8 Clicks from Nowhere Productions

Tag: blocks and resistance

Chapter List

  • November Novel

    It may be July as I write this, but that’s just all the more reason to wonder why I can’t seem to crack the secret writing formula that four times pushed me to write a complete novel in one month.

    For something like twenty years there was an online challenge called NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month (poorly named because it was really a borderless event, little ole me here in Canada participating). A bunch of scandals[1] left the organization which was behind the event-proper now but a footnote creative history. Yet those of us millions who participated while it was still in good standing are left with memories… and in my own case, a small stack of unedited, mediocre novel manuscripts.

    Controversy aside, something about the urgency of a deadline broke the procrastination hold that I all-too-often find myself tethered by and… well, simply, productivity resulted.

     It is a fallacy of a sort, this whole writer’s block thing.

    When pushed by something as simple as a pretend, arbitrary deadline, I found that I was suddenly able to crank out thousands of words of coherent fiction every day for an entire month. 

    Secret writing formula? Or another lie I tell myself when I sit at the keyboard that needs to be pushed aside so that the productive side of creativity can happen?

  • Doing Time

    Writers block is not myth but I am starting to think it is often a symptom of a larger issue.

    I don’t think that struggling to put words on the screen is an issue of having nothing to say, I think it is more often an issue of having too much to say… and not having anything driving one to say it.

    No timeline. No urgency. No pressure. 

    There you are, just a guy in front of a keyboard waiting for inspiration to strike?

    I have found more and more over the last couple years that as I sit down to write my 500 words of fiction each weekday that one thing has been driving my production of that volume of words: writing to a deadline has helped me overcome so many instances of block. 

    Maybe it was knowing that I need to get words in while my coffee was still hot. Or perhaps it was knowing that I had somewhere else to be in a couple hours. Could be it was knowing that I wanted to go to bed at a reasonable time. But all of it also knowing that I had a quota to meet before any of those things.

    All other concerns got pushed to the side to meet the deadline. I was doing time, writing words, and breaking blocks.

  • Respect Yourself

    I had a recent reminder that the biggest struggle in finding your creative (and likewise, your professional) voice, more often than not is remembering to respect yourself.

    Generally it is so obvious a thing when you write it or when you read it, but often it is the least obvious thought when we find ourselves mired in a situation or relationship where respect has been compromised.

    If you are one of the lucky few who is bolstered by self-confidence and unhindered by self-doubt, congratulations. Because I would wager the bulk of us need the occasional nudging reminder that when it comes to your creative hearts and souls no one is looking out for you and your interests, your time, your experience and expertise, nor you as a human being with the same attention and care as you are.

    Respect yourself.

    Guard your talents.

    Own your schedule.

    Stand by your skills. 

    And don’t work with people who either disrespect or take advantage of any of those things for their imbalanced benefit.

    But enough whinging… now go make something.

  • Performance Threshold

    For a struggling perfectionist who struggles with the judgement of strangers, the most daunting thing I ever do is share my work.

    I get it. I really get it. No. I really do get it.

    You just gotta push publish. You just gotta climb up on that stage and share your voice. You just gotta, gotta, gotta!

    It’s February and as I publish this post I have no idea yet if the Groundhog has seen her shadow, but whatever the outcome I suspect I have a couple more months of weather too cold to be outside doing creative outdoor things like sketching or nature photo expeditions. (I mean I could and I will, it’s just uncomfortably chilly.) That is to say, I suspect I have a couple more months of indoor time to write words and play music and dabble in code before the allure of summer tempts me away from those projects.

    I need to share something before the end of February. I gotta.

    The turning of a calendar page can be a motivator to step over a threshold, to overcome a mental obstacle. Deadlines, are great motivators. 

    Perhaps this one will serve to help step over the performance threshold. It oughta.

  • Derailed Days

    To say it is easy for a creative person to get derailed in the span of any given day is almost not worth saying, it is so obvious. Stephen Pressfield in his wonderful little book The War of Art[1], a must read for any creative soul, calls this a kind of resistance.

    Resistance is the force, says Pressfield, that keeps us from doing our work as creative people.

    Today, I found my day full of resistance, derailed and amok.

    I will spare the details of the chaos in this post, but needless to say that I ran up against a lot of external resistance in the hours when I would usually be creating something worthy of the concept.

    And yet, here I am and I have opened my laptop late into the evening to fight the resistance that swelled up over this day and to finish off the waning minutes having done at least a little of something.

    It is easy to get derailed, but it is important to find one’s way back to the tracks sooner than later. Resistance is tricky like that, always tempting you to take the easy route, go to bed having accomplished nothing, when all it takes is to resist right back.