Today’s Writing Music: Feeling This by Blink-182
Today’s Reading: Goldenrod: Poems by Maggie Smith
“You know, if you want to hear interesting conversations,” Amy Tan advises in a MasterClass lesson, “Go to a party with a bunch of writers and ask them about Writer’s Block.”
I don’t actually advise doing this (or partying with writers in general), but Tan’s statement has intrigued me.
If you throw that question out into the party-ether, will every writer have something to divulge, something different to say? (Or it would be a pretty uninteresting conversation, right?)
Now, I do think that, if every writer was being fully honest that’s what you’d come away with.
Only that’s not what would probably happen.
Because, like someone confessing to having problems in bed, having Writer’s Block turns out to be something people are generally not willing to speak about honestly.
You can get some of the effect by looking at this Lithub article “Is it Real? 25 Famous Writers on Writer’s Block.
Unsurprisingly, about half of the writers quoted here deny that Writer’s Block even exists—and several quite vehemently.
I think they doth protest too much.
Here’s Patrick Rothfuss, with a real humdinger:
For example, who’s heard of writer’s block? I really don’t think it exists. Actually, no, sorry, I’m going to take that back: it does not exist. We’ll state it flatly. Sometimes, writing is super hard. Just like any other job. Or, if it’s not your job, sometimes it’s hard to do a thing even if it is your hobby. But no plumber ever gets to call in to work, and they’re like “Jake, I have plumber’s block,” you know? What would your boss say?! I have teacher’s block. I have accounting block. They would say “You are fired! You have problems and you are fired. Get your ass in here and plumb some stuff, Jerry!”
I hate this. Hate it so much. I don’t think it’s accurate to compare the job of a creative writer to the job of an accountant or a plumber—but actually I think he’s not saying they’re equal. He’s implying that compared to the “real” work done by an accountant or plumber, writers have it easy.
Of course I feel very fortunate to have work that I find stimulating and interesting—I hope very much that the plumber and accountant do too. But that doesn’t mean I always feel capable of doing that work to the standards that I or my readers expect… of course it doesn’t.
And aren’t there plenty of plumbers or accountants out there who do find themselves unable to do their jobs well? People in all vocations struggle with depression and anxiety that becomes debilitating—it doesn’t matter who signs their checks.
In short, I reject this line of thinking.
Anthony Burgess suggests that one might get Writer’s Block if they’re somehow privileged enough to not need to write to survive. Geoff Dyer calls it a “lazy-thinking kind of cliché.” And Gary Shteyngart says, “I never get writer’s block. I have content coming out of my pores. You want 600 words on maize production in the Andes? I’ll have it to you by Friday. How much do you pay a word?”
I mean, good for Gary, but otherwise this is all fantastically unhelpful. Worse, it feeds into misconceptions that only make someone else’s Block worse—implying that it isn’t something real writers ever deal with. If you have it, then you’re just too privileged, or lazy, or inauthentic to write.
Which is total crap.
I think I’m a pretty productive writer. I like to be busy, to the point where sometimes I’m into three or four projects at once. I get antsy when I’m not writing something, or thinking about writing something (which is probably also unhealthy, but we’ll cover that in a future post.)
At times I’ve written incredibly quickly during times of extreme stress in other parts of my life, but I’ve also gotten pretty well stuck. Sometimes a quiet spell in life leads me to great ideas, and sometimes it leaves my fingers totally cold.
I’ve written about as effectively, I think, during times when I had a little money in the bank and times when I didn’t have enough to withdraw at an ATM.
I’ve written through hard times: in waiting rooms during chemo appointments, at 4AM with restless infants, and while adjuncting six classes at two different colleges. And I’ve written through lots of easier times as well.
I’ve had blocks during all those periods, lasting varying lengths of time, and of varying severity overall.
In my experience at least, external pressures coming and going don’t really seem to directly correlate to a block occurring.
So where does it come from then?
In a fascinating New Yorker article, “How to Beat Writer’s Block,” author Maria Konnikova dissects two scientific studies that have probed the question of Writer’s Block and comes to a similar conclusion.
The first study was done in the 1940s by a disciple of Freud’s named Edmund Bergler who conducted a study of writers who’d experienced a block for at least three months.
He found that blocks (or “neurotic inhibitions of productivity”… can we start calling it a NIP?) were not due to the commonly-believed reasons: blocked writers could be both financially secure or insecure, and still be blocked. Bergler also found that the blocked writers had not simply “used up” their inspiration, leaving nothing in the well to draw from. Many had tons of great ideas—they just couldn’t write.
Bergler hypothesized that writers become blocked because of a blocked psyche. If we use creativity to express what’s in our subconscious minds, and we have a stubborn tangle deep down in there… we can’t write.
A true student of Sigmund’s, he decided that undergoing therapy would be the answer: address the underlying psychological problem, and loosen the block.
Now, I love therapy and I find it very helpful both in sorting out the puzzles of life and of writing—but can there really be such a common cause, and common solution to a problem that feels so variegated?
It turns out that yes, it is that simple—except it also isn’t.
Konnikova’s article then describes a study conducted in the 80s and 90s by two Yale University scholars, Michael Barrios and Jerome Singer, who ran a barrage of psychological tests on blocked writers and found that, by and large, the Bergler hypothesis was accurate: a Writer’s Block stems from some kind of unhappiness.
But, as Konnikova says, “Unhappy writers, it seemed, were unhappy in their own ways.”
Symptoms of depression and anxiety, including increased self-criticism and reduced excitement and pride at work, were elevated in the blocked group; symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder, such as repetition, self-doubt, procrastination, and perfectionism, also appeared, as did feelings of helplessness and “aversion to solitude”—a major problem, since writing usually requires time alone.
Seeing then, that these writers’ psyches were blocked but not all in the same ways, Barrios and Singer decided to further categorize them into four groups:
1) Anxious writers, for whom a “deep emotional distress that sapped the joy out of writing.”
2) Interpersonally Frustrated writers, who were overwhelmed by an irritation with others.
3) Apathetic writers, who felt a broad sense of disengagement with life and the world.
4) and Hostile writers, for whom disappointment, anger, and strongly negative emotions (not just sadness) prevented them from writing.
Barrios and Singer found that the outcomes were similar for all groups: less ambition in their ideas, a lack of motivation, and an inability to creatively visualize.
For me, this tracks 100%.
I’ve had blocks at various points in my life, and each time the result is pretty similar: I can’t get myself to focus on what I’ve been writing; I feel a lack of motivation and confidence; it’s hard to get my visual imagination to do its thing; and in general there’s just a total absence in the joy I usually feel when I write. Instead it seems pointless. When I force something out, I'm sure it is terrible, which makes me sure I’m terrible at writing, which leaves me more miserable than before.
There’s a vicious circle quality to it. (If you’ll allow me to indulge…
Dan: Yep. Just keeps going around and around.
Casey: Never stops.
Dan: That’s what makes it vicious.
Casey: And a circle.
Konnikova explains that while the outcomes were similar for all the blocked writers, the different causes led to different senses of the experience.
The Anxious writers suffered from excessive self-criticism. The Interpersonally Frustrated writers could not stop comparing their work to that of others. (Some writers in this group actually feared that their writing was so good it would make others too jealous, which… OK.) The Apathetic writers often felt that they were unoriginal and also too constrained by supposed “rules” being imposed upon them. The Hostile writers were more likely to be driven by external praise and validation, and therefore pissed off when it did not come as expected.
I don’t know about you, but I can think of times in my writing life when I’ve struggled with each of these problems. Sometimes, my ego is mad at someone’s failure to validate it. Sometimes I find myself feeling like writing is just a big fat waste of everyone's time. Sometimes I’m crippled by comparison, that thief of joy. And sometimes I can’t stop beating myself up.
One finding of the study showed that some writers were using their imaginations as much as ever, but they were using them to dwell on hypothetical criticisms, or having mental arguments with critics or editors, instead of applying it to the characters in their novels… and, reader, I tell you—I have never felt so seen. (This is the best motivation I’ve come across yet to get the hell off of Twitter).
In the manner of a vicious circle, again, these things may also feed into one another, even, creating even deeper blocks than before.
So—what’s to be done about it?
First, we acknowledge that blocks are real. Maybe yours only last a few days, maybe you’ve gone weeks or months or years. Telling a writer to just white-knuckle their way through it, or saying “that’s just all in your head, try being an accountant” is going to be as helpful as it is in dealing with anyone going through any other psychological difficulty.
“Hmm. What if you just don’t be depressed? What if you just didn’t get anxious? You should be grateful!” Thanks, wow. So much better now.
Writer’s Block isn’t a symptom of laziness or bourgeoise malaise any more than depression or anxiety are. But if they can be treated (which they can) then so can Writer’s Block.
Therapy, as I said before, will be helpful . Each of those four categories is tied up with something that I think therapy probably can help a writer untie.
Point, Bergler.
But Barrios and Singer found another solution, or one that can be used in tandem with the first.
They had writers in all four groups engage in what Konnikova calls “exercises in directed mental imagery.”
These writers would sit in a dim, quiet room and contemplate a series of ten prompts asking them to produce and then describe dream-like creations. They might, for example, “visualize” a piece of music, or a specific setting in nature. Afterward, they would visualize something from their current projects, and then generate a “dreamlike experience” based on that project.
After a two week intervention, Barrios and Singer found that many of the writers had more motivation and self-confidence, and were able to be more productive than before. They found that the creative intervention also led to a relief of the writers’ emotional distress—in other words that regaining an ability to write was helpful in unblocking the psyche—in effect, flipping Bergler’s idea around.
This again, makes sense—think about the mechanics of something like Art Therapy. We often claim the act of creative expression is freeing or healing, so why couldn’t we use it to heal ourselves? (I suspect this is also linked to why so many writers describe a regular meditation practice being helpful to them. Not only can it be helpful in easing psychological distress, but it is also a work-out for our visual imagination.)
Konnikova, in her article, focuses on Graham Greene, a wildly productive writer who authored novels and plays and essays: dozens and dozens in his lifetime. But at a certain point he became blocked for a very long period, and simply couldn’t write a thing.
But that’s not quite true. Even in his blocked period, Greene kept up a dream journal, which he had done since he was a teenager. He wrote down little things he dreamt each night, logging them privately, without any direct connection to his work. It was through this—what we in the education biz call a “low-stakes writing exercise”—that he was eventually able to get through his block. (After writing about a particularly memorable dream wherein TS Eliot criticized his terrible poem).
Doing any kind of semi-regular “low stakes” writing, then, may be a way to get past a block. Dream journals, visualization exercises, working from prompts—in other words, doing writing that is not for anything other than its own enjoyment and fun, and which no one else will ever need to see… this should steadily unblock us and bring us back to our “serious” work again— it might even lead us into some new, better direction we wouldn’t have come up with before.
Look back at that LitHub article again. Most of the writers in the “blocks don’t exist” camp actually quickly go on to discuss what they do when they start to get blocked. What they’re really saying is not that “real” writers don’t get blocked, just that they’ve managed to find effective ways of overcoming their own blocks. They’ve got coping mechanisms, survival strategies: and you can have them too:
Alexander McCall Smith goes from calling Writer’s Block “nonsense” to saying it’s probably “depression” (well, OK) and then saying when he feels this way he likes to just jump on a plane to Botswana. (Nice work if you can get it, I guess).
Jim Harrison, in his Paris Review interview, says when he feels stuck, he hits the road with a bottle of whiskey and some antacids. Cheap motels and dinner food can shake you out of any rut, he thinks.
So maybe a change of scenery, then, can shake things up? (Not always practical, of course, at least for those of us with small kids at home.) Pair that with a little low-stakes traveloguing and you might be in business.
Others, like Jhumpa Lahiri or Carmen Maria Machado suggest stepping back and just doing some reading—maybe not so different, ultimately, from travelling? And a little easier for those who can’t just jet over to Botswana.
So read! And, again, jot down a few thoughts on your reading while you’re at it.
Tom Wolfe suggests writing a letter, then just taking the “Dear so-and-so” out from the top at the end. This is an old speechwriting trick… it just takes the assignment and makes it feel low-stakes.
Some, like Ben Marcus, point out that it may just be a sign that what you’re working on is boring you. Amy Tan echoes this as well, in her MasterClass video—that it may be a sign that you’ve written yourself into a corner, perhaps with a character that is lacking enough internal surprises.
Or maybe you’re stuck because you’re stuck— Colson Whitehead says, “Writer’s block for me is a question I haven’t solved yet—Why is Martin doing this? What happens after they meet? What the hell is going on in this scene? It’s a question I haven’t answered yet, but I trust that in 2 hours, 2 days, or 2 months I will eventually answer it.”
In the end, I think once you get past the initial outbursts of “Writer’s Block? Sissy poppycock!” most writers will end up confessing that they do get blocked. They just don’t see it as extraordinary anymore… it’s a normal part of the process. And they have found good ways to get through blocks that we may borrow if we like. This, I think, is helpful.
So, next time you feel a block, try and figure out which type it is. Talk to a friend or a therapist if you can. Do some low-stakes writing—letters, journals, anything private. Practice a little visualization as well, and see where that leads you too. (See the prompt at the end for more in this!)
Above all, don’t let it convince you that you’re somehow not a real writer, or that blocks are imaginary—we’ve all been there, and we’ll all be there again in due time.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an imaginary argument to conduct with someone who wrote a bad review of my last book five-and-a-half years ago.
Just kidding. Maybe.
Have fun!
Writing Towards the Fun #9:
I decided to read up a little on the kinds of “visual imagination exercises” that Barrios and Singer used with the blocked writers in their study, and I brought a few things together for this:
1) Find a quiet place where you can sit for a few minutes, undisturbed.
2) Think about an object that you’re familiar with—something basic, like a candle, or a piece of fruit, or a pencil.
3) Close your eyes and try to imagine it in some detail… what colors do you see, how does it feel in your hand? Does it have a smell or a taste? Is it old or new?
4) After a few minutes, open your eyes and reflect on how this went. Did you “see” the object in your mind’s eye? What facets of it might you add still?
5) Repeat, and try to add a few new details this time… is the pencil chewed at the end? Is the candle dripping down onto the holder? Does the fruit have a sticker from the grocery store?
6) Keep going, adding as much as you can for a few minutes.
7) Then, take out a pen and paper and write down as much of the detail that you can remember. There’s no bad writing or good writing here—just see if you can fill a half a page or so.
8) Try it again after a few hours, or the next day, with something new. Over the course of a few objects, do you feel like you’re seeing more detail? Can you see details surrounding the object?
9) Eventually, try it with a character’s face or body. Visualize the room where they sleep or work. Write these down and see if you can fill a whole page this time. Don’t increase the pressure on yourself, but see if you can push the envelope, little by little.
10) Track, as you go, your feelings about your other writing. Do you feel any more inspired or capable than before?