Are Your Thoughts Helping You Write?
Are you feeling resistance to your writing? Avoiding coming to the page? Procrastinating by cleaning your entire house? You're not alone, and there is a simple way to break your pattern of procrastination and resistance. Reframing how you think about writing will help you come back to the page and write the book you've been dreaming about!
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There is a cartoon that's circulating around the writing world right now. Perhaps you've seen it. It is by Asher Perlman, and it features a man standing at a front door as if he is pitching the person on the other side a service. There's a van in the background that says Ryder's Cleaning Service, and the caption underneath says, the process is simple.
You tell me to get some writing done, and then to avoid getting started, I clean your whole house. I have seen this cartoon shared in probably every writing space I'm in online. And it is funny because for so many writers, it is true. Cleaning tends to be a top notch procrastination technique. My husband and kids would probably actually really like it if cleaning were my procrastination technique, instead of things like cross stitching and going to many movies and just ignoring the mess in my house.
“A lot of writers tend to use cleaning as procrastination from writing.”
A lot of writers tend to use cleaning as procrastination from writing and I use basically everything else under the sun as procrastination from cleaning the house. But I digress. This is the meme of the moment being shared in the writing world, but it is not the first nor will it be the last that has this same basic sentiment. There are entire accounts on social media platforms that are dedicated to content about writing, and for many of these accounts, the bulk of their content is memes or posts about how difficult writing is and how often writers will do anything they can to avoid writing and how so many people say they want to be a writer but they never actually want to write. It's become part of the writing culture.
This idea that writers never want to write and they will do anything they can to avoid doing the actual work of writing. And I get it. It's funny we chuckle because if you're a writer, you have most likely been there and it's one of those it's so funny because it's true things. But I do wonder what it does to our ability to write and have a solid sustainable writing practice when we are consuming a lot of content that focuses on avoiding writing and focuses on procrastination techniques and focuses on doing anything but actually writing. What does that do to our mindset and what does that do to our ability to find our flow state and get into the groove when we sit down and write?
One of my long time favorite authors is Jackson Pierce. And I know it seems like I just took like a wild left turn from what I was talking about, but this all ties back in, I promise. Anyway, I have been following Jackson online since before she sold her debut novel which came out in two thousand nine. So it's been a long while. She had a very prolific YouTube channel back before authortube was even a thing.
And I followed her on Twitter back when Twitter was actually a fun, joyful place for writers to be. And many years ago, I wanna say probably around two thousand ten, I noticed Jackson put up a tweet that said, I'm excited to write today. And that was it. I'm excited to write today, single tweet. Now she probably tweeted more stuff later in the day or whatever, but it was there.
“I’m excited to write today!”
Then I noticed that the next day she tweeted, I'm excited to write today. And the next day she tweeted, I'm excited to write today. And this continued on. Eventually, she explained why she started doing this, and I honestly can't remember if she just explained on Twitter with a series of tweets or if she did so in a video on her YouTube channel or maybe her blog. I don't remember.
But the explanation was something like this. Jackson had noticed how often she and other authors were getting online to complain about writing. How many people were talking about having to hit their word count and how hard it was going to be and dreading it and avoiding it, but they need to do the work. And how often the narrative is, oh, I need to write a thousand words today. I need to finish this chapter today.
I wanna be doing anything else, but I have a deadline I have to hit. And this really negative framing around the writing process. And she decided to try this experiment to try to flip the script for herself. So she decided I am no longer going to complain about the work that I have to do and instead be excited for that work. And in a true fake it till you make it situation, she decided I am going to say I'm excited to write even if I'm feeling dread.
And she started tweeting, I'm excited to write every day. And eventually, it was true. And she was no longer viewing writing as a have to do, but a get to do. Something she was excited to do. That really stuck with me, so I started trying the same thing.
I didn't post it on Twitter because I was never super active on Twitter. I didn't post on social media that I'm excited to write today, but I made sure to reframe it in my mind. If I had a goal I wanted to hit, I didn't, ugh, I need to write a thousand words today so I can hit my goal. It was no. I get to write and I am excited to do it.
Now, I've not been perfect about this over the past thirteen, fourteen years since I started doing it. But if I look back, the times where writing was harder were inevitably the times where I was not taking this mindset. And when I switch it for myself and remember, hey, I am excited to write today, Things start to get easier. Maybe not on day one, but as I do it repeatedly, that helps rewire things in my brain so I have a different view and it gets easier. That doesn't mean the actual writing is always easy.
It doesn't always flow like water. I still have sessions where I sit down and it's like having to chip each individual word out of a block of ice. It doesn't make writing always easy. Sometimes it is difficult. Sometimes the words aren't flowing.
Sometimes you don't know exactly where you wanna go with your plot. And sometimes it just gets hard. But the actual sitting down at the page and starting gets easier when I have that reframe. So if you're finding yourself facing resistance in your writing, and you're finding yourself wanting to clean the whole house or do whatever else you can to avoid coming to the page, pay attention to how you are thinking about your writing. You don't have to write.
“You don’t need to write. But if you want to, you get to write.”
You don't need to write. But if you want to, you get to write. You are privileged enough to be able to tell stories and to create worlds and to play with words. You get to play with your words today and you get to be excited about that. So take a second each day that you have scheduled for writing and get yourself excited.
Tell yourself you're excited. Fake it if you have to, because eventually, you will make it, and you will be excited. It will become easier to turn up at the page, to show up for your scheduled writing session, and to build trust with yourself that you will show up. You will put words on the page, and you can create a beautiful writing routine. You'll notice as I sign off in a couple seconds here that I do it the same every time, and that is not by mistake or just because I don't know what else to say.
It is because it is because it is my wish that you truly have a happy writing life, that you have a routine and a practice that brings you joy. And having a mindset that focuses on the excitement and joy of writing will get you there.
So until tomorrow, my friends, happy writing.