by Jenna | Jul 31, 2013 | Writing Articles
Something that’s helped me when taking on a longer writing project is understanding the natural ups and downs of the writing process. Now when I know I’m in an “up” or a “down”, I don’t take either one too seriously and just forge ahead.
But in the past, I’ve made the mistake of thinking that if I’m having a hard time or if I’ve “lost interest” in a project, that it means something about the project, like:
- It’s not the right project for me.
- I’ve blown it and I don’t know how to fix it.
- It’s time to ditch the project and move on to another one.
- I’m not capable of solving a particular problem or of finishing.
- The idea I started with wasn’t actually good enough.
Now that I’ve been through this process a few times, and I’ve worked with more than a few writers and observed them going through their own stages with their writing projects, I’ve come to see the experiences we have as natural patterns that are part of any project. And “getting” that I’m having a normal experience helps me make the decision not to take it too seriously and to continue on, even if I’m having a hard time with it.
The stages of a writing project
So let’s talk about these stages we go through, shall we?
Here’s what I’ve observed about the natural stages of a writing project. I’m sure they apply to ANY kind of creative or other resistance-triggering endeavor. If you have other stages you’ve recognized, please post them in the comments.
- The idea! — “Ooh! I have an idea for a project, this is great! I can’t wait to get started!”
- The joyful beginning — “Yay, I’m starting today, this is so exciting, this project is going to be amazing! It’ll be my best project yet!”
- The crash of reality — “Oh, wait, I really actually have to show up and do this now for real? Like every day? I don’t even know where to start or what happens next!”
- The commitment phase — “Okay, bit by bit, I can do this. I’ll figure it out. I can make this happen.”
- The dreaded middle — “Wait, what’s supposed to happen here? Where am I? What’s this about again? Why am I doing this?”
- The downhill side — “Okay, I’m past the midpoint, it’s all downhill from here, I can see the ending from here, I can make it!”
- The 80% mark — “This is so boring, I’ve lost interest in this project, I’m over it. I don’t even know why I was interesting in this idea in the first place. That other project sounds like so much more fun.”
- The recommitment moment — “I’m not falling for that, I can do this, it’s not that much longer, I’m not falling for that Bright Shiny Object (the other project), I’m going to keep going.”
- The almost to the bitter end stage — “This is terrible. What was I thinking?”
- The last push — “I just gotta get to the end, then I can see what I have.”
- The end — “I made it! This was so worth it.”
And then, of course, we start all over again.
Notice the creative blocks
What’s particularly useful about this is noticing how creative blocks like perfectionsim (“This’ll be my best project yet!”) and apathy (“I’m over it.”) can show up. They are resistance in disguise. The key is not to fall for them, but to keep going until you get to the end. THAT is the time to evaluate what you have and decide what happens next with it.
An epidemic of incompletion?
I see an epidemic of not finishing all around me. Perhaps it has to do with the short-term gratification culture we’re raised in these days (a favorite quote from Carrie Fisher, “Instant gratification takes too long!”).
What I know is that personal strength, self-confidence, and self-worth is deeply grounded in commitment, doing the work, and making the hard choices.
Warmly,
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by Jenna | Jul 17, 2013 | Writing Articles
So many writers I’ve spoken to recently are talking about finishing; many at that point of having just finished a major draft or putting the finishing touches on one.
It got me to thinking about the ingredients that go into the mix to make that happen.
It strikes me that there are both internal and external aspects to these success stories. What I see on the internal side is:
- Vision — having an idea or a calling to see something come to fruition.
- Passion — having a love or interest or fierce desire for a specific project or idea.
- Decision — making the decision to tackle the project.
- Courage — having the courage to dive in to the unknown.
- Perseverance — having the wherewithal to stick with something.
- Intuition — knowing when something is right for you, or not.
Hopefully we have all these skills. If we don’t, we can strengthen them within ourselves. (And there are good coaches and therapists who can help us do just that.)
So yes, completing any project requires a tremendous amount of drive, determination, and courage. But even the strongest of strong-hearted among us get tripped up by a laundry list of obstacles, like:
- Doubt — what if I can’t do it?
- Fears — of success, failure, rejection, disapproval, shame
- Resistance — the force that repels us from our dreams
- Procrastination — our tendency to put off anything that moves us toward completion of our dreams
- Perfectionism — the belief that perfection is attainable and that if we’re not hitting it, we’re failing.
- Bad habits — putting vices before taking action on our dreams.
- Poor self- management — struggles with discipline, decision-making, commitment, time choices.
- Poor self-care — not taking care of our bodies, minds, hearts, and spirits.
- Comparison with others — thinking other people are doing better than we are.
- Obsessing about our chances of success — focusing on the big questions rather than doing our work.
- Approval-seeking — looking outside ourselves for validation of our talent or ability.
- Life challenges — stopping when life gets hard.
Many of these things can be solved with self-awareness and determination, and yet what I see time and again is that we can draw on resources outside ourselves to help us make it through the rough patches. Things like:
- Support — there’s nothing quite like having other people believe in you, especially when you’ve temporarily forgotten your own skill and ability.
- Daily accountability — having support to see it through, to keep showing up and do the daily work is deeply motivating.
- Community — being a part of a community where you are with other people who truly “get” what you’re experiencing helps end the sense of isolation we can all experience at times.
- Energy — the shared energy of working together, whether side by side or as a team, can move us into action when we’re otherwise flagging.
- Inspiration — a shared spirit of energy and enthusiasm can reignite us when the going gets tough.
Warmly,
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by Jenna | Jul 10, 2013 | Writing Articles
As writers and creatives with a certain sensitivity to life, we can get easily overwhelmed, which can be paralyzing, deeply uncomfortable, and hard to break free from.
Let’s talk about why that happens and what we can do about it.
There are a few different ways overwhelm happens, and they inform us about how to handle the overwhelm, so it’s useful to look at what’s gotten us overwhelmed in the first place.
1. We get overwhelmed by the size of a project.
When we’re taking on a big project (like writing a novel, for instance), if we look at the entirety of the thing, it can be overwhelming just to contemplate, let alone begin it. I’m reminded of the joke about how to eat an elephant. If we look at the whole thing, it feels impossible. But when we think about taking “one bite at a time”, we can begin to see how to start going about it.
Solutions
- Break it down into component parts. For example, with a writing project, we can start with brainstorming, or an outline. Then we can tackle one scene at a time.
- Make a list of everything you’ll want to do — then put it away. Focus on one thing at a time and stop thinking about the big picture, or you’ll make yourself crazy.
- Look at working in small increments of time, as small as 5 to 15 minutes a day. It’s quite surprising what we can accomplish in these little chunks. I wrote my screenplay Rift in 15 to 30 minute increments, and it was thrilling to see the page count creeping up, day after day.
2. We get plain old overstimulated.
If you fall on the highly sensitive side of the spectrum, you’re more sensitive to stimulation of any kind, and have a lower threshold for stimulation than the rest of the population. This means that you’re more likely to get overwhelmed earlier than your peers, which can feel a little crazy making when everyone else seems to be able to handle it just fine, thank you very much. But overwhelm from overstimulation is just as paralyzing as the other types.
Solutions
- Remove yourself from the source of the stimulation.
- Give yourself time to recover.
- Have a repertoire of soothing practices to get grounded, balanced, and present again.
- Notice that writing will often help you feel more grounded, balanced, and present again.
- Plan ahead to keep stimulation at a manageable level in the future and build in recovery time.
3. We get overwhelmed by life.
Then there’s the “garden variety” overwhelm we experience in our busy world. There’s always more to do, more to take on, more to handle. Someone always needs something, there’s a project that’s due, our kids are sick, you name it.
And it can be easy to let something like a writing habit or a passion project fall to the wayside in the midst of all that. But the cost is far higher than you might expect. It turns out that feeding the passion we feel and fulfilling the commitment to our deeper selves is critical fuel we need to actually handle the overwhelm. Even at a time when “one more thing” feels like way too much, putting ourselves first — just like we put our oxygen masks on first — is key to staying grounded and sane when the going gets tough.
Solutions
As far as solutions go, it depends.
First ask yourself, is this an ongoing pattern in my life? If so, the answer is to look closely at what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, to see if there is anything you can let go of, delegate, or defer. Be willing to keep your passion project at the top of the list, and let go of other obligations. Your first obligation is to yourself. Choose wisely.
On the other hand, if you’re experiencing an unusual period of intense work, simply “contract” your expectations on your project to an attainable level. For example, write for 15 minutes instead of an hour, or pick out the tiniest piece of your project to focus on.
- Be willing to look at what you might need to let go of.
- Contract your project expectations to a reasonable, attainable level.
- Remember the value and importance of feeding your soul’s passion.
- Build up to more over time.
4. We get overwhelmed by major life stresses and events.
Beyond the “ordinary” level of overwhelm we feel in our day to day lives comes the extraordinary kind of stress and overwhelm we can feel when a major life event dominates our experience, like a parent being hospitalized, a major relationship upheaval, the death of a loved one, or personal surgeries or health issues.
During times like these, pretty much everything drops off the radar that isn’t “critical path” to handling the major life event. In my opinion, that’s okay, especially during the true crisis times. But once things start to settle down into a “new normal”, see if you can find your way to doing the contracted version of your project I mentioned under number 2, above.
Solutions
- Give yourself time and space to deal with the major event.
- Return to the project as soon as you reasonably can, at a minimal level of engagement.
- Build up to more over time.
5. We get overwhelmed because we’re burnt out.
When we are creatively (and energetically) burned out, we can get overwhelmed by the simplest things. Keeping the house clean, dealing with paperwork, and handling the basics of daily living can make us want to crawl back into bed and hide.
Usually this happens for a couple of reasons, including dealing with the ongoing high level of expectations we have in our culture about what we should be able to do in any given day (see #2, above), and dealing with major life events (see #3, above), but it can also include the creative backlash that comes from pushing ourselves to the point of burnout.
In other words, if we’re working crazy hours to meet a deadline, we become exhausted when it’s done, and no surprise there either. But few of us allow ourselves to take time off when that happens.
Solutions
- Plan to take at least one solid day off after a big push, maybe a few more.
- If you’re creatively burnt out, give some thought to how you’ll refill your creative well with interesting and inspiring ideas as you recover. My favorites: museums, art stores, toy stores, TED talks.
- If you’re energetically burnt out (which usually goes hand-in-hand with creative burnout), seriously ramp up your self care for a while. You’ve just taxed yourself and you need time to bounce back.
- Keep the writing going by doing morning pages during this time, or if you already have a next project to work on, put in the minimum amount of time on it and then take the rest of the day to renew. But do it first, so you can fully enjoy the time without the low level of stress and anxiety that procrastination creates.
- Transition yourself to a regular writing habit so you won’t have to work so intensely in a big burst all at the end.
Warmly,
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by Jenna | Jun 26, 2013 | Writing Articles
Two inner conversations about taking the day off from writing, in which we explore the inner workings of the procrastinator and the recovered procrastinator. :)
Observe.
Conversation 1. The Procrastinator
Daybreak.
“Oh god. It’s too early. I don’t want to write. Besides, I need a day off. I mean, I’ve been pushing myself so hard and everything going on right now is just so stressful. Plus I couldn’t sleep well last night. I really just need some down time to regroup and get in the mood to write. There’s no point otherwise, right? I’ll just take the morning off and write in the afternoon.”
Later that morning.
“This is great! See, I really just needed some time to goof off. I can write later, it’ll be fine.”
Mid-day.
“Okay, wow, that was great. Maybe I should start writing now. But I better check my email first. And I’ve got to call Kathy too. Plus my desk is disorganized, I’ll never be able to concentrate on my writing, I better clear it off. THEN I’ll really be able to focus.”
Later.
“Where did the day go? I’m exhausted. There’s no way I can write now. I better just start over tomorrow. I can write early, when I wake up. That’ll get me back on track.”
And, repeat.
Conversation 2. The Recovered Procrastinator
Daybreak.
“I get to take today off! I hit that major milestone with my draft yesterday. I’m going to celebrate today by putting my feet up and savoring a full, glorious day of guilt-free indulgence and enjoyment. Then back to the writing tomorrow, until I hit the next milestone.”
And, repeat.
What a difference, right?
And the best part is how it FEELS inside. So. Much. Better.
Warmly,
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by Jenna | Jun 19, 2013 | Writing Articles
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post called “What is failure? What is success?“
As I went to publish the post, I searched for a graphic to go with it, and I was so struck by how the graphics I found showed success and failure as opposites — two things moving away from each other.
Here you can see what I mean:
Or this version:
Pretty much the same thing, right?
The problem I have with these graphics is that they defy logic. I guess we’re supposed to assume that at a key crossroads in our lives we have to make the “right” decision in order to succeed. If we don’t make that “right” decision, we’ll fail. And sure, I suppose there are some truly right and wrong answers, but particularly when it comes to something like “success”, which can have so many different relative definitions, how can there always be one clear answer?
As I discussed in my earlier article, Thomas Edison made endless numbers of attempts to perfect his lightbulb. Were those attempts “failures”? Sure, I suppose in some sense they are. But didn’t those “failures” ultimately lead him to success?
And doesn’t make these graphics inherently flawed?
When you think about it, showing success and failure existing in opposite spaces is a perfect example of a “fixed mindset” versus a “growth” mindset, like Carol Dweck writes about in her book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.*
Dweck says that a fixed mindset is a belief that “your qualities are fixed in stone” and creates “an urgency to prove yourself over and over.” This kind of thinking leads us to believe that we only have a certain amount of talent, intelligence or character and there’s nothing we can do to improve it — save possibly making the “right” choices.
This ties right into this black or white thinking of success and failure existing only as opposites.
The growth mindset on the other hand, is “the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts.” This means that “a person’s true potential is unknown (and unknowable); that it’s impossible to foresee what can be accomplished with years of passion, toil, and training.”
If we adopt more of a growth mindset about success, it seems to me, we want a graphic that looks something more like this:
Or even like this:
Warmly,
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by Jenna | Jun 12, 2013 | Writing Articles
When you first start a new habit, it’s awkward.
I’ve made the mistake more than a few times in my life of throwing in the towel if I “blow it” early in the process of building a habit.
Over time, I’ve come to see a misstep like that as a little “Oops!” and either go for a do-over or a promise myself to start again tomorrow.
This is part of why we make sure to hold our writing community as a guilt-free zone. Yes, we’re encouraging people to write every day (and when I say we, I mean me and the other coaches for the writing community). And we also keep in mind that we are doing deep, hard work, and there will be missteps and challenges along the way. We’ve ALL struggled to create habits, and it’s no good punishing ourselves when we get off course.
I’ve seen some terrific examples of people who started out just focusing on writing 5 to 15 minutes a day and now have completed novels and scripts they can call their own. It’s very exciting!
As you embark on a new habit, here are a few things to keep in mind.
1. Remember that building a new habit can be awkward — be gentle with yourself about it.
Give yourself lots of space to make mistakes and get back on track. Don’t throw in the towel too early like I did. Instead, see anything that doesn’t work as information about what you might want to adjust as you go forward.
Recently I’ve been experimenting with increasing my daily writing time and shifting my schedule so that my writing takes an even more central role in my life. As I’ve been doing so, I’ve found myself fumbling my pretty-well established gym habit and getting caught in some awkward procrastination moments. Instead of deciding, “This isn’t working,” I’m tweaking my approach and studying my results every day to see what I can learn about what might work better for me tomorrow.
2. Approach habit building with an experimental mindset.
Along these same lines, if you approach your writing — or ANY habit — with the spirit of experimentation, you can give yourself some freedom to keep exploring until you find something that DOES work, instead of feeling like a failure for what doesn’t.
For instance, let’s say you’re trying to build a habit of writing daily and you start by committing to 5 minutes a day. But every day you find yourself not getting around to it at the end of the day and feeling too exhausted to do it. That’s good information, right? Waiting until the end of the day isn’t working. What else could you try? Morning writing? Lunchtime writing? Committing to write for 5 minutes at a specific time of day with a friend who will also write for 5 minutes at the same time?
3. If you have a rebellious nature, factor that into your plan.
If you tend to rebel against schedules and structures, try to factor that in as you plan for your new habit.
I find myself “getting all tragic” if I try to force myself to write seven days a week. (My writing community members got a real laugh out of me saying that on one of our live coaching calls once.) Instead, I’ve committed to writing six days per week, always giving myself one day off from writing. It feeds my inner rebel and helps me feel refreshed for jumping back into writing the next day.
4. Know your procrastination tipping point and adjust accordingly.
On the other hand, you’ll also want to pay attention to when it starts to get hard to restart if and when you take days off. I’ve found that if I don’t write for a stretch of time, it’s HARD getting back on track. Up until now I’ve found that taking two days off is the point at which it gets hard for me to restart the next day, but I’m going to experiment with it further now that I’m increasing my weekday writing time.
So notice the point at which it becomes hard to restart and consider not exceeding that point whenever possible.
5. Know that it’s better to start small and start now — something is more than nothing.
Most of us who work with building regular writing habits are here for a reason — we struggle with procrastination and perfectionism more often than not (they feed each other in an endless cycle of perfectionism, procrastination, and paralysis).
An important mindset shift you’ll want to make is recognizing the value of SOME progress versus NO progress. If I had written for 15 minutes every day for the last 10 years, I’d have at least 8 to 10 scripts under my belt at the same rate I’ve been developing my current one. No guilt or blame though, just a fact.
Also, know that when you’re habit building, you’ll want to go for doing ANYTHING first, then work up to more. We like to have our writers in the writing community write even for just five minutes a day or just focus on logging in to our online site every day for the first week — simply to put the focus and attention on the writing on a daily, regular basis. After that, it gets easier to bump it up to more over time.
So remember, frequency and consistency, not quantity, at least to start. Later you can go for consistency AND quantity. :)
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