On Creativity and How to Vanquish Writer's Block

By

Charles Atkins

Writer's Block--a sort of creative constipation--is little more than negative self talk.  It's as useful as a jar of marshmallow fluff added to the laundry.  And the good news is, it's completely fixable and here I speak as both a psychiatrist and published author. 

  

So here's the deal, and how I learned about nurturing creativity and the opposite--stomping it out like the swarm of roaches who've found the fluff in the laundry.  When I was a psychiatric resident, one of my year-long rotations involved provided psychotherapy to articulate students at an Ivy League university.  Here, I observed something interesting.  The Grad students who were zipping through their theses had both internal and external positive regard.  They had mentors and peer networks that supported their work.  Their sparks of ideas got bellowed into roaring flames by doctoral supervisors who provided necessary critiques, but were quick to underscore what was good and what worked.

 

On the flip side I sat through many an hour with distraught, anxious and depressed pre-docs whose degrees hinged on shipwrecked theses.  This crew had ponderous self doubt.  Some was entirely self generated, but for others they had problematic relations with their faculty supervisors.  My patients would complain that they'd go in with idea after idea only to have it shot down and leave their mentoring session feeling aimless, discouraged and hopeless. 
Because this was therapy, both they and I explored all of this negativity, where it came from, and more importantly, how to get rid of it.  As might be expected we found long histories of intense self doubt and internal criticism.  We learned about withholding fathers and mothers for whom a single 'B' on an otherwise perfect record was not good enough.  These now internalized voices, especially when fueled by external criticism, made forward movement nearly impossible. 

These observations on what feeds creativity and what shut it down led me to a series of realizations.  The kernel of which comes down to the following--writer's block is in your head, and to get rid of it all you have to do is shut down any negative self talk and doubt.  It's that simple...and it's that hard.

 Around the same time I was doing this clinical work I attended my one and only writing seminar.  It was with the Canadian author/writer Barbara Turner-Vesselago.  Entitled "Freefall" it was all about diving into one's writing and shutting down these negative thoughts.  Beyond this she encouraged participants to leap into the heart of resistance.  As a psychiatrist I completely understood this.  Because those things we don't want to look at, talk about, or God forbid write about, are gold mines of intense emotion.  And Ms. Turner quickly proved that our fears and anxieties can be bottomless wells from which we draw sensually luscious writing.  You just need to take a deep breath and dive in.  

A connected point to all of this--again from personal observation--is that my creative juice is not to be messed with.  As a writer I know that letting doubt creep in will shut things down.  To get around this--and why I never get writer's block--I have some quick fixes.  Most of these run through my brain in the flash of a heartbeat, others require more definitive actions.  Here they are:           

•   When faced with a slowdown in writing, I ask myself the following:  "What don't you want to write about?"  I then proceed to write about that very thing.  If negative thoughts intrude, I tell myself I can always rip it up later.  As a sidebar, when I'm doing fiction, I'll ask the question from the perspective of my character.  What is she/he most resistant about or scared of?  Let's go there now.

•  Editorial automatic thoughts.  These are fleeting thoughts we can all fall prey to.   "This is no good." "Your argument doesn't hold water.""Geez!  Will you ever stop making run-on sentences?" These I dismiss by reminding myself--there's always time to edit, but at the moment I just             want to write and get my thoughts on the page. 
• Distraction.  While different from the negative self talk I've been discussing, writer's--and everyone else--have all kinds of things to distract us from the task at hand.  Here, it's a matter of sticking to what I'm about, and reminding myself that the laundry, changing the kitty litter, shopping, 'Words with Friends' etc. will get done after I finish my day's writing.
• Negative outside influences.  Similar to my example about mentors, and others, who can pour acid on our creativity we sometimes find ourselves partnered with people where the creative juices do not mesh.  Sadly, my take here, is best to cut your losses and move on.  Your/my creativity is too precious to engage in this kind of head butting.
• Necessary criticism:  Here, I want to briefly touch on vital critiques that aid in the editorial process, and for those of us who care about such things--getting published.  I'll use the example of my own agent, the legendary Al Zuckerman.  Al starts each of his critiques with at least one genuinely positive comment--'Charles, you have many wonderful story elements here.'  Soon to be followed by, 'and this is why this manuscript is not working in its current form...'  Yes, my ego takes a little bruising--'What do you mean?  Isn't all my writing wonderful?'  To remedy this I let his comments ferment overnight.  I then start in the morning with a mental reframe--Al, wants the work to be strong and saleable, he's absolutely right that there are too many characters being introduced too fast.  And you wrote this once, just start in on the rewrite, do it page by page and it'll be done before you know it.
• Take a break, do something physical and come back to the writing.  Some of my best ideas have come on the elliptical--including this essay.  I also find that if there's something missing from a piece, the answer magically appears in the midst of an hour's cardio.  I don't know why; it just happens.

So that's it.  When faced with writer's block, the key to forward movement is learning how to silence negative thoughts.  Whether these are purely internal or fueled by those around us, with practice you can learn how to push these away and let your creativity flow.