wiki.

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I Wish Hilary Mantel Were My Sister II: Manuscript Coherence and Polish Come Late in the Writing Process!

As if Hilary Mantel’s wise words on memoir weren’t enough, she also has something great to say about the writing process itself. In answer to the question, “What’s the best thing about writing a book?” she replies:

The moment, at about the three-quarter point, where you see your way right through to the end: as if lights had flooded an unlit road. But the pleasure is double-edged, because from this point you’re going to work inhuman hours, not caring about your health or your human relationships; you’re just going to head down that road like a charging bull.

This is REALLY important for all writers to understand, and here’s why:

Anne Lamott famously said, in Bird by Bird, that every piece of writing begins with a “shitty first draft.” That’s almost right. The reality is that most pieces of writing are built from many shitty drafts, until you reach a point where the whole thing starts to cohere and come into focus. That’s Mantel’s “floodlit” point, and it truly is magical.

Mantel puts the transition at about three-quarters of the way through, but I think it can show up anywhere up to about ninety percent through the process. When it shows up, though, is far less important than that you keep working until it does.

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I Wish Hilary Mantel Were My Sister I: Memoir Isn’t Easy

Honestly, I wish Hilary Mantel were my sister. Despite egregiously spelling her name with only one “l”, she is one cool writer. In a New York Times interview she demolishes the naive view that memoir writing is easy:

Memoir’s not an easy form. It’s not for beginners, which is unfortunate, as it is where many people do begin. It’s hard for beginners to accept that unmediated truth often sounds unlikely and unconvincing. If other people are to care about your life, art must intervene. The writer has to negotiate with her memories, and with her reader, and find a way, without interrupting the flow, to caution that this cannot be a true record: this is a version, seen from a single viewpoint. But she has to make it as true as she can. Writing a memoir is a process of facing yourself, so you must do it when you are ready.

GREAT to read this. In every writing class I teach there are memoirists who feel guilty because they’ve bought the line that, “You’re just telling your own story. How hard can it be?” Hopefully if you’re one of them you’ll take heart from Mantel’s wise comments.
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Six Things You Should Never Say to a Photographer (Or, if You’re a Photographer, Never Say to Yourself!)

Kiska Barking (c)2013 Soraya Rudofsky 

by Soraya Rudofsky and Hillary Rettig

It’s never easy to be a creator, or creative professional, but in the age of ubiquitous camera-phones, photographers have it particularly rough. Photographers, how often have you heard someone say one of these:

1. “Photography’s easy, because the camera does all the work.”

2. “Photography’s not a real art like painting or sculpting where you need to build your skills. For photography you just need a good eye.”

3. “You take such great pictures–you must have a great camera.”

4. “Could you take the pictures at our next family reunion?” (Alt: “Please bring your camera to my five-year-old’s birthday party that I invited you and your child to attend.”)

5. “It must be easy to run a photography business.”

6. “You don’t have a degree, so you’re not really a professional.”

These misconceptions are all around us, and they can do a number on our self-esteem as artists and professionals. They reflect not just a naivete about the realities of photography and photo businesses, but perfectionism, which causes us to oversimplify and deprecate both the creative process itself and the work of building a sustainable creative business.

Here’s the truth about photography and photographic businesses:

*A camera is only a tool that the photographer uses to realize her creative vision, just as painters use paintbrushes and paint to realize theirs. All artists use tools.

Moreover, most photographers work hard. A photographer might take twenty photos (or, in some cases, hundreds of photos) of the same thing using different angles, composition, lighting, apertures, lenses, etc., until they find the combination that works. Moreover, the chances are that the photo you see on the wall has been carefully edited with extreme attention to detail to achieve the final look (and this doesn’t mean Instagram filters).

Non-professionals might point-and-shoot, or at most adjust their camera to a pre-set like Portrait or Landscape, but that barely touches the surface of the camera’s use as a tool. Most professional photographers spend a lot of time learning the nuances of how to see, and how to use their camera to record what they see.

*Photographers spend years not just mastering lighting, composition, and other shooting skills, but developing their vision. Which is why…

*A good photographer can take a better picture with a bad camera than a bad photographer can take with a good one.

*It’s no more a compliment to ask a photographer to work for free than it is to ask a doctor, lawyer, etc. Sure, the photographer will probably be glad you like his work, and he may be happy to volunteer once in a while. But his time and talent are valuable and, in the case of professionals, the means by which he makes a living. If you wouldn’t ask a baker for free bread, or the hardware store for free hammers, you shouldn’t ask a photographer for free photographs.

*No business is easy, including businesses that “look easy.” Moreover, many professional photographers earn at least part of their living photographing weddings and other events, which is about the most high pressure gig of all. (Imagine coping with frazzled brides and grooms—not to mention, their families—week after week!)

Most photography businesses fail within the first year.  For an excellent graphic showing the realities of the photographic industry, click here.

*Degrees are irrelevant. While there are excellent degree programs out there, many great photographers, including Ansel Adams, Herb Ritz, and Henri Cartier-Bresson, were mainly self-taught. In photography, as in many other fields, degrees are a perfectionist “fetish”–a relentless, but ultimately meaningless, focus for perfectionist self-criticism.

(Please note we’re talking about degrees, not training! Training is very valuable to photographers as it is to artists of all sorts.)

The above misconceptions do hold a lot of photographers back, so it would be great if all photographers would do their part in: (a) making sure they themselves are absolutely clear on the truth of the situation, and (b) pushing back (gently!) on the misconceptions when they do encounter them. That would make life easier for all photographers.

There’s also another set of problems that hold photographers back—perfectionism and traumatic rejections. We’ll discuss those in a followup article.

Update: Thanks for the positive feedback! This post on Coping with Clueless Questions, Crass Comments, and Crazy Conjectures should also help you when faced with the many naive judges out there!
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What Joyful Productivity Looks Like: The “Woodland Trail” Metaphor

Picture your writing (or other work) session as a stroll down a beautiful, sun-dappled woodland path. The path is wide and flat, the air warm and inviting, and on either side of you are banks of friendly plants alive with twittering birds. You’re having a marvelous time, and are moving at a relaxed, yet efficient pace – almost with a bit of a strut.

All of a sudden someone pops up out of the underbrush and joins you on your path: it’s your spouse, full of opinions on your current piece of writing.

You walk on for a bit, your spouse yammering in your ear, not just about the writing, now, but about he/she wishes the house were better maintained and how you two never go out any more. It’s an unpleasant distraction, but you’re still mostly enjoying your walk.

Then, someone else pops up – your parents, who are worried about how your writing will reflect on them.

And then your siblings parachute down onto the path, asking when are you going to get a real job, and aren’t you embarrassed to be driving around in that old car?

Then, an old teacher or boss pops up, reminding you of how, “you really don’t do dialog very well.”

And an editor who, twenty years ago, described a story of yours as “jejune.” (Yes, people do remember cruel comments for decades!)

And the author of a newspaper article you recently read that proclaimed that the market for epic family sagas, like the one you happen to be writing, is “dead.”

Etc.

Soon, you’re walking at the center of a clamorous crowd, none of whom you’ve invited. Naturally, you’ll have a hard time working in the midst of their harping, carping and negativity.

The prolific handle things differently. They decide, with absolute authority (get it? author-ity), who comes on their trail, and how long they can stay. You’re only allowed on if they want you on, and the minute you’re no longer an asset to their process, you’re gone. (I like to imagine that “gone” being either in the form of a vaudeville hook whisking the offender off stage right, or a giant boot sending him into orbit.)

And no free passes: everyone has to pass the “asset” test, including partners, parents, kids, and “important” teachers, editors and the like. And those who fail the test a few times permanently lose their right to apply for entry.

They’re banished, baby.

And so the prolific have a wonderful time strolling peacefully and productivity through the hours, days and years of their work.

Adapted from my book The 7 Secrets of the Prolific. Buy now, and get instant ebook access.
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