Praise for Around the Writer’s Block and Rosanne Bane
“Rosanne Bane understands not only the resistance all writers face but the neurological basis of that resistance. Her ingenious application of research about our brains to the process of writing and her wise counsel overall can help writers at every level.”
—RALPH KEYES, AUTHOR OF THE COURAGE TO WRITE AND THE WRITER’S BOOK OF HOPE
“Compared to the ubiquitous ‘inspirational’ artists’ guides that seem determined to free your inner child and invite angels to perch on your shoulder, the approach taken by Rosanne Bane in Around the Writer’s Block strikes me as singularly refreshing and intelligent. Bane introduces the many obstacles commonly lumped under the heading of ‘writer’s block’ by providing detailed descriptions of how different parts of the brain connect and interact when faced with different mental challenges—and then uses that knowledge to fashion responses artists can use to good advantage as they set about trying to get at the writing they need to do.”
—TED ORLAND, COAUTHOR OF ART & FEAR
“Around the Writer’s Block gives writers the tools we need to tackle the resistance born inside our own brains. And the best part? You don’t have to be a brain surgeon to put Rosanne Bane’s practical and profound advice to immediate use in accelerating toward your own writing goals!”
—LISA BULLARD, IRA/CBC CHILDREN’S CHOICE AWARD–WINNING AUTHOR OF TRICK-OR-TREAT ON MILTON STREET AND NOT ENOUGH BEDS
“Rosanne Bane’s compassion for writers struggling with writer’s block (and more subtle forms of resistance) combined with the ability to explain in clear, simple language how brain science applies to writers, make this book a gift to both aspiring and established writers. Around the Writer’s Block gives writers everywhere the information, habits and tools they need to work through writing resistance.”
—BRIAN MALLOY, AUTHOR OF THE YEAR OF ICE, BRENDAN WOLF, AND TWELVE LONG MONTHS
“Rosanne Bane’s Around the Writer’s Block was a book I could only read in short bursts because it so inspired me to get off my butt and write that I had to set the book down and tackle my own creative projects instead!”
—TATE HALLAWAY, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF TALL, DARK & DEAD
“Practical and energizing, Rosanne Bane’s valuable exercises and healthy habits can successfully retrain your brain and creative spirit to manifest the dream that’s in your heart.”
—MARY CARROLL MOORE, AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF YOUR BOOK STARTS HERE: CREATE, CRAFT, AND SELL YOUR FIRST NOVEL, MEMOIR, OR NONFICTION BOOK
“Rosanne Bane has addressed all the excuses that keep us writers from producing.”
—PIERCE J. HOWARD, PH.D., MANAGING DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT FOR THE CENTER FOR APPLIED COGNITIVE STUDIES AND AUTHOR OF THE OWNER’S MANUAL FOR THE BRAIN
AROUND THE WRITER’S BLOCK
Using Brain Science to Solve Writer’s Resistance*
*Including Writer’s Block, Procrastination, Paralysis, Perfectionism, Postponing, Distractions, Self-Sabotage, Excessive Criticism, Overscheduling, and Endlessly Delaying Your Writing
Rosanne Bane
JEREMY P. TARCHER/PENGUIN
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. New York
JEREMY P. TARCHER/PENGUIN
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Copyright © 2012 by Rosanne Bane
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Published simultaneously in Canada
“Synaptic Jazz”© 2012 by Jean Cook. Reprinted with permission from author.
Most Tarcher/Penguin books are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchase for sales promotions, premiums, fund-raising, and educational needs. Special books or book excerpts also can be created to fit specific needs. For details, write Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Special Markets, 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bane, Rosanne, date.
Around the writer’s block : using brain science to solve writer’s resistance / Rosanne Bane.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-101-59711-8
1. Writer’s block. 2. Authorship—Psychological aspects. I. Title.
RC552.W74B36 2012 2012014826
616.8—dc23
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Version_3
Synaptic Jazz
by Jean Cook
Each neuron
in your head
aims to stop dead
your saboteur.
Ganglia thick like
Medusa’s snake hair
their dendrites lively, aware
aquiver, writhing,
release, receive enzymes
time and again and time
firing with willpower
every minute, every hour
firing, conspiring,
aspiring to inspire to aspire.
Never flogging your noggin,
snap-crackle-pop,
your impulses don’t stop
rapid fire rat-a-tat-tat
whadya think about that?
snapping across the synapse gaps
across the abyss
nerves with verve and flair
analyze, improvise
how to get from here to there,
from there to here?
Brain smiles and waves
staves off the fear
strolling la-di-da
past the amygdala.
A shower of brainpower
lightning paths cutting swaths
across your gray matter
connecting a smattering
of what’s mattering,
of this, of that,
so much going on under your hat
brimming full
of natural chemicals
of dopamine,
know what I mean?
Brainstorms
are the norm.
Your methodical plotting
not plodding
around the writer’s block
steady as a rock
steady as you go
the ideas flow
axon to axon, flow on
past snake brain
the electron convoy conveys
an energy load along vertabrae
neverendin’ at the tendons
now going far
going intramuscular
through bicep, tricep,
funnels into the carpal tunnel
through your finger,
through your pen
and then
ideas swirl
into the world.
Creativity,
It’s cerebral, baby.
CONTENTS
SECTION 1: Overview
1. INTRODUCTION
What Do They Got That I Ain’t Got?
Resistance Is Normal
Resistance Can Be Resolved
The Power of a Writing Habit
2. WHY IS IT SO HARD TO WRITE?
Why Do We Do That?
If I Only Had a Brain
Brain Basics
Who’s Driving the Bus?
Limbic System Takeovers
Meet Aimee
Who’s Your Dr. Claparède?
Recognizing Resistance
Hope Is Not Lost
Plastic Brain to the Rescue!
SECTION 2: Three Habits
3. HABIT ONE: PROCESS
Success Story
Process Time
Follow Their Lead—or Create Your Own Dance
Surrender Expectations
When and How
4. HABIT TWO: PRODUCT TIME
Success Story
When Is It Process Time; When Is It Product Time?
Why “Product Time” Instead of “Writing Time”
Showing Up Is Key
How to Evaluate Product Time
Stages of the Creative Process
The Second Key: Fifteen Magic Minutes
First Things First
Ten Reasons to Keep the Commitment Small
Past Initial Inertia
Surrender Illusions of Grandeur and Expectations of Perfection
5. HABIT THREE: SELF-CARE
Success Story: You Can’t Truly Care for Others If You’re Not Caring for Yourself
Self-care
Success Story: Self-care, Not Self-indulgence
Success Story: Perchance to Achieve a Dream
Success Story: On the Move
Writers at Work—Attention Required
Preserve Time to Focus
Success Story: Quietly, Mindfully Refilling the Well
Success Story: The Play’s the Thing
Play Is Serious Business
Play Is Creative
SECTION 3: Putting the Habits into Practice
6. RITUALS AND ROUTINES
Success Stories
Why Are Writers So Superstitious?
Experience Creates Connections
Stop in the Middle of
7. RECORD AND REWARD
Success Story
Writer’s Log: Stardate 2012
Benefits of Tracking
It Pays to Pay Yourself
What Rewards Do to Creativity
What Rewards Do for Routine Tasks
Puppies and Teeter-totters: Shaping Behavior
Shape-shifting
8. WHY IS IT SO HARD TO WRITE, REVISITED
Anti–success Story
The Saboteur May or May Not Be Your Inner Critic
Psychological Origins of the Saboteur
Success Story
Know Your Enemy
Five Faces, Four Characteristics, One Goal
Don’t Give In and Don’t Give Up
Success Story
An Obsession of a Different Color
Get Clear
9. FOUR STEPS TO RESOLVING RESISTANCE
Learning Story
What Went Wrong
Step One: Recognize the Resistance
Resistance by Any Other Name
That’s Life; This Is Resistance
Why the Why Doesn’t Matter
Step Two: Relax into Resistance
Relaxing in the Now
Step Three: Respect the Wisdom of the Resistance
The Leap of No Faith
The Non-leap of Faith
Step Four: Redirect the Energy of the Resistance
Smarter Than the Average Whale?
Spontaneous Redirection
10. WHY IT MATTERS
Your Success Story
Habit Begets Mastery
Teaching Story: Feed the Right Wolf
You Owe It to Them; You Owe It to Yourself
Pay It Forward
Success Story: Love Matters
Public and Personal Success
When Audience Matters Too Much
Choose Your First Audience Well
Can Your Partner Be Your Writing Buddy?
Starting Over
Success Story: Hope in the Face of Disappointment
Keep It Small; Keep It Light; Keep It Up
Please Tell Me Your Story
Appendix
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
SECTION 1
Overview
1
INTRODUCTION
What Do They Got That I Ain’t Got?
Some people seem able to write no matter what’s going on: work stress, a flood of family activities and responsibilities, health issues, a string of rejection letters, a furnace that quits in Minnesota in February. Do these people have more willpower than the rest of us? More discipline? Are they less susceptible to distractions? Or just more self-centered?
The students and coaching clients I work with aren’t more disciplined, focused or self-focused than most people. But they show up for their writing and themselves because they’ve learned how to harness the power of habit. They’ve learned what’s going on in their brains when they’re feeling resistance, and what they can do to move through that resistance. I give them encouragement, information and tools to figure out how to make writing part of their lives, but the truth is, they’re the ones who show up and do the work. They’ve helped me refine my coaching and hone the basic practices that create sustainable habits. I thank and applaud them all! You’ll want to thank them too when you learn what they know about fighting resistance and showing up for your writing.
This book is for all of us who love to write and yet avoid our writing at least some of the time. It’s for all of us who:
Want to write, but can’t figure out where to start or what to say.
Promise ourselves we’ll write “someday” and miss opportunities to write right now.
Find our home gets cleaner and cleaner the closer we come to a deadline.
Edit our first page over and over and feel unable or unworthy to move on.
Keep our schedules so full we don’t have time to write.
Take care of everyone else before writing.
Suddenly remember ten other things that require immediate attention when we sit down to write.
Procrastinate and delay our dreams.
Delay or fail to meet deadlines.
Play it safe and avoid the risk of being fully present and vulnerable on the page.
Give all our time to writing projects that neither challenge nor excite us.
Sabo
tage our own efforts with lost files, accidents or missed appointments.
We sit down in our writing space, only to pop out of the chair to get a drink, a snack, another book to research. Or we sit down at our computers to write, but first we have to check and respond to email and somehow an hour goes by and we never quite got to the writing. Or we never quite make our way to the writing space at all. We distract ourselves with a multitude of other things to do and think about. We keep promising ourselves that someday soon we’ll go back to the novel, the poems, the essay about Great-aunt Ruby. And while we’re promising ourselves we’ll return to what gives us such joy, some small part of us knows that we’re lying.
Why do we have such a love-fear relationship with our writing? What is it about writing that both attracts and repels us? Why is it so difficult to do the very thing we love?
Resistance Is Normal
Fortunately, not every writer is going to experience the paralysis of full-blown writer’s block, but every writer experiences some kind of resistance from time to time. It doesn’t matter whether you’re writing for your career, to finish a degree, or for personal satisfaction. It’s doesn’t matter whether you’ve published for years or you’re still looking for your first publishing credit. What matters is not whether you will face resistance, but how you’ll face it.
Resistance shows up in many different ways. Some writers get anxious—and let’s face it, there’s plenty to get nervous about: being rejected, rejecting yourself, harsh criticism, offending people, indifference, not being able to write, not being able to write anything worthwhile, not writing well and not knowing it until you’ve made a fool of yourself in public. Sometimes we’re aware of the fear and how it keeps us from our writing; other times, we don’t recognize that it’s fear that is making us so susceptible to distractions despite our desire to write.
Some writers get nasty—horribly critical of themselves and others, and openly mean in expressing that criticism. Some writers get busy—distracting themselves from the underlying fear by keeping themselves too busy to write. Some writers get tired—falling on a spectrum that runs from giving in to the sudden overwhelming need for a nap to chronic fatigue to clinical depression. Some of us get rebellious—“Who do I think I am, telling me what to do?” Some of us get wimpy and vague—“Of course I’ll write. About something. Sometime. But first . . .”