The 7 Secrets of the Prolific Writer's Block (11 page)

These seemingly disparate problems are really opposite sides of the same perfectionist coin in that both sets of writers are wedded to a vision of an “ideal” project compared with which all others seem lacking. The non-committers are probably also looking for a “magic” project that will somehow help them stay motivated, and they’re probably also starting new projects as a way of procrastinating on old ones. Committers and non-committers alike are also shortsightedly over-focusing on the current writing project (Section 2.7).

Perfectionists also tend to overcomplicate their projects, partly because they are suspicious of work and success when they come too easily (Section 2.2), and partly as a way of delaying completion and the feared next steps of the project. Graduate students are particularly prone to “ballooning” up their theses, particularly in the absence of good supervision. (In
Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day,
Joan Bolker invokes a hypothetical diligent advisor asking a student, “Do you really want to take on all of Henry James’s novels in your thesis?”)

Here are some guidelines for keeping everything in balance:

1)
Choose the smallest, simplest project you can.
That’s essential because it maximizes the chances you’ll actually finish—and finishing is crucial, not just as a goal in its own right, but because it teaches you essential lessons (e.g., on perseverance and problem-solving) that you won’t otherwise learn. And it’s not until you’ve actually finished the work, of course, that you will learn the lessons on submitting your work, dealing with publishers, and dealing with your audience.

Once you’ve finished your simple project, you can then tackle a slightly more ambitious one, and then a slightly more ambitious one after that, etc., all the way up to your own version of
War and Peace
, if you want. (You can actually see this progression in the
Harry Potter
series, with the first books being relatively short, the last ones massive, and a big leap in size and scope—and presumably, J.K. Rowling’s confidence and capacity—between books three and four.) But if you start out writing a
War and Peace
equivalent and don’t finish it, your whole career can be short-circuited.

Your inner perfectionist is likely to be fiercely critical of a decision to start small, calling up some of her deadliest arsenal, including “trite,” trivial,” “unambitious,” “pathetic,” or even “a waste of time.” You can, in fact, measure the effectiveness of your strategy by the vehemence of her attack: the stronger it is, the more directly you are tackling your perfectionism. So: (a) congratulations! (b) dialogue intensively with the perfectionist to help alleviate her fears, and (c) stay the course.

Conversely, watch out for wily perfectionism when it says “Okay, you’ve chosen an easy project, so the writing should be a snap.”

2)
Rework your project so it’s even simpler.
To further counteract the tendency toward over-complication, actively work to simplify your already-simple project. Eliminate inessential subplots, subthemes, secondary characters, and other elements, especially if they hugely complicate the project.

If you’re unsure whether something should go or be left in, consult your critique partners, alpha readers, and mentors—but when in doubt, take it out.

3)
Keep your focus tight.
While writing, forget that you’re working on a “book,” and just focus on the chapter, section, page, paragraph, or sentence. In
Bird by Bird
, Anne Lamott metaphorically suggests viewing your work through a “one inch picture frame,” which translates to focusing on “one small scene, one memory, one exchange.”

4)
Choose the right goal.
I used to say that the main goal for any writing project was simply “to finish,” and that’s still true. Other goals—for instance, quality or impact (i.e., selling the book)—need to be subordinate (Section 2.16). Recently, however, I spoke with a graduate student who had had the misfortune of working with an abusive thesis advisor. Against the odds, she had persevered and finished her research; now, she had a job waiting as soon as she finished and defended her thesis.

I asked her what her goal for the thesis was, and she wisely said, “to finish.” (Hardly anyone says that.)

“There’s a better goal,” I said. “It’s to get the hell out.” (You do want to get the hell out of an abusive situation.) That focused her thinking remarkably. Now, instead of talking about “editing” in general terms, she started to discuss page counts and the specific content changes that would most likely get her thesis quickly approved.

In a way, the goal of all writing projects should be to “get the hell out.” You don’t simply want to finish; you want to finish as quickly and easily as possible (without undue stress or pressure, of course) so that you can move on to the next project—or, the rest of your life. Perfectionist people, when I tell them this, think I’m saying they should compromise on quality, but I’m not: I’m talking about working efficiently and not succumbing to either perfectionism or the grandiose idea that for a work to be good, it must be the product of an arduous struggle.

A
s you begin to overcome your perfectionism, you can anticipate moving through four career stages:

Stage 1:
You focus on just your writing process (more specifically, on overcoming perfectionism while writing);

Stage 2:
You focus on process + your creative goals for the overall project;

Stage 3:
You focus on process + creative goals + your external (commercial, academic, or other) goals for the project; and,

Stage 4:
You focus on process + creative goals + external goals + your overall career goals.

Stage 1
is probably where you are right now, and it’s the foundation for all future success—so don’t rush it. Dialogue with any perfectionist worries that your progress is too slow or that you’re too far from your goal.

After you can reliably write nonperfectionistically for half an hour or more, it’s time to tackle
Stage 2
. Here, you expand your focus beyond the moment-by-moment experience of writing, and out to your overall creative goals for
the piece.

So, while most of your consciousness remains focused on the experience and process of writing, some part is asking and answering critical questions (critical in the artistic, not blaming, sense) about what you’re writing, and making decisions about what to write based on the answers to those questions. Some of those questions might be: Would my character be likely to react this way? Would he speak that way? Does it make sense that he lives in the city?

Or: Does this scene have dramatic tension? How well does it integrate into the plot? Is there too much exposition? How can I turn that into action?

Don’t ponder the questions! Explore them in writing. As mentioned earlier, your writing time should be spent writing, not pondering; pondering can also easily lead to procrastination.

If the idea of balancing the immediate and larger goals of the piece seems daunting, it shouldn’t. We do it routinely in many areas of our lives:

A cook has to mentally juggle the short-term imperative of not burning the sauce with the longer-term ones of getting the table set, checking on the dessert in the oven, and figuring out what’s up with the Smiths, those rascals who never RSVP’d.

A parent whose toddler is clamoring for a candy bar has to balance the short-term benefits of giving him one with the larger goal of encouraging him to eat healthily. (Parenting is full of these short-term/long-term balancing acts.)

Businesspeople are routinely advised to not let their jobs interfere with their careers—meaning you want to make decisions that further your immediate success, but not at the expense of your long-term prospects.

Back to writing. Even in Stages 2 through 4, most of your focus should remain on your process. (Process always trumps product!) If you’re writing something formulaic, or according to specification, then the external concerns might be more prominent, but even then your aim is to stay mostly immersed in a nonperfectionist creative process. Those other concerns will “visit” your consciousness once in a while, but only as needed. They will never dominate.

And just because you’re at Stage 2 doesn’t mean you stop doing timed writing, by the way. Actually, you never stop doing it; it’s just that the timer gets set to larger and larger intervals. (After you start counting in hours, your “timer” may simply become your clock.)

If you’re one of those people who just wants to write and doesn’t care at all about being published, then you can remain happily in Stage 2. But if you do want to be published (in any format, or for any audience), then you’ll want to move on to Stage 3.

If you ever find yourself becoming frightened or overwhelmed while writing in Stage 2—and it will happen—return promptly to Stage 1. Don’t return to Stage 2 until you once more feel comfortable and nonperfectionist about your writing.

During
Stage 3
, you focus not just on the creative process and your creative goals, but your “external” goals for the project. So you start asking questions such as: “Is this what my editor is expecting?” “Will it be approved by my thesis committee?” “Will it sell?” “How will my audience like it?” And so on.

Because focusing on external goals can invite perfectionism or distort the creative process, many writers choose to ignore them till late in the writing project. In a
Writer’s Digest
interview,
1
novelist Anne Tyler said, “I’ve learned that it is best not to think about readers while I’m writing. I just try to sink into the world I’m describing. But at the very end, of course, I have to think about readers. I read my final draft pretending I’m someone else, just to make sure that what I’ve written makes sense from outside.”

If you’re one of those people who is content with occasional publication, or who isn’t counting on a significant monetary reward from his writing, then you can remain at Stage 3. If you want a full-fledged writing career, or to earn significant money from your writing, then you’ll want to move on to Stage 4.

If you ever find yourself becoming frightened or overwhelmed while writing in Stage 3—and it will happen—promptly return to Stage 2 or 1. Don’t return to Stage 3 until you feel totally comfortably doing so.

Stage 4
. Now you focus not just on process, creative goals, and external goals, but your career goals and strategy. Maybe you seek fame and fortune, or tenure, or enough income from your writing so that you can quit your day job.

At Stage 4, you’re treating your writing like a business or profession and thinking about things like revenue, profit, marketing, and sales (Section 8.7). (If you’re an academic, substitute career strategy, tenure, and job openings.) However, the same rule applies about maintaining most of your focus on your creative process while writing.

If you ever find yourself becoming frightened or overwhelmed while writing in Stage 4—and it will happen—promptly return to Stage 3, 2, or 1. Don’t return to Stage 4 until you feel totally comfortably doing so.

Another way to think of the stages is using the path metaphor from Section 1.6. As you move on to each new stage, you let more and more people onto your path: in Stage 2, an editor; in Stage 3, your readers; and in Stage 4, professional partners, and perhaps a wider audience. As you work to replace perfectionism with compassionate objectivity, and to provide more resources for yourself, you’ll get more and more adept at balancing seemingly opposing demands, including art and commerce, without getting overwhelmed or derailed. And you’ll probably also soften around topics you are now rigid about, such as “success = selling out” (Section 6.7), and won’t demand immediate, or definitive, answers to tough questions.

In other words, you will have replaced all the harsh and delusional perfectionist voices that previously gummed up your writing process with kind, inspiring, and realistic ones that spur you on to productivity and success.

1
Jessica Strawser, “Anne Tyler’s Tips on Writing Strong (yet Flawed) Characters,” Writer’s Digest, September 8, 2009 (www.writersdigest.com/article/anne-tyler-tips/).

E
motional growth and capacity building, which is what we’re aiming for here, don’t occur in a straight line, like this:

But rather in a curve, like this: