It’s a subtle art, the art of not writing. I have not written now through many years, filling and part-filling many journals and notebooks, drafting hundreds of poems and compiling numerous blog posts over more than six years. I’ve not written in the workplace for over 30 years – including writing for and editing publications, writing a handbook of research and influencing many business outcomes with my writing skills. I’ve not written my way to publication in a few cases, so much so that the Australian National Library, a number of literary journals and the AustLit database of Australian literature know about me. And there’s so much not writing paraphernalia around me here as I sit, that I can hardly move.
It seems I am a master of not writing, spinning a myth about myself over the years that to this day can see me looking achingly at writing texts and courses as the cure to this ailment. It’s true, their balms and solutions may help me to move through this impasse. But to allow them to make me feel that I am a complete novice in this art and space, with no track record or prior experience, is all my own work.
It seems that just as I have tricked myself into the subtle art of not writing, I could just as easily trick myself into the art of writing. They seem to be transferable, almost the same skills, that could be shifted in focus. Perhaps I need to chunk it more, break it down into parts I can think of as projects, to make it easier to manage. Calling one focus something like ‘The Poetry Project’ would help make the work all the more tangible and achievable. Now I come to think of it, this blog is a little like that.
With a wry smile and a sense of humour, and by some gentle stealth, I could set a time-limited practice and tease a set number of pages or words from each day to get started and call it part of the subtle art of not writing.
I could get the best poems I have written over the years and put them into a small volume that is not really a publication, but just a collection of pieces of my heart in language I have shaped, uniquely my voice. I could craft these small multi-faceted jewels over time and work out how they can best be worn and integrated into a personal style I can step out in.
And I could turn this desire to write into something real that heartens each day, a deft trick of time that makes the minutes count. I could further inscribe the journey already started through miles of lines of ink into artefacts that might light the way ahead, little by little, much as novelist E L Doctorow reminds us:
Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
That delicious journey, and then actually sitting down to (not) write.
Thought pieces:
Writing this piece made me think a whole raft of things: resistance, getting out of our own way, making things manageable, shifting our contexts, small tweaks, tricking ourselves, recognising our body of work over time and self-belief.
In related thoughts and connections:
Courteney E Martin’s article, Writing the Stepping Stone: why you haven’t written your book yet, has some excellent practical suggestions for getting your book written including: recognising that it might not actually be a book but something else; dealing with distractions such as the internet; and realising that the work you are doing actually might be a stepping stone. I love these final words about, yes, getting out of our own way:
If you have a book inside of you dying to come out, close this browser. Close this computer, or turn off this phone. Sit down with a piece of paper and a pen and write a letter to someone you know personally about the topic. The directness of the form will get you out of your own way and on your way to doing what you are meant to do.
How to Write a Novel in Thirty Minutes per day has many strategies for: getting into the habit of writing; controlling or removing interferences and distractions like the internet (including ‘put your mobile on aeroplane mode’ – there’s a thought!); building accountability; and promoting good practice planning, productivity and resilience. It’s a great roadmap for ‘driving at night in the fog’.
Sage Cohen in the wonderful Fierce on the Page (book review coming up here soon!) has a few tips on little shifts in attitude for overcoming resistance. In the chapter, ‘Change your context to regain your appetite’. Sage prompts us:
What if you found a new way to approach an old struggle or stuck place? How could you come at it sideways to find a new perspective? What if you were to make a small shift in attitude or practice – and then another – until you felt a bit more space or ease or fun?
And so many of Elizabeth’s Gilbert’s Magic Lessons podcast interviews touch on this theme of getting out of our own way with our creative ventures, realising we are actually already doing the work, not being so hard on ourselves and just getting on with it. Dive into any of these podcast pleasures but I have a special soft spot for the one with poets Cecilia and Mark Nepo, Who Gets to Decide Whether You’re a Legitimate Artist? It’s about who gets to decide who is a good poet and the value and legacy of poetry. Listening to this one was life changing for me!
Share your thought pieces:
I’d love to hear how you are breaking through any resistance with tricks or shifts in attitude. How are you getting out of your own way or valuing your creative work?
What a wonderful post Terri and such an acknowledgement of how many of us feel. only yesterday I was saying to a friend who’s a prolific writer and journalist ” am I really a writer?” And she said wholeheartedly yes. And I love that you acknowledge all the writing from your working life. I had a massive breakthrough on the airplane writing about how I could not write about a traumatic event whilst it was happening and even now. And guess what, for the first time in 18 months I’m writing about it. Writing about not being able to write…it works wonders!
Thank you Dal – I love that and the synchronicity with your own experience. I really related with your own beautiful piece on this theme. Sometimes we just have to write our way through the not writing it seems, head on!
As a fellow ‘non-writer’ I am grateful for your honesty and vulnerability in these ponderings, Terri. They help me prod and dig around in my own creative questions (questions that are far too easily left buried beneath the surface without voices of the brave who are willing to push past the pop-culture or elitism of writing to ask the real questions … the questions of self. The artistic temperament seems to have as its hallmark (birthmark?) a constant internal struggle – especially in terms of self-belief – so perhaps you are right, maybe we just need to trick ourselves into believing we are writers, and write; just as easily as we trick ourselves into believing the lie that we are not, and so do not.
Katherine, thanks so much for visiting and for your feedback. I found myself seeing that the skills are (almost) the same, it’s just a trick of the light or our ways of thinking about it. It’s too easy to think of ourselves as not writers even though the evidence is there to show otherwise. So I’m going to work on this by stealth, writing here and elsewhere, and use this perspective to write more, and maybe even sneak in an occasional comment about myself being a writer to bring it on x
Thank you for this piece Terri, it resonates with me! I am a non-writer too with countless notebooks and electronic docs with writing that might come to something…one day! A little push to edge me closer…thanks!
Thank you too Colleen for your feedback and I am glad that this piece resonated with you – I think there are many of us out there! So much potential and opportunity to be harnessed. All best wishes with your quiet writing ventures and what they may bring forth. And thank you so much for connecting again!