Your Mileage May Vary

So over the past few entries, we explored the intertwinement of theme and setting, using the writing of an essay as a nuts-and-bolts exercise to see how those explorations might occur. It is not to say, of course, that the writing is great (I am a writer that prefers the talents of a bright and insightful editor.) It is also not to say that it is publication-ready; it might be, but there’s not been enough editing done for that quite yet.

What it does do, I think, is that it does make that important connection, at least insofar as the way I view the world and the role that writing can play in it, between setting and theme. There’s clearly a concatenation of threads and streams that combined in my own life and brain to coalesce around an approach that happens to work for me. As I always caution, whether it is other writers, colleagues, or my students – your mileage may vary. Ultimately, we are all on our own path and no matter how well-trodden it may seem, your path will have variation, challenges, and opportunities that others have not had, or may never have even heard of. YMMV.

So let’s talk about this a bit; the nature of the creative process, and the challenges that I’ve seen, and continue to see, to this very day.

Those are chasms for you and your muse to cross together. Just don’t fall victim to the well-known enemy that Steven Pressfield as labeled “The Resistance.” This is the sum total of everything holding us back from creative enterprise: writer’s block, imposter syndrome, never-ending research syndrome, letting-perfect-stand-in-the-way-of-good-enough syndrome, and finally just bullshit that you successfully tell yourself about being ready, or not having enough time, or whatever it may be.

Again – you’ll have your own form of resistance/self-denial. I think by many measures, I’ve met with a level of success in life; I’ve had a good and interesting business career; I’m a licensed attorney; I have a Ph.D.; I have a few published books. These are all true, but they never seem to resonate in comparison to the things that I still have yet to do – never mind the fact that it was just now, this instant, that I thought of that and then BANG! SQUIRREL!

You get the drift by now. So yes, this resistance is something that I feel and, I think to Pressfield’s larger point, we all do, and resistance manifests itself in different, sometimes subtle and insidious ways. It’s the voice of doubt. It’s the voice of “prioritization.” It’s the voice of – “that’s a great idea, and tomorrow will be the day…” Et cetera and so on.

I sometimes admire the folks that have that one “thing.” I’ve never had that, and so I’ve long been in the position of continuous partial attention. This combined with an inherent impatient nature makes for fertile ground for resistance; after all, I can always find something “productive” to do. I use daily checklists to combat these things, to at least advance something a little bit, every day. Exercise is on that, as is writing, as are many, many work tasks. If I’m teaching during a term, that’s on there. Social arrangements – mostly so I don’t forget – are always on there too. (What tends to slide off the most are “chores” until I can simply no longer stand not doing them.)

I even have multiple sub-projects within those checklist blocks and writing is a primary example of that. I have the new book projects I want to do, I have this blog, and another blog to start. I’d like to do more writing-adjacent things as well, such as a podcast…so it is quite easy to sub-procrastinate within those categories as well.

The one good thing about that is that I use it as a tactic to avoid utter stagnation. The downside is that it sometimes takes me longer to do things than what it should, or, even more pointedly, than what I expect and therefore promise to myself and others. This is the essential friction that causes the most stress. Someday, I may learn to re-balance this, but for now, I err on the side of the “move the ball, even if only an inch, every day.”

And that’s all there is to it. I fight my resistance to a general standstill and armistice, every single day. There’s no romance or magic there; it’s just typing words that come into my head and then I attempt to share with you.

As above, so below…and YMMV.