We’re back at it. Even though I still didn’t get as much time to dedicate to this as I would like—okay, I didn’t dedicate as much time as I would like—I still really resonated with the chapter. I learned a ton about myself this week and not just because of the book. The main thing I found funny was that this week was about giving up. It’s funny because it was the exact week I took a break.
This week finds us facing the internal blocks to creativity. It may be tempting to abandon ship at this point. DON’T! We will explore and acknowledge the emotional difficulties that beset us in the past as we made creative efforts. We will undertake healing the shame of past failures. We will gain in compassion as we re-parent the frightened artist child who years for creative accomplishment. We will learn tools to dismantle emotional blocks and support renewed risk.
There is a large focus in this chapter about correctly labelling a block. I especially tend to think I’m being “lazy” when I can’t get myself to work on a project. But, Julia wants us to look at this different. It is not laziness if we WANT to go and work on something but for whatever reason CAN’T. It’s fear.
Whether it’s fear of getting it wrong, or fear of getting it right, it’s still fear.
What if I never get this book published? What if I get it published and it flops dramatically? What if people hate it? What if people love it and expect more from me? What if I can never follow up this book with something better? What if I only know how to write one thing? What if it’s boring? What if it goes viral? What if I never finish it? What if I finish it and it wasn’t worth it?
There’s a lot of fear in creating, especially when creating for a purpose. If we WANT to get published, the thought of never succeeding is terrifying. If we WANT to be read by many, the fear of nobody caring is horrifying.
Julia says the only cure to fear is love. Be compassionate with your inner child artist. They’re scared.
Discipline and Creative U-turns
There’s a lot of author influencers who will tell you the only way to finish a book is to write EVERY SINGLE DAY, without fail, and without excuses. This is very rigid and, as you can imagine, very boring to the inner child creative. Creatives want and need to play in order to create. If it feels like work, the creative will avoid it. To counteract that and still get work done, we must meet our inner creative at least part way to play.
Scheduling writing work should be more like scheduling a play date. You’re setting aside specific time to have fun, not grumble in front of the screen. Art is not the end result, but the process. So the process should be fun and creatively nurturing. Stickers on the calendar for writing session days, fun colored pens, writing in a notebook at a park or coffee shop instead of cramped at a desk, lighting a candle and sipping favorite tea, sticky notes on the wall for plotting, mood boards and playlists to keep thins interesting—it’s all play to keep the artist happy.
The second piece of this is staying healthy. As much as we would love to believe that a tortured artist is a productive artist, it’s just not true. A happy person is usually a much more productive artist. Yes, there are those that escape into art during hard times, but that’s often because it is seen as PLAY to get away. Sometimes, our tragic stories and crippling fears feel like they get us more attention. Afterall, who doesn’t love hearing the tales of the tortured artist creating despite the challenges (van Gogh anybody?).
The sad reality is, we don’t create as well when we’re “tortured” as we do when we’re happy and healthy. Julia goes so far to say that we are scared to give up the persona we associate with being unhappy, and that we’re used to having our needs met by griping about our problems and therefore we don’t do anything to get ourselves out of that headspace. I can see where she’s coming from, but I also think she’s looking at this only as struggling with creative work and not the other issues in life that are not as easily solved. (Sure, you could say that people could bootstrap themselves to a better, happier life, but sometimes things are out of our control).
From the perspective of how we perceive our lives and our selves, I think this holds true. We can be scared to change because that means…well…things would change. What if they’re not better? What if it gets worse? What if nobody likes the happy, healthy version of me? Again, fears are loud.
Julia talks about how these fears in particular can stunt us through what she calls “creative U-turns.”
An artistic U-Turn arrives on a sudden wave of indifference. “What does it matter? It’s just a start, it’s nothing compared to the others, sure I can accomplish this new thing — but in the end, it’s just nothing.”
I’ve read other creatives call this “resistance.” When you’re on to something special, you’ll hit a wall of resistance or indifference. When we hit a road block, instead of pushing through, assessing, or just simply working with it, we give up. Then, we feel shame for it. Shame for the fear and shame for how we react to it.
The first step is to name the fear. What is it specifically that is causing you to stop creating? It can be multiple things, but the important part is to name them, out loud or on the page. Then, get help. Talk to other writers who have experienced exactly what you fear will happen. What did they do? Even talking with somebody who successfully did the thing you want to do can help. Did they have the same fears? What did they do to push through?
A creative block is a protective barrier to what your mind perceives as a threat. The fear that is crippling us and preventing us from creating is a defense mechanism to protect ourselves from the very thing we fear. Our creative is a child afraid of the dark, find it a night light and soothe it.
An Exercise
- List any resentments (anger) you have in connection with this project, no matter how petty or nitpicky. To the inner child, they are grudges: Really Big Deals.
- Ask your inner artist self to list any fears about the project and anyone connected with it. Big or small fears, just list them.
- Ask yourself if that is all. Left anything out? Any anger? Any other fears? Get it on the page.
- Ask yourself what you stand to gain by not doing this piece of work. “If I don’t finish the book, I don’t have to worry about being rejected by agents,” etc.
- Make your deal. The deal is “Okay, Creative Force, you take care of the quality of the work, that’s your department. I’ll take care of showing up and doing the work. Just doing it is my department.” Write this down as an agreement. Sign and date it.
The tasks for this week are all about identifying, naming, and acknowledging fears. We do this by rereading the morning pages without judgement and with loads of compassion. The angry, bitter, silly, and sometimes outright wrong reactions we’ve had in the past weeks are all on the pages. Then, we visualize our dreams and our goals. What would it look like to get EXACTLY what we want? Write it down. We list out creative goals for the year, month, and week. Finally, we look at any U-turns we’ve faced in the past.
For me, I can very safely say that my U-turn has been not working on my edits. I’ve gotten scared of “screwing up” my book. I’ve also hit a ton of indifference with this project. The “what’s the point” and “what if nobody even reads it, then all this work is for nothing.” The hard part will be showing up despite this. I think I need to add more fun to it. Right now it’s a lot of sitting with pages that I’ve worked on at least 6 times before and that just feels very…boring right now.
The last piece is finding a creative totem. Something that I feel “protective fondness” for…this will take me a little bit longer I think. It’s meant to be something that reminds me not to crush my inner creative child’s dreams. (Much like Homer Simpson’s taped up photos of his kid to spell out “Do it for her.”)
DO IT FOR HER:
(My inner creative is probably more like a 5th grader, but I didn’t have a picture of me at that age and you get the point :P)
Happy Creating!
Rachel
Subtle Stories 