And here is where we come back to my horse-riding experiences, because the metaphor that came into my head was that my writing self was like the horse that has had such bad experiences in the schooling ring that it now does not even want to go into the school - so for me, my writing self was so hurt by the tactics I had been using to try and make myself write (effectively whipping and spurring myself to try and force it into action), that it was now refusing even to let me go to the computer and sit down to begin to write. And once I looked at it like that, then I suddenly had a framework for how I could do things differently.
What would I do if I was riding a horse that was completely freaked out of going into the schooling ring? Well, the first and most important thing would be to get it to trust that it could go there and nothing bad would happen, in fact that it might even be enjoyable to be there. So, I did the same with my writing, trying to stay in the same noticing mode that I used for my riding - how could I get myself to the computer in a kind way, in a way that could be positive. And I think the answer to that would be different for different people, but for me it was about making the time to sit at my desk at least once every day but in a calm, kind way, and when I was sitting at my desk, I opened up a document that I called Emotion Notes, and I noted down how I felt - panicky, excited, scared, ill, cross about stuff that had happened, and then having got that out, I would write something like 'Right, I've made the decision to sit at my desk and open the computer, and now I'm making the decision to go to the page' and I would open up my notes document for the story I was working on and all I had to do was to allow my writing self to speak without judging what came out - to follow the enjoyment factor above all else, with success being simply that I had allowed myself to write freely.
And to start with that was really hard, and the anxiety that my writing self felt was really high, but I worked on trying to prove myself trust-worthy to it - that no matter what it came out with, I still wasn't going to say nasty things to it or beat it again - and that it could just relax and feel confident that this was a space for it to feel free and happy. And to my real amazement, I would go repeatedly to the page, convinced that I had nothing to say about the story that I was working on, and then two or three lines in I would suddenly have the spark of an idea and then suddenly these chunks of information about my plot or character or theme would come and I'd write them down going 'cool!' and 'wow!' and for the first time actually enjoying what I was doing. And that was the first step.
And what I have now is about 50k words on my plot and characters and theme, and a timeline of what happens where and now I'm taking the same approach to how I now move on to writing prose, whilst keeping that critical self from harming my writing self. What has worked well so far is trying to externalise it as much as possible, as a dialogue between two different parts of myself that each have valuable advice to give and valuable perspectives, but neither is allowed to hurt the other - so the critical self is allowed to point out the things that are wrong, and I'll write them all down, and then looking at them I'll think these are all true comments, but these are things for me to fix later, and it's not helpful for us to focus on that at this stage, but thanks for your input, and my critical self goes 'OK, no worries, just wanted you to be aware' and then steps aside! And the other thing that has worked well is turning it back on the critical self - so one time it was having a little tantrum about how much it disliked my prose, and I noted that down, and then asked it what I could do to make it better, and it stuttered a bit, and I let it have a bit of time to think, and then it came out with a couple of really constructive useful ideas about working off other people's prose to start with and free-writing fictionalising events of the day or tv happenings, and then again having had its say and feeling heard, it went quiet and let my writing self get going again. (cont in next comment!)
no subject
What would I do if I was riding a horse that was completely freaked out of going into the schooling ring? Well, the first and most important thing would be to get it to trust that it could go there and nothing bad would happen, in fact that it might even be enjoyable to be there. So, I did the same with my writing, trying to stay in the same noticing mode that I used for my riding - how could I get myself to the computer in a kind way, in a way that could be positive. And I think the answer to that would be different for different people, but for me it was about making the time to sit at my desk at least once every day but in a calm, kind way, and when I was sitting at my desk, I opened up a document that I called Emotion Notes, and I noted down how I felt - panicky, excited, scared, ill, cross about stuff that had happened, and then having got that out, I would write something like 'Right, I've made the decision to sit at my desk and open the computer, and now I'm making the decision to go to the page' and I would open up my notes document for the story I was working on and all I had to do was to allow my writing self to speak without judging what came out - to follow the enjoyment factor above all else, with success being simply that I had allowed myself to write freely.
And to start with that was really hard, and the anxiety that my writing self felt was really high, but I worked on trying to prove myself trust-worthy to it - that no matter what it came out with, I still wasn't going to say nasty things to it or beat it again - and that it could just relax and feel confident that this was a space for it to feel free and happy. And to my real amazement, I would go repeatedly to the page, convinced that I had nothing to say about the story that I was working on, and then two or three lines in I would suddenly have the spark of an idea and then suddenly these chunks of information about my plot or character or theme would come and I'd write them down going 'cool!' and 'wow!' and for the first time actually enjoying what I was doing. And that was the first step.
And what I have now is about 50k words on my plot and characters and theme, and a timeline of what happens where and now I'm taking the same approach to how I now move on to writing prose, whilst keeping that critical self from harming my writing self. What has worked well so far is trying to externalise it as much as possible, as a dialogue between two different parts of myself that each have valuable advice to give and valuable perspectives, but neither is allowed to hurt the other - so the critical self is allowed to point out the things that are wrong, and I'll write them all down, and then looking at them I'll think these are all true comments, but these are things for me to fix later, and it's not helpful for us to focus on that at this stage, but thanks for your input, and my critical self goes 'OK, no worries, just wanted you to be aware' and then steps aside! And the other thing that has worked well is turning it back on the critical self - so one time it was having a little tantrum about how much it disliked my prose, and I noted that down, and then asked it what I could do to make it better, and it stuttered a bit, and I let it have a bit of time to think, and then it came out with a couple of really constructive useful ideas about working off other people's prose to start with and free-writing fictionalising events of the day or tv happenings, and then again having had its say and feeling heard, it went quiet and let my writing self get going again. (cont in next comment!)