Around the Writer's Block Read online

  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?

  about this?

  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?

  Writing Is Its Own Reward—or Threat

  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 . . .”