Stop Doing Things That Don’t Help
You know what they are
This is one of the most useful “creative hacks” I know. It is best summarized by an old joke: a person goes to the doctor and says, “Doc, it hurts when I try to lift an anvil up over my head.” And the doctor says, “Stop trying to lift an anvil up over your head.”
I don’t know what your anvil is, but you do. If you don’t, there’s an easy way to find out: what do you complain about, over and over?
“I keep writing an outline, and I never get to write the manuscript.” Stop writing outlines.
“I can’t write outlines, but then when I write, I get stuck and things run too long and it’s a disaster.” Try writing an outline.
“I write really well for 20 minutes, but then it all goes to hell.” Stop writing after 20 minutes.
Only you can know what yours is. Criticizing yourself. Researching. Comparing to other work. Changing projects. Avoiding or failing at rewrites. Spending too much time describing characters. Going off on tangents. World-building. Planning the publicity campaign for something that isn’t even written yet.
Whatever it is, you will be absolutely SURE that you HAVE to do things that way.
Unfortunately, it is not working.
So try not doing it. Try something else. ANYTHING else.
Will it be easy? Absolutely not. It will be hard. It will be confusing. It will feel awful. Because we learned (or were taught) to do these things in order to cope with very big, deep fears. And those fears get unleashed when you stop doing the things.
Expect terror. Expect a mess. But keep trying things. Try just a bit. Small steps. Think about what goes right and what goes wrong, and why. Do it even though it makes you want to cry. Do it because it makes you want to cry. Try again. Adjust as you go. Name that fear your process helped you not-look-at. Accept the fear. It will get smaller when you do.
And keep trying things. Things you are absolutely sure will not work.
That’s how you grow. That’s how you learn.
What have you got to lose? Other than that anvil.
Hi Glenn, this is one of the best mindset articles I've read. I actually hate mindset focussed articles as I'm pretty disciplined in my writing habits. But that was very helpful and akin to the adage "If you always do what you always did, you'll always get what you always got." So thanks, a good reminder to sit with the discomfort and take risks. Cheers, Paul.
This rings true to my experience. What I originally thought to be inability to write a good outline turns out to be a fear of working from an imperfect outline. What I originally thought to be inability to edit my finished draft turns out to be fear of editing without complete knowledge of the finished product - something that's highly impossible for me to do.
A year went by and I'm halfway thorugh editing the first draft of my first novel. It's a hot mess. It's a- I don't know what it is cause I can't remember the whole thing front to back. But from the jumble of half decent notes I saved, it should be a readable, hopefully enjoyable, ensemble story.
I didn't get to lift that anvil on my head. It felt like I've been lifting more than an anvil or two. But I got an almost finished book. And that's what truly matters. There might be a better book under said anvil, but it doesn't matter. The goal is not to lift the anvil. The goal is to have a book.
And for my next trick, I might be able to lift that anvil above my head. If not, I'll just write another book.