Writing brings me a lot of joy. It’s one of my favorite activities. I love telling stories and exploring what could be. I love building effective, clear, precise, simple sentences. I love writing about writing. And yet, that doesn’t mean writing is always easy or fun.
When the time came to actually draft June’s Theme of the Month post, I wanted to do and think about almost anything else. I cut multiple posts’ worth of content trying to get at a theme that made sense, something that was worth sharing, with a little insight into where I am in my writing life sprinkled somewhere in the middle.
The process of writing that post was far from the first time I’ve experienced similar resistance in my writing life this year. As I’ve experienced it, writing resistance can express itself in many different ways.
Sometimes, I dread even opening a document. Maybe I’m tired or distracted, unfocused or perfectionistic, frustrated or impatient. Perhaps I haven’t solved a lingering plot problem, character motivation conundrum, sequencing discrepancy, or some other issue since I last opened the document. It’s tempting to wait to work until I think I’ve figured out what to do.
Sometimes, I have the document open, in general I know what I’m aiming at writing, but I can only manage weak, imprecise phrases. I might only be able to write about what I’m trying to write. I might rewrite the same sentence over and over until I lose not only momentum but my train of thought.
Sometimes, I just cringe and type all those awkward, inadequate sentences, but then I hit a wall—there’s a word I can’t remember, dialogue wobbles, for all my typing a whole lot of nothing is happening, my gut tells me something deeper is amiss. It’s tempting to circle back, start over, indulge in a distraction, conduct “quick” research that becomes a slippery slope into and down a rabbit hole of unrelated information.
Sitting with the discomfort of writing resistance isn’t easy. Resisting resistance isn’t easy either. The easy thing is to avoid discomfort: play a round or seven of solitaire, check my inbox, scroll social media, grab my cellphone, leave my desk, leave the room, conveniently find something else to do because there’s always something else to do.
I’ve come to accept resistance as a common part of the writing process. I don’t have a perfect solution for it, but I do have some strategies to cope with resistance when it creeps up on me.
Reduce distractions.
I keep headphones at my desk and bring earphones when I write elsewhere. I create playlists of instrumentals and have my favorite kinds of white noise bookmarked.
I delete apps on my phone and hide others from the home screen. I turn off app notifications and badges. I silence calls and texts from non-contacts. Sometimes, turning on Airplane Mode is the only way to get words on the page.
When I’m having a particularly difficult writing or editing session, I’ll turn off the internet on my computer and set a timer, promising myself that I will only turn the internet back on after I’ve reached my goal or after the alarm rings. Even if I don’t reach my goal before the end of the session, I can give myself credit for my effort, commitment, and time spent.
Keep score.
Visualizing progress can be incredibly motivating. Creating the equivalent of a fundraiser thermometer to track project progress makes every little contribution that much more important to the overall goal. Moving marbles from one jar to another to count chapters edited adds a physical component to progress tracking. I developed a spreadsheet that allows me to set daily word count goals, record my actual work, display how far ahead or behind I am in reaching my goals, and graph my progress over time.
Creating goals and a system of rewards is common advice. Perhaps after hitting a nice round number on a novel manuscript, I’ll reward myself with a mini marathon of a TV show or a movie I’ve been meaning to watch. Perhaps after completing the first draft of a blog post, I’ll watch a YouTube video or listen to a podcast episode.
The Pomodoro Technique involves a set pattern of working and taking breaks. I sometimes play YouTube videos with built-in Pomodoros, or I’ll use a website like Pomofocus. I keep track of how many Pomodoros I successfully work through without distractions and reward myself accordingly.
Lower the stakes.
If I am honest, my perfectionistic tendencies are the root of many cases of resistance. When working on a deadline, I remind myself that “good enough” is better than unfinished. Done is better than “perfect.”
If today’s word count goal seems impossible, I cut it in half. Sometimes, I scrap the goal altogether and remind myself that any progress is better than stagnation. Paragraphs of imperfect, inelegant, or vague sentences can later be edited, unlike a blank page.
Sometimes, I count writing about what I am trying to write as progress toward my word count goal. There’s a possibility that, while I write about what I am trying to write, eventually, I find a way back into the work.
Reflect.
If writing about what I’m trying to write doesn’t work, I journal about my predicament. There are endless ways to do this, and there are plenty of prompts floating around.
Sometimes I start by lightening my mental load with a stream-of-consciousness exercise or a bullet point list. I capture all the open loops, tasks, thoughts, concerns, plans, and obligations both related and unrelated to my writing that are floating around in my brain. I put them all in one place outside of my current project where I can evaluate the urgency of each item. Once I’ve set this exercise aside, I can often refocus on my work with less of the irrelevant noise. If something else occurs to me later, I can add it to the list and set it aside again, confident that my list can hold more data simultaneously than my mind.
Sometimes I start by stating the writing problem I’m wrestling with—or what I think the problem is—and then I ask myself why and answer that question repeatedly until I learn something. I could start by admitting that I’m not excited about writing a particular part of a story today, ask myself why, and three or four whys down the line discover that a narrative inconsistency is bothering me, I’m more interested in working on a different section or project, an urgent (or nonurgent) non-writing task is taking up more mental space than my novel. Perhaps the problem I identified in the beginning is a mere symptom of the problem rather than the cause.
Pivot deliberately.
In working on one project, occasionally I find a solution to a problem in another project. While brainstorming for last week’s post, I stumbled into reworking the first chapter of a novel I thought was query-ready.
Sometimes the answer to writing resistance isn’t white knuckling through another hour of the same project today. Sometimes the answer is finding another project and making progress on it instead. This isn’t about abandoning or discarding the project I’m struggling with; this is about using my energy in the most productive way possible.
Rest.
Without regular breaks and adequate rest, burnout is inevitable. Just like pivoting from one project to another, rest doesn’t mean that I’m giving up on the project I’m struggling with, it means that I’m looking out for my future self and her ability to continue doing the work I love most.
Which strategy would you try first? What strategies did I miss? I would love to know what strategies you use to resist resistance. I’m always eager to add tools to my Writer’s Tuell Box. (Get it? Tuell. Tool. Toolbox. Tuell Box…)
I’ll keep you posted on my writing life and pursuit of publication, and as always, LET’S GO PIOS! GO AVS GO!
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