âGettingâ yourself to write
Yesterday, I was trawling iTunes for a decent podcast about writing. After a while, I gave up, because 90% of them talked incessantly about âself-discipline,â âmaking writing a habit,â âgetting your butt in the chair,â âgetting yourself to write.â To me, thatâs six flavors of fucked up.
Okay, yesâI see why we might want to âmake writing a habit.â If we want to finish anything, weâll have to write at least semi-regularly. In practical terms, I get it.
But maybe before we force our butts into chairs, we should ask why itâs so hard to âgetâ ourselves to write. We arenât deranged; our brains say âI donât want to do thisâ for a reason. We should take that reason seriously.
Most of us resist writing because it hurts and itâs hard. Well, you say, writing isnât supposed to be easyâbut thereâs hard, and then thereâs hard. For many of us, sitting down to write feels like being asked to solve a problem that is both urgent and unsolvableââI have to, but itâs impossible, but I have to, but itâs impossible.â It feels fucking awful, so naturally we avoid it.
We canât âmake writing a habit,â then, until we make it less painful. Something we donât just âgetâ ourselves to do.
The âmake writing a habitâ people are trying to do that, in their way. If you do something regularly, the theory goes, you stop dreading it with such special intensity because it just becomes a thing you do. But my god, if youâre still in that âdreading itâ phase and someone tells you to âmake writing a habit,â that sounds horrible.
So many of us already dismiss our own pain constantly. If we turn writing into another occasion for mute suffering, for numb and joyless endurance, we 1) will not write more, and 2) should not write more, because we should not intentionally hurt ourselves.
Seriously. If you want to write more, donât ask, âhow can I make myself write?â Ask, âwhy is writing so painful for me and how can I ease that pain?â Show some compassion for yourself. Forgive yourself for not being the person you wish you were and treat the person you are with some basic decency. Give yourself a fucking break for avoiding a thing that makes you feel awful.
Daniel José Older, in my favorite article on writing ever, has this to say to the people who admonish writers to write every day:
Hereâs what stops more people from writing than anything else: shame. That creeping, nagging sense of âshould be,â âshould have been,â and âif only I hadâŠâ Shame lives in the body, it clenches our muscles when we sit at the keyboard, takes up valuable mental space with useless, repetitive conversations. Shame, and the resulting paralysis, are what happen when the whole world drills into you that you should be writing every day and youâre not.
The antidote, he says, is to treat yourself kindly:
For me, writing always begins with self-forgiveness. I donât sit down and rush headlong into the blank page. I make coffee. I put on a song I like. I drink the coffee, listen to the song. I donât write. Beginning with forgiveness revolutionizes the writing process, returns its being to a journey of creativity rather than an exercise in self-flagellation. I forgive myself for not sitting down to write sooner, for taking yesterday off, for living my life. That shame? I release it. My body unclenches; a new lightness takes over once that burden has floated off. There is room, now, for story, idea, life.
Writing has the potential to bring us so much joy. Why else would we want to do it? But first weâve got to unlearn the pain and dread and anxiety and shame attached to writingânot just so we can write more, but for our own sakes! Forget âmaking writing a habitââhow about âbeing less miserableâ? Thatâs a worthy goal too!
Luckily, there are ways to do this. But before I get into them, please absorb this lesson: if you want to write, start by valuing your own well-being. Start by forgiving yourself. And listen to yourself when something hurts.
Ask me a question or send me feedback! Podcast recommendations welcomeâŠ
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