You know when you are feeling really good about your writing, you have this sense that—it's hard, of course writing feels hard—but it also feels really satisfying or you're feeling really good about the schedule that you're using for writing, or you just getting that, that rush from producing ideas. And then all of a sudden you run into a barrier. somebody gets sick. Or you get really busy with teaching or there's some kind of calendar issue that disrupts your practice, whatever it is. There are these really annoying writing challenges that come up for us when we're engaged in a writing practice.
Even though these are really annoying, I'm going to suggest that they're actually really valuable and it's really useful to think about, first of all, what am I likely to encounter as I'm working on a writing project? And then to, you know, how do I support myself, how can I be kind to myself as I work through and navigate through the different challenges that come with writing?
This is part of my approach to the writing lifestyle. I went into a lot of detail about the writing lifestyle and my perspective on building a writing lifestyle and sustaining a writing lifestyle in my last podcast. So, if you're interested in learning more about that and hearing about it, you can look up “The Good Enough Professor's Guide to The Writing Lifestyle.” It's the previous podcast episode. And in that episode, I really talk about grounding writing practice, grounding a writing lifestyle in three non-negotiables. One is feelings, our feelings about our writing. Our feelings about our writing influence our writing itself. The second is our bodies and the embodiment of the writing practice. And the third is really about social connection and our needs for connection during the writing process. So, you know, how do we stay connected to our feelings, to our bodies, to other people when we're really engaged in a writing lifestyle.
So today we're really going to build on that idea of the writing lifestyle, of creating a sustainable writing lifestyle, by focusing on three challenges that you're almost certain to encounter during a writing lifestyle. The first is the need to reconnect with a project. We all kind of drop out of connection. We all feel a separation at some point from our writing, for whatever reason, a myriad of reasons, right. We might lose that sense of connection. So building the skills to reconnect, to make it fun, to make it easy, to acknowledge our feelings about it, right, to use embodied methods, connecting with others. These are all ways to help us reconnect to our writing practice. The second is what I like to call the fire swamp, and this is really about these big feelings of fear, of sadness, of deep concern and loss, almost, and, you know, anxiety around our writing, our writing project. So how do we navigate those really big feelings? Because of course, those are things that can derail us. Having those big feelings and having no outlet or not wanting to acknowledge those can really change our relationship to the specific texts that we're working on and also to our writing practice in general. The third really annoying challenge that we'll talk about today is something I like to call the slog. So this is when we just kind of fall into a rut with our writing. When it feels boring, when you kind of lost that spark. You know, you might be working on it regularly, you might be deriving some fulfillment from it. But, but it's just not really you don't have that spark, right? So. The slog. How do you, how do you move through the slog?
So all of these really annoying challenges are things that you are likely to encounter. You probably have encountered them already. And so we're really going to approach them from this perspective of acceptance, of acceptance of the way we feel both in our emotions, in our minds, our thoughts about our writing as well as bodies and our connections to others. So hopefully a a new perspective on writing challenges for you. And I think what we'll find, or I hope that what we'll find is that these moments can actually be really fruitful. They can be really great turning points in our relationship to the text and really can enrich our writing practice if we can face them head on and expect that they're going to come up and treat ourselves kindly as we are working through them. So let's get started.
Okay, so the first is when you're going along, you found your joy, your rhythm, you're excited about your work, you're showing up when you want to, and you know, you found your environment, you found a place, a pace that works for you: expect that that will change. It's not going to stay the same. As your circumstances change, what feels fun and inviting and motivating about your writing style, about your writing lifestyle, it's going to change. And that's okay. It's important to recognize that sometimes we just may not have the capacity to show up with that joy and with that fun.
What is important is trusting that you have some skills for reconnecting with writing for getting back into it. This is a crucial skill and sustaining a writing lifestyle. And the key here, I think, is really to take an experimental approach. And to, you know, withhold judgment as much as possible as judgment -free as you can be towards yourself, the better. And this is really what we're trying for, is a low- stakes way to try out a lot of different writing activities. So I have two mottos for this reconnecting with writing moment. One is “find the fun” and the other is “everything counts.” What do I mean by that? Thinking, wandering, exploring, and simply being with your project are all meaningful activities worth your time. Sometimes I think we fetishize the production of words, like the number of words or how quickly we're writing. Writing, being with our projects in different ways is really sustaining.
So I have a whole bunch of ideas for trying out different kinds of writing activities, and I'm just going to dump them out here for you to, to give you some ideas for places to get started. One is to get out into the world. So go to a public place that's connected with your project. For me, that's often an art museum, but it might be an observatory for you or an arboretum or library. Just observing what's fun or interesting about this place. Why are people here? What matters to them here? So what you're doing is reconnecting with the purpose of what you do and what you study. Right. On a very grand scale, other options, draw or paint, or use play doh, make a collage, approach your work in a, from a new perspective, you can always enlist a colleague or friend to meet you for coffee to discuss your writing.
And what I like to do when I do this is be really clear with your friend or colleague, like, I am kind of stuck and I would love to chat with you about my work. And you can always offer to do that for them either another time or in the same session. Another idea is to experiment with timers. Set a timer for 5 minutes and Challenge yourself to write or, you know, talk into a voice to text app what's important about my project.
Another thing to try or to remember is that reading is research. I really should make a t shirt of this because, again, this is something that I think we sometimes overlook or we think it's not good enough to read. Or to take a break from writing to read, but reading is research. Some time to read.
Another option, go beyond the screen. Get out on the sidewalk or in your driveway and make a mind map in chalk. Or do something that you wouldn't do, like take notes by hand or record your thoughts as text on your phone. Really get some distance from that writing screen. And then the last idea that I'll suggest here is revisit your original data. So seek out that original actual text or object, image or data set or idea that motivated this project in the first place and just spend some time with it and notice what comes up for you when you're around, when you're being with, when you are around these ideas. So again, the goal here is to enjoy your work. So you want to…taking yourself out of your usual writing activities can really stimulate your interest and your creativity. As you experiment with this, let me know what other kinds of non- traditional or out of your comfort zone kinds of writing you explore.
All right, what else can you expect to encounter in your writing lifestyle? The writing lifestyle usually includes a pit of despair. This is just another phase of the writing process. The pit of despair or I like to call it the fire swamp because of the rodents of unusual size, it feels like putting out fires, having to be hypervigilant. This feeling of despair and fear, it's a completely normal experience. This is when we have these moments of what in the world am I going to do next? How will I be able to get through this problem? Sometimes this comes up in the content of what you're writing. Sometimes it's a structural problem that seems really difficult to overcome. And you know, other times it's just life intervenes. Maybe there's a family crisis or something unexpected happens. There can be a lot of feelings around the pit of despair. I recommend refocusing on inviting your emotions into the writing lifestyle when you encounter The fire swamp, maybe you've fallen out of connecting with your emotions. Maybe you thought it wasn't going to be useful and you stopped doing it. Now's the time to bring it back. Re engage with your writing journal. Restart that reflective practice, start using that scale or those emotion cards again, in order to remind your nervous system that these feelings are not forever.
Give them space. Give them time. Acknowledge them. Thank them. And they will move on. In the fire swamp, you may also want to circle back to the reconnecting with your writing phase, that experimental phase. Try out some of the things that might help you kind of shake things up a little bit. And also, I really recommend devoting some mental energy to considering, What supports can I put in place as I am moving through the fire swamp? Do I need more child care? Do I need to order delivery for dinner more regularly for a while? What resources can I draw on? Maybe reconnecting with a therapist or engaging in something that you love to do, like a hobby that you enjoy, like baking or running or knitting, whatever.
Okay, as we're moving through the writing lifestyle, dealing with tedium may come up. You may just get bored with your writing practice. I like to call this the slog. Now, I recommend here the shameless use of treats. Chocolate, for example. I have a client who loves to use stickers just to get her going. Whatever it is during the slog that you need, maybe you need macrons, whatever it is, that's awesome. Whatever you need to get back into writing to get through this log. Now, sometimes I see a rolling of eyes kind of reaction. To my pushing treats like somehow as professors, we should be above this kind of behavior, we should have a “pure” motivation. For me, if the point is to enjoy our writing, so we do it more, then anything in the service of reconnecting with fun and play, having something to look forward to works toward that goal. So in addition to treats, what else might you do during this log? Again, circling back to strategies for reconnecting with your writing. I think so many of these moments of disconnect can be bridged by having fun again and loosening our expectations, loosening up habits that may not be serving us, observing the times when we start to feel bored and just switching it up a little bit. Considering, am I missing one of the three aspects of the writing lifestyle? Am I not really accepting the inevitability of emotions? Am I not doing a good job of tending to my body? Am I not making time to connect with other beings?
The slog is a great time to consider outsourcing as an option as well. Again, reminding yourself that you don't have to do this alone. There are lots of opportunities for writing support. There are writing groups, there are coaches like me, and there's wonderful, and you know, there's all. Often overlooked resource of a consulting editor, I wish people in our line of work, work talked more about working with consulting editors, because this can be really transformative experience. If you have a little bit of research money, or if you have the privilege of being able to afford a writing consultant, this can be fabulous. I've worked with writing consultants at many stages of the writing process. And I've also worked with folks who do really specific kinds of writing work, so indexing or citations, references, right? So I once had an article that required MLA citations and you know, I do Chicago, so I'm not good with MLA. So I hired someone to do those citations for me. And it was wonderful. A writing consultant can, first of all, give you a new perspective at any point. In the writing process, I want to emphasize that you can actually do it quite early in the process if you find that you get stuck or you're experiencing the slog really early in your writing lifestyle. Maybe you have a dissertation that you're trying to move into a book before you really get started deciding how—you probably already have ideas, but you could hire a consultant what to do and how to do it and they can really give you some advice, some guidance, work with you to clarify your own thinking.
Now, I'm working on a book related to coaching and, you know, I wrote the book proposal. I have a good draft of it. And I've just been endlessly fiddling with some details. So earlier this semester, I decided to work with a consultant. I have big chunks in this document that are just bullet points. In the past, I would never have sent something to anyone if they were just bullet points. But I really decided to take my own advice and work with an editor. And I'm really excited to see what's going to come from that collaboration.
When you're in the midst of this slog, it can feel like a really heavy place. But just remember that it's temporary and that you do have the tools to stomp on through.
The next time you feel barrier and you're writing challenges the next time you feel a kind of stop or that moment of encountering a barrier in your writing practice, take a moment to think about whether this might be a moment when you need to reconnect or perhaps it's a fire swamp kind of big feelings kind of moment. Or, you know, maybe it's the slog that you're experiencing. Try to put a name to it. Because I could be helpful to normalize what we experienced in the writing process. Take this as an opportunity to think differently about your work. What I love about really annoying writing challenges, despite them being annoying, they really provide this opportunity to think about what matters. You know, what is it that matters to me about this work? What is it that I enjoy most about my writing practice, because these are moments when we're missing that. Right. So when we feel that sense of loss it's a really great time to reflect on what it is we're missing, what it is that we want to create.
And it is possible at any moment in the writing process to take a different approach, to incorporate your body, to make space for your feelings, and to build some familiarity and some confidence in getting through writing challenges. I know that you've gotten through writing challenges before, and it may have been painful. It doesn't have to be that way though! There are certainly difficulties in writing. When we don't push away those feelings, when we don't keep ignoring what our bodies are telling us, when we make those meaningful connections with others around our writing, we can make it easier to navigate these challenges. We can start to see them as moments of possibility.
The next time you have a challenge with your writing, let me know how it goes!
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