Say you have a writing goal. Say that instead of writing each day as per your goal, you decide to do the laundry, read a book, photograph birds that flit past your window. Keep this up and you won’t meet your writing goal. While it’s true that each of these activities could contribute meaningfully to your writing practice, they count as resistance if you are doing them instead of writing.
Most things worth doing, indeed most things that human beings find ultimately satisfying, require effort and therefore also require discipline. You might be tempted to do many other things. You may simply “not feel like” writing, but insisting on resisting takes you farther and farther away from where you want to be. If you get past the initial resistance you may find yourself actually enjoying the process.
If you are not enjoying writing, it may be because some part of you is still resisting. You might have self-doubt. Is your mind chastising you for not writing better at the very same time you are typing? This kind of thinking can stop you before you start. What is important is to fully focus on your writing. If you are distracted by your thoughts or surroundings, it will lessen both the satisfaction and the effectiveness of your writing. While the critical part of the brain is essential for perfecting one’s writing, that criticism should be used in an appropriate manner and place. It should not be directed toward yourself, but toward your work. It also would be better suited to the process of revision rather than during the first draft.
Although some people find revising less enjoyable than the free-flowing first draft, one can be fully engaged in the act of revising as well. If you focus on what you are doing rather than how you feel about your first draft, then you can know the pleasure of revising in the form of solving a series of interesting and complicated puzzles one after the next.
There are times when I begin writing and find myself yawning or feeling an overwhelming urge to go for a walk. These things can be important to attend to. We may have real physical needs for rest, food, or exercise. But they might also be symptoms of subtle form of resistance. Bargain with yourself if you need to. Try setting a timer. Continue writing and when the timer goes off, reward yourself by taking that brief nap or walk. More importantly, take care of yourself, so that you begin your writing in a good physical and mental condition.
We have to think of our future selves not only when we make goals, but when we make our daily decisions to honor those goals. Instead of writing for two hours, you could easily watch two of TV or spend two hours on the internet, but would you be satisfied with that use of time? Will it get you closer to your goal? Investing in our goals, even if difficult, is better than remaining merely comfortable and not gaining wisdom or experience.
I’ve been reading a book recently about creativity and flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and thought I should write about “flow” and the writing process. It may seem like I’m insisting too much on enjoying writing, but there is definitely a balance, even a correlation, between enjoyment and discipline. These words from Mihaly:
“What is enjoyment? In order to answer that question, many years ago I started to study people who seemed to be doing things that they enjoyed but were not rewarded for with money or fame. Chess players, rock climbers, dancers, and composers devoted many hours a week to their avocations. Why were they doing it? It was clear from talking to them that what kept them motivated was the quality of experience e they felt when they were involved with the activity. This feeling didn’t come when they were relaxing, when they were taking drugs or alcohol, or when they were consuming the expensive privileges of wealth. Rather, it often involved painful, risky, difficult activities that stretched the person’s capacity and involved an element of novelty and discovery.”
The following list is taken from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book , Creativity, and includes nine elements people use to describe their most enjoyable experiences. I take it as sort of a guideline. If I am not experiencing “flow” when I write, why?
1. There are clear goals every step of the way. (Do I know what I’m trying to accomplish with the piece? With each part of the piece?)
2. There is immediate feedback to one’s actions (Immediate feedback can be hard to achieve in writing, as it is only the writer’s judgment that is immediately available. As one begins to internalize what makes writing good, it is possible to get an idea of what one is doing right, but too critical a mind may also keep one from “writing bad” which is a necessary precedent to “writing good.”)
3. There is a balance between challenges and skills (Am I attempting a piece that is too complicated for me? Can I break it down into simpler parts?)
4. Action and awareness are merged (Am I fully engaged in my project, or is my mind somewhere else?)
5. Distractions are excluded from consciousness (Am I checking email? Surfing the net? Thinking about other things? Find a time and space to write and learn to focus on writing when you are writing).
6. There is no worry of failure (Am I worried about how the piece will turn out or how it will be received?)
7. Self-consciousness disappears (Am I self-conscious about what I’m writing?)
8. The sense of time becomes distorted (Do you feel like the time flies? I admit, I like to use a timer when I write which means that I’m usually fairly conscious of time. Currently it helps me not to be intimidated by sitting down to write if I know I only have to write as long as the timer is going. I am more likely to resist a nebulous amount of time).
9. The activity becomes autotelic. (Am I enjoying what I’m doing now, or am I thinking of the praise and admiration I hope to gain by writing this piece?)
I’m starting to think of writing as a sort of focused meditation. You may not always “feel like” writing, but resistance is futile, and can keep you from your goal and from the greater enjoyment that comes with writing fully engaged. Overcome resistance and you are on your way to becoming a more disciplined and accomplished writer as well as a happier person. “Discipline,” (I quote Barry Lopez) “is the highest form of self-respect.”
