#process:self-care

I just need to know what to do when I have all the ideas and the desire, but the day job leaves me physically and mentally exhausted. And on my day off I have to just stare at the TV like a zombie trying to build up the energy to go back.

This is a tough one... the toughest one of all, really. How does one write when one just does not have the bandwidth?

The only idea I have for this situation is to write just a little bit at a time. Like, maybe ten minutes every other day? And use that time for doodling, not intense, goal-directed writing. Don’t think about your huge project and how far you have to go. Do small things, little scenes or scraps of description, short sketches related to your project, anything that doesn’t consume a ton of mental bandwidth and allows you to be creative and free for those ten minutes.

Maybe by doing this for a while, you will build up stamina. Or maybe not. Either way, you will write something, and no writing is ever wasted.

I don’t know about you, but I both love and hate the writers I admire. On the one hand, they show me what is possible in language. On the other hand, I resent that. They’re my teachers, but also my competitors. I want to be them, but I also want to defeat them. I’m pretty sure this is normal.

In fandom, I see a lot of writers struggle with their envy toward other writers. It eats them up inside, in part because they believe those feelings are bad and wrong and only they have them. If we love a writer, shouldn’t we just...love them and enjoy their work and wish the best for them?

No. I mean, yes. But also no.

What I mainly mean by “yes” is “please don’t harass them.” Otherwise, by all means, get angry at them. Hate them a little.

Writers learn by rejecting as much as by accepting. You have to look at your favorite story, the best story in the world, and say, “you know what? I don’t actually want to write this exact story all over again.” You have to rebel. Don’t burn the writer’s house down or anything, just make a little space for the nasty, petty, critical side of your love for their work. Contradictory feelings can be unpleasant, but I assure you, they’re normal.

If you tend to envy other writers and compare your writing to theirs, consider the possibility that their stories and yours are doing very different things.

An example: I often covet other writers’ narrative voices. A compelling narrative voice is the soil good characters spring out of, for me, and thence good stories in general. So when I read a story with a killer narrative voice, I burn with envy.

I can forget about the story, though, in my focus on voice. When I look at this one romance story I love, I can see that its voice is suited to a specific purpose: making us feel the desire the main character feels for another character. It tries to draw a portrait of that character through the eyes of a lover. Honestly, that’s pretty much all that story’s narrative voice can do. That’s all it’s meant to do.

That’s not what my current story is about. So if I were to imitate this other story, it wouldn’t work. My story needs its own thing.

Without the clamor of “you need to be more like that other writer!” drowning out my thoughts, I can ask: what am I trying to do? My story’s main character is different: he’s locked inside himself while another character tries to break in. His whole pattern of thoughts and observations differs radically, so I can’t narrate them the way that other author did.

I’ve been trying this thing lately where I work in really short increments—5, 10, 15 minutes—and then take a break for at least that long. It’s helping a lot. It sounds inefficient but considering I wasn’t writing at all before, I’d say it’s a gain.

This does two things: 1) I don’t feel like I’m “trapped” until the project is done or I can stagger on no further, and 2) I’m often forced to stop mid-thought, which, if I leave myself a note saying where I was going next, makes it much easier to start up again.

I’m now convinced that in general, you (or at least I) should not write until you drop or run out of ideas. Stop while you’re ahead, and before you run out of energy. That way, the next time you sit down to write, you’ll have inspiration and material ready to go. You won’t feel constantly behind the eight ball. Just make sure to leave a note for future-you.

(This may not work for people whose brains handle attention differently than mine, but try it out if you think it might help.)

First of all: I am so sorry I took this long to reply to you!

Second of all: well, you’ve come to the right place. Writing was like that for me for years.

For me, it was simply fear of failure. I hated writing because I feared doing it badly. And that fear perpetuated itself because the more afraid I got, the more rigid and risk-averse I got, and the harder it became to let loose and be creative, which just confirmed my initial fears that I wasn’t any good.

Basically, I had to learn to play again.

Playing has no practical use, no standards of quality, no purpose other than pleasure. If it does have a use, it’s to explore: you try new things merely to see what happens. But you can’t do that without the freedom to fuck up. You’ll notice that children and animals only play when they feel safe. If you want to explore the world, you need some confidence that it won’t hurt you.

Folks with intense anxiety around a creative pursuit they once loved have lost that feeling of safety and confidence to play freely. They’ve ventured into uncertain places and it has hurt them, repeatedly. And after a point, the fear reinforces itself because merely anticipating the activity hurts. So I had to lead myself back into a place that felt safe to me, where I could play again.

I did this by committing to a rehab phase, during which I knew I would not be sharing this work with anyone else. Like drawing mandalas in the sand: I wouldn’t make a product, I would just exercise my playing muscles. I would take, for instance, the kinds of story ideas you think about at night, and I would write about them, dumping out all my unfiltered thoughts, downloading those daydreams onto the page without trying to “write a story.” I tried to get back to that childhood state of mind where I made shit up or drew pictures or made playdough sculptures without caring whether it was “good” or not.

To get there, I worked really hard to remove any opportunity for me to judge this work. Two things helped: 1) writing fast, so I didn’t have time to think about what I was writing, and 2) keeping myself from re-reading what I’d written. Sometimes I would re-read it, but I’d try to think of the writing as notes and doodles, not as “writing” that would somehow represent me as a writer. Again, mandalas in the sand. 

So for a while, I did not write finished stories. This was rehab - I was only trying to give myself the repeated experience of writing without pain and fear. It was like I was teaching a dog to trust me. For a while, I didn’t expect anything of the dog - I just let him come to me when he was ready, and then acted chill and gentle once he did.

I have two recs for you:

I now have a list of my posts that go into more depth on this topic, which you might check out, especially the post on freewriting.

A book by Peter Elbow called Writing Without Teachers helped me tremendously. Elbow talks about how hard it is simply to generate words, let alone words that eloquently express what you’re trying to say. Because, he says, you don’t know what you’re trying to say until after you’ve tried to say it, maybe several times. He teaches an approach to writing where you don’t formulate an idea in advance and then choose the exact right words to convey it. Instead, you throw a bunch of words at the wall, and each time you do that, you refine your idea a little more. Anyway, it blew my mind and totally changed how I thought about writing, so I can’t help but recommend it.

Okay, this is gonna sound therapist-y, but I have an alterna-nano idea for you:

Instead of trying to write every day and feeling like shit when it doesn’t happen, take a few minutes out of every day to just…sit with the feelings that come when you think about writing. Don’t judge your capability. Just ask yourself, with as much compassion as you can muster, “where is this pain coming from?” It’s coming from somewhere real, and not from some inherent incapability. If it helps, think about what you might say to a friend who expressed this pain to you. It’s easier to extend compassion to other people than to ourselves, so thinking of yourself as the other person can be a nice work-around hack!

I do not recommend doing this “sitting with your feelings” thing for very long. Maybe just a few minutes. Set aside those few minutes to look at the pain without judgment. This is the writing work you’ll be doing, and it’s just as essential as the act of writing itself.

If you can, jot down some of these thoughts and feelings. Once, I wrote a bunch of shitty things I felt about myself and my abilities on a piece of paper and then I just…stared at that piece of paper from about five feet away. It felt a little bit as if I’d released some of that shit and sent it out of myself. It wasn’t a miracle cure but it made a tiny, critical difference.

NaNo is that time of year when we don’t feel tough enough to be writers. That’s why I’m such a big fan of alterna-nanos! Not everyone’s current writing challenge is to crank out 50,000 words in a month or finish a big project. Some folks need to work on other stuff.

You’ve heard of “making writing a habit,” and you’ve tried, but the pressure to write fills you with horrible pain and dread. You spend all your time wishing you could write but somehow never writing. The “make it a habit” approach doesn’t work for you. But you still want to write, maybe even regularly. Is there nothing you can do?

Here is an alternative approach to try. A rehab program, as it were, for writers with a psychological “writing injury” that has destroyed their desire to write and replaced it with shame, anxiety and dread.

If you have a writing injury, you probably acquired it by being cruel to yourself, by internalizing some intensely critical voice or set of rules that crushes your will to write under the boot-heel of “you should.” “You should be writing better after all the years of experience you’ve had.” “You should be writing more hours a day, you’ll never get published at this rate.” “You should write more like [Hilton Als/Jeffrey Eugenides/Octavia Butler/Terry Pratchett/etc.].” “You should write faster/more/better/etc./etc.”

You know what, though? Fuck all that. Self-abuse may have featured heavily in the cool twentieth-century writer’s lifestyle, but we are going to treat ourselves differently. Because 1) it’s nicer, and 2) frankly, it gets better results. My plan here is to help you take the radical step of caring for yourself.

1) First of all: ask yourself why you aren’t writing. 

Not with the goal of fixing the problem, but…just to understand. For a moment, dial down all of the “goddammit, why can’t I just write?” blaring in your head and be curious about yourself. Clearly, you have a reason for not writing. Humans don’t do anything for no reason. Try to discover what it is. And be compassionate; don’t reject anything you discover as “not a good enough excuse.” Your reasons are your reasons.

For me, writing was painful because I wanted it to solve all my problems. I wanted it to make me happy and whole. I hated myself and hoped writing would transform me into a totally different person. When it failed to do that, as it always did, I felt like shit.

Maybe writing hurts because you’ve loaded it with similarly unfair expectations. Or maybe you’re a victim of low expectations. Maybe people have told you you’re stupid or untalented or not fluent enough in the language you write in. Maybe writing has become associated with painful events in your life. Maybe you’ve just been forced to write so many times that you can no longer write without feeling like someone’s making you do it. Writing-related pain and anxiety can come from so many different places.

2) Once you have some idea of why you’re not writing…just sit with that.

Don’t go into problem-solving mode. Just nod to yourself and say, “yes, that’s a good reason. If I were me, I wouldn’t want to write either.” Have some sympathy for yourself and the pain you’re in.

3) Now…keep sitting with it. That’s it, for the moment. No clever solutions. Just sympathize. And, most importantly, grant yourself permission to not write, for a while.

It’s okay. You are good and valuable and worthy of love, even when you aren’t writing. There are still beautiful, true things inside of you.

Here’s the thing: it’s very hard for humans to do things if they don’t have permission not to do them. It’s especially hard if those things are also painful. We hate feeling trapped or compelled, and we hate having our feelings disregarded. It shuts us down in every possible way. You will feel more desire to write, therefore, if you believe you are free not to write, and if you believe it’s okay not to do what causes you pain.

(By the way: not having permission isn’t the same as knowing there will be negative consequences. “If I don’t write, I won’t make my deadline” is different from “I’m not allowed not to write, even if it hurts.” One is just awareness of cause and effect; the other is a kind of slavery.)

4) For at least a week, take an enforced vacation from writing, and from any demands that you write. During this time, you are not permitted to write or give yourself grief for not writing. 

This may or may not be reverse psychology. But it’s more than that.

Think of it as a period of convalescence. You’re keeping your weight off an injury so it can heal, and what’s broken is your desire to write. Pitilessly forcing yourself to write when it’s painful, plus the shame you feel when you don’t write, is what broke that desire. So, for a week (or a month, or a year, or however long you need) tell yourself you are taking a doctor-prescribed break from writing.

This will feel scary for some folks. You might feel like you’re giving up. You might worry that this break from writing feels too good, that your desire to write might never return. All I can say is, I’ve been there. I’ve had all those fears and feelings. And the desire to write did return. But you gotta treat it like a tiny crocus shoot and not stomp on it the second it pokes its little head up. Like so:

5) Once you feel an itch to write again—once you start to chafe against the doctor’s orders—you can write a tiny bit. Only five or ten minutes a day. 

That’s it. I’m serious: set a timer, and stop writing when the time’s up. No cheating. (Well…maybe you can take an extra minute to finish your thought, if necessary.)

Remember: these rules are not like the old rules, the ones that said, “you must write or you suck.” These rules are a form of self-care. You are not imposing a cruel, arbitrary law, you are being gentle with yourself. Not “easy” or “soft”—any Olympic athlete will tell you that hard exercise when you’ve got an injury is stupid and pointless, not tough or virtuous. If you need an excuse to take care of yourself, that’s it: if you’re injured, you can’t perform well, and aggravating the injury could take you out of the competition permanently.

For the first few days, all of the writing you do should be freewriting. Later, you can do some tiny writing exercises. Don’t jump into an old project you stalled out on. Think small and exploratory, not big and goal-oriented. And whatever you do, don’t judge the output. If you have to, don’t even read what you write. This is exercise, not performance; this is you stretching your atrophied writing muscles, not you trying to write something good. At this stage, it literally doesn’t matter what you write, as long as you generate words. (Frankly, it would be kind of weird and unfair if your writing at this point was good.)

6) After a week, you can increase your time limit if you want. But only a little! 

Spend a week limiting yourself to, say, twenty minutes a day instead of ten. When in doubt, set your limit for less than you think you’ll need. You want to end each writing session feeling like you could keep going, not like you’re crawling across the finish line.

Should you write every day? That’s up to you. Some people will find it helpful to put writing on their calendar at the same time each day. Others will be horribly stifled by that. You get to decide when and how often you write, but two things: 1) think about what you, personally, need when you make that decision, and 2) allow that decision to be flexible.

Remember, the only rule is, don’t go over your daily limit. You always have permission to write less.

And keep checking in with yourself. Remember how this program began? If something hurts, if your brain is sending you “I don’t wanna” signals, respect them. Investigate them, find out what their deal is. You might decide to (gently) encourage yourself to write in spite of them, but don’t ignore your pain. You are an athlete, and athletes listen to their bodies, especially when they’re recovering from an injury. If writing feels shitty one day, give yourself a reward for doing it. If working on a particular project ties your brain in knots, do a little freewriting to loosen up. And always be willing to take a break. You always have permission not to write.

7) Slowly increase your limit over time, but always have a limit. 

And when you’re not writing, you’re not writing. You don’t get to berate yourself for not writing. If you find yourself regularly blazing past your limit, then increase your limit, but don’t set large aspirational limits in an effort to make yourself write more. In fact, be ready to adjust your limit lower.

When it comes to mental labor, after all, more is not always better. Apparently, the average human brain can only concentrate for about 45 minutes at a time, and it only has about four or so high-quality 45-minute sessions a day in it. That’s three hours. So if you set your daily limit for more than three hours, you may be working at reduced efficiency, when you’d be better off saving up your ideas and motivation for the next day. (Plus, health and other factors may in fact give you less than 3 good hours a day. That’s okay!)

Of course, if you’re a professional writer or a student, external pressures may force you to write when your brain is tired, but my point is more about attitude: constant work is not necessarily better work. So don’t make it into a moral ideal. We tend to think that working less is morally weak or wrong, and that’s bullshit. Taking care of yourself is practical. Pushing yourself too hard will just hurt you and your writing. Also, your feelings are real and they matter. If you ignore or abuse them, you’ll be like a runner trying to run on a broken ankle.

I know I’m going to get someone who says, “if you’re a pro, sometimes you gotta ignore your feelings and just get the work done!” 

NO. 

You can, of course, choose to work in spite of any pain you’re feeling. But ignore that pain at your peril. Instead, acknowledge the pain and be compassionate. Forgive yourself if pain slows you down. You are human, so don’t hold your feet to the fire for having human limitations. Maybe a deadline is forcing you to work anyway. But make yourself a cup of hot chocolate to get you through it, literally or metaphorically. Help yourself, don’t force yourself. If you’ve had a serious writing injury, that shift in attitude will make all the difference. 

In short: treat yourself as someone whose feelings matter.

Try it out! And let me know how it goes!

Like, it’s fine to work on your skills. But stop trying to change yourself. Try instead to accept who you are, as a writer and a person. Give that person a voice.

I live in the USA, so the last few days have been overwhelming, but they’ve reminded me that this blog’s two major themes—writing and self-care—can be revolutionary acts.

Writing is revolutionary for obvious reasons. But not just when you’re saying something revolutionary, or reaching lots of people. Merely creating, anything at all, improves a world that’s mostly interested in acquisition and destruction. Whether you bake a pie, make a bracelet, or write a one-line poem, you have pushed back against the darkness.

Self-care may be less obvious. But let me put it this way: when we neglect or devalue ourselves, we make it easier for our oppressors. And that’s not our fault—our minds and bodies have been shaped by power all our lives! But consider how convenient it is for some people when you tell yourself you’re not good enough or you deserve to suffer. Then they don’t have to do it! Every time you say “I deserve some rest” or “I am awesome for accomplishing this small thing,” you are sticking your middle finger up at the people who would love it if you did the work of keeping you down for them.

Taking care of ourselves can be hard. So if you’re tempted to belittle your talent as a writer, imagine that your internal voice of self-disparagement has Donald Trump’s face. If you need an excuse to get a good night’s sleep, remember that Trump doesn’t want you to.

All of that said . . . this blog stands on the side of folks who can’t manage resistance every day. If you can’t muster an iota compassion for yourself, that’s okay, we still believe in you. If you haven’t written a single word in months and can’t imagine ever writing one again, that’s okay too. You are good, and you are loved.