writermag.com • The Writer | 35reporters. But are these professions feeding your
craft or distracting from it?
WHAT TO DO: Take a clear-eyed view of what
you’re doing versus what you want to be doing.
How are they the same? How are they different?
Sometimes we realize the two paths are not so far
apart or that we are more satisfied with where we
are than we realized. But other times we realize
it’s time to switch paths.
- As with so many of our distractions, fear is
often to blame for our resistance to following
our true desired path. Get clear about what
frightens you. Sometimes we are buying into
an old narrative (“You can’t make money as a
____”). Sometimes we’d rather do well at
something that’s less fulfilling than potentially
fail at something that means a lot to us. If this
is the case, you might want to rethink your
definition of what it means to fail.
9
PROBLEM: You speak negatively to yourself.
You say things like “Nobody will ever read this”
and “I’ll never find a publisher” and “Everything
on this subject has already been said.” Negative self-talk is
the bane of our creative life. It is one of the most corrosive
forces we have to combat if we are to allow ourselves to
write. As the master of our own brain, it’s up to us to rec-
ognize the stories ours is concocting and to shut those sto-
ries down.WHAT TO DO: It often helps to know exactly what we’re
up against. Write down the negative, shaming, distracting,
angry things you tell yourself. Now imagine saying these
things to a friend you care about or a child while they are
trying to work. Sometimes we can’t fathom how destructive
our own narratives are until we imagine subjecting other
people to them.
+ The next time you are writing, notice when the nega-
tive voices pop up and ask yourself immediately, “What
would be more helpful to hear?” If you can’t access that
kind voice inside yourself, can you access the kind
voice of a friend and hear what they might say to you
instead? Taming our negative self-talk is not a quick
fix, but your life will greatly improve in all areas once
you start to challenge the hurtful messages your brain
is feeding you.10
PROBLEM: You believe you will never be
as good as the other writers out there.
Bonnie Friedman (Writing Past Dark) calls
envy “the writer’s disease.” During the time I was racking up
rejections from publishers for my book, my husband was
racking up accolades for his art. The envy I felt led to one of
the most painful times of my life, and it was the biggest
waste of my time because, in the end, it took me further
from my writing goals than any other distraction.WHAT TO DO: Stop looking around. I can’t stress this
enough. There will always be someone out there who you
feel is doing better than you. I used to think the fix was to
focus on those doing worse than me, but I was wrong. The
fix is to stop comparing yourself completely. Only when I
was able to look away from my husband’s career track and
return my gaze to my own was I able to stop the pain and
move forward.
+ Ask yourself why you are writing. My answer at that
time was, “To make a difference for people suffering
from addictions.” As long as I was aligned with my pur-
pose, I was able to keep a clear-eyed view of my own
goals, and it ceased to matter what my husband was
doing or getting.WHAT TO READ WHEN
YOU'RE STUCKWriting Past Dark
by Bonnie Friedman
Bird by Bird
by Anne Lamott
On Writing
by Stephen King
If You Want to Write
by Brenda Ueland
Big Magic
by Elizabeth Gilbert
Finding Your Writer’s Voice
Thaisa Frank and Dorothy Wall
Art & Fear
David Bayles and Ted Orland
The International Freelancer blog
by Mridu Khullar Relph