Overcoming Writerly Resistance – 3 Case Studies
How to Feel the Fear and Write Anyway, and Do What You Say You Want To Do—Finish and Publish Your Next Book
On Sunday next week, February 4, I’ll be teaching a class through the Five Things I’ve Learned series* called Five Things I’ve Learned About How Creative Women Thrive.
For me, teaching classes through a series focused on what I’ve learned is an opportunity for a career review—because I’ve learned a lot of things over the past 24 years of working with writers to become published authors. If you’re an Oprah fan, you know she had (still has?) a column (and subsequent book) called “What I Know for Sure.” (I have it, I love it.) Asking yourself what you know for sure is a beautiful exercise because it zeroes in on how much of our negative messaging to ourselves is bullshit. No one will ever say that what they know for sure is that they cannot finish their book, cannot get it published, cannot imagine a future outcome in which they don’t achieve their goals.
After almost a quarter-century in the book business, I can confidently say some things I know for sure, including:
• Writing and self-expression is a birthright.
• The best books are not written by household names.
• Accountability gets even the most resistant writers over the finish line.
• Comparison is the death of creativity.
• Perfect is the enemy of good.
As I gear up for this class, I thought of some stories I want to share, about overcoming resistance, about feeling the fear and doing it anyway. I don’t think we thrive unless and until we come face-to-face with our fears. And our fears throw up flags of resistance like nobody’s business. I believe the inner critic voices that barrage us are a singular, desperate effort to maintain the status quo. The voice freaking out inside of you thinking, I’m not sure I can write/publish this book! is really saying, Do not upset the apple cart! Things are fine as they are! Thriving is about knowing ourselves well enough to discern what to listen to and what to cast aside.
3 case studies:
Making Peace with Outcome
Many years ago, I coached a writer named Cara** through her memoir. She was gut-sick over sharing her abortion story, and yet at the same time believed it was an essential truth she needed to include in her book. Working with her has stayed with me all these years because the Tug-of-War match I witnessed inside this single psyche was epic. I told her to leave the story in till the end; she could always remove it before the book got published. Cara was Catholic, and terrified of what her family, especially her aging mother, would think of her. Would she be disowned? She worried about the ripple effect of shame this choice she’d made three decades earlier would have on her family and extended community. She feared her teenage children would judge her. In the end, she left the story in and published her memoir. Giving voice to shameful stories, I’ve found, is akin to letting a fire rip through the story we’ve created in our minds about what happened, laying bare just its essence, the fact that it did happen, a choice was made or something happened to us. The fire can singe away the shame. This was true for this writer-turned-memoirist. The memoir let Cara finally claim this truth. She’d had an abortion in her early twenties. Her Catholic mother didn’t disown her. Instead, said she wished she had known. She comforted her middle-aged daughter and in so doing released her from the burden of this “sin” she’d been carrying inside of her all these years. While not all outcomes will be this healing, what I’ve learned over my years of working with writers is that more often than not our fears are boulder-sized. But when we hurl them with all of our might into the pond, in full view of the public eye, we often discover, to our great surprise, they’re not boulders at all. They’re pebbles. Giving voice to our stories lightens our load.
Cultivating Confidence
A writer named Anne** came to me wanting to write what I’d call a “feminist issue” book, a thought book, the kind that her heroines in the feminist space were writing, and she was afraid. Afraid of not measuring up. Afraid of not having the intellectual chops to do the research, to put herself out there, to suggest that she was on par with authors she admired. We worked and worked but Anne was crumbling with each passing session. Finally, she admitted, she needed to take a break from the book. Two full years later, I got an email from Anne. She had sold the feminist-issue book we’d started to a Big Five publisher. I couldn’t believe it! What had changed? I wanted to know her secret so I could shout it from the rooftops to all the writers I encountered facing similar crises. “I found my confidence,” she told me. For Anne, this meant coming to terms with comparison being the death of creativity and perfect being the enemy of good. No one but her was doubting her capacity to write the book; no one but her thought she couldn’t do it; no one but her thought she didn’t measure up to her literary-feminist heroines. It was a daily practice, and it didn’t mean she overcame every doubt, but she learned to lean into the chorus of voices inside her that said yes, you can rather than the chorus saying no, you can’t. Over these years, I’ve learned—and seen—that writers do not possess more or less innate talent; writers are made and writers thrive when they learn that it’s not egotistical to prop themselves up and give themselves props. No one wants this for you more than you do, so finding the champion inside yourself is everything.
Doing What We Say We Want To Do
This is the story of my own accountability group, which I started for completely selfish reasons and which has changed my writing life over the past five months. I show up every Thursday and Sunday for my Show Up & Write group (which ends in a month but I’m brainstorming its 2.0 version—and will be sharing) because I wasn’t doing what I said I wanted to do: write my memoir. Why do we not write when we really want to? So many reasons. We’re busy with other things; we’re distracted; we feel dread or resistance or shame or fear when we think about our writing—or the eventual outcome—so we don’t; we deprioritize our writing over things that make money, or that we should be doing (caretaking, spending time with family, cleaning); we’re overwhelmed; we’re tired; we succumb to internalized messages like, Why bother? What does my story matter in the face of so many catastrophic events in the world? What do I have to share that has not already been told, and told better? I confess to having had all of these thoughts, and often. Accountability forces me to show up for my writing and to show up for the thing I say I want to do. My memoir will be written. Goddess (and my ex) willing, it will be published. Accountability helps us to practice these kinds of declarations. It might not be this year, or next year, but it will happen. If you don’t have an accountability practice or group already, start with a simple exercise: I will _____. Place your “I will” statement(s) in a visible place, so you can see it/them when you write. We’ve got this, we really do.
If you want to think and share more on this topic of overcoming resistance and thriving, please join me for Five Things I’ve Learned about How Creative Women Thrive on Sunday, February 4. It’s interactive. You’ll be in dialogue with your own self-awareness and self-doubt. You’ll be reminded to acknowledge what you’re already doing well, and where you’re already thriving. As a culture, as women, we get caught in eddies of lack, of less-than, of not-good-enough. We have to name that stuff in order to box it up where it belongs—on the way back shelf of our consciousness (since I’ve never met anyone who’s effectively banished these kinds of thoughts altogether).
If you’re so inclined, please share in the comment section here What You Know To Be True about the writing life, about your writing life. One of the things I’m loving about Substack is the collective wisdom of this space. Thank you for reading. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for allowing me to share (and in this case promote my class in the process).
You have no idea how badly I needed to hear “comparison is the death of creativity” this morning. The timing is nothing short of divine. Thank you!
What I know to true is when I start something I finish it.
What I know to be true is I love to write, and I absolutely can write this memoir.
What I know to be true is that I need to write early in the morning when I feel most creative.
What I know to be true is when I take the time to clear my mind to meditate before I write the words flow easier
What I know to be true is I need to police myself once I sit down to write I will set a timer for a designated time, and not move from my chair until I am finished.
What I know to be true is once I meditate before writing the words flow much better.
What I know to be true is that I have a story that is important to me and I’m going to tell it.
What I know to be true is that someone will pick up my book and read it and feel they can rise above many difficult obstacles and learn to move on.