Writer's block, an owner's guide: Writer’s block and impotence
In “Shakespeare in Love,” Will can’t write because he is impotent. In “Throw Mamma From the Train” Larry is impotent because he can’t write. Is there really a connection? Or if not, where did the screenwriters get these two ideas?
There could be a link between the two problems. Let’s be honest, everyone has experienced both of them. Any man who says otherwise hasn’t written very often.
So let’s look, briefly, furtively, I promise, but let’s look at the possibility of a link between writer’s block and sexual dysfunction.
A glance at Google Scholar doesn’t show any research at all on the question (I haven’t taken the time to look in the more established academic sources). Also, I’m not aware of any urban mythology about this, and regular Google doesn’t do more than hint at it. So I don’t even know where these two scriptwriters got their ideas. But let’s think about it anyway.
If writers do suspect there is a link, is that why block is so embarrassing, why we try not to admit having it, why we often deny it?
“In passing I talk about [writer's block] with friends who are songwriters, but it’s a bit like impotence - you don’t really talk about how much Viagra you’re using - you kind of keep it to yourself,” notes Loudon Wainwright III in Grammy magazine.
Well, let’s see. Accepting that all male writers have both of these problems at times in our lives, do we tend to have both at the same time? I don’t know; certainly not always. But yes, they can both (let’s assume) be caused by anxiety and stress, by circumstances, by medical problems. Also, there’s a not-entirely-mythological chain that goes like this: Troubled Writer->>Substance Abuse->>Physical Wreck. So in many cases they probably do occur together. If they share a single cause, maybe they could also share a cure.
What about women writers? Well, women have sexual dysfunctions too; less obvious and prohibitive usually, it’s true, but dysfunctions all the same. But I notice that I can’t think of many seriously blocked women writers. That’s interesting, huh? Are there not many, or am I just not thinking of them? Is there a gender difference in block? The question could be important, and I don’t know the answer.
Even if there is a gender difference, it needn’t be genetic, needn’t be chemical. It could be psychosocial, like this: in keeping with the theme of this blog (which is something like “creative behaviors require intrinsic motivation“) here’s a possible reason that men can’t perform as well as other people. It’s this: men don’t know that it’s ok to do things just for fun.
That’s only a suggestion, it’s not very well stated and there are obvious holes in it. But as an interesting generalization… huh? huh? (nudges you annoyingly)
To some humans, everything’s a project, everything has to be done responsibly and correctly. Which is exactly why it sometimes doesn’t get done at all. And that brings us back around to things I’ve mentioned before about human motivation.
Look: our dates don’t like our blocks. Our readers, our impatient would-be readers don’t like our inability to perform. Let’s not do that any more. Sex is fun and writing is fun. Approach them that way and it’s easier to begin and easier to follow through. Not just for you but for everyone involved.
Like it or not, good writing is the same as good dating: you feel like you’re having fun (and you are) but the really important thing, the way that you make a difference in the world, lies in how your behavior reaches out to someone else and starts to bridge the space between you. And it lies in how far you have the courage to reveal your natural self. Scary and fun, like a rollercoaster.
This would be the perfect moment for me to start talking about Mihalyi Csziksentmihalyi. Which is exactly what I was planning to do next. Will it happen? Keep reading.
Published on March 27, 2005 at 12:48 am. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/writers-block-and-impotence.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: The Cluetrain Manifesto
From The Cluetrain Manifesto, by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls and David Weinberger (here’s their website) which I picked up for a few bucks in a remainder store:
“When we’re given an assignment… we go to our cubicle and put our heads down for a day, a week, a fortnight. We go through as many drafts as we have to until we have a killer document - a report or an overhead presentation, typically - that nails it all down, comes to conclusions, and is irrefutable.
Then we go to the big meeting and slap it down like Beowulf slaying Grendl. “Here I stand.” we declare, bravado masking our anxiety. And if someone calls our bluff, if someone says, “Hmm, you seem not to have consulted the study the Gartner Group did last quarter” or “You haven’t considered the impact of the dilution of their shares,” you simply are not permitted to say, “Whoops, heh heh, can I have those copies back?” You’re toast; you’re dead meat; you’ve had your head handed to you. …But the Web is changing this.”
One of the basic assumptions behind my developing thinking about writer’s block is that it happens differentially: that it happens in creative writing and in academic writing but, for some reason, not in business or journalism or email. And often these different experiences happen to the same people. This is a clue (I say) to what blocking is and to how we can start to manage it and make the Block Monster into a helper.
But what the Cluetrain guys are describing here (and correctly, I know, I’ve been there) is an illustration of what Ong said.
One of writing’s challenges is that once you print it in a book, once you give it to your boss, whatever, it’s beyond your control, it’s a part of you that people can judge and misjudge at their leisure, and every mistake will haunt you forever. How’s that for a monster lurking under your bed!
Their solution is the same one I’ve been trying here; rough out your thoughts on a web site, invite comments, feel free to revise before you go to press. Then, let people like it or not like it, at least you know you came as close as possible to doing it “right.”
Published on October 19, 2004 at 9:50 am. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/the-cluetrain-manifesto.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: ADHD
So this morning I put on my therapist costume and attended a seminar on ADHD/ADD. One of the intriguing things I learned there was that children who are challenged by distractability or inattentiveness in most of their school classes often respond better to teachers of music, drama or art.
What does this say about writer’s block?
It’s not hard to guess why this happens. These activities involve the whole person - hands, eyes, assorted other organs according to circumstances. They’re engaging, in a way that writing isn’t. Now, then. Isn’t the same true for most humans? If you were a painter, a choreographer, a musical performer, wouldn’t it be far easier to get something done than it is as a writer? Because writers are not forced to be present, are even encouraged to daydream?
This seems obvious now that I say it to you out loud. But it’s a new answer to two questions that are at the heart of my Today I Write project: (1) why is it that writers are the main prey animals of the Block Monster and (2) if we knew why, would that help us figure out ways to stand up to him?
So now, could part of the answer be as simple as “writing does not encourage focus and concentration”? And if it was, what exactly would that discovery help us to do about it?
I’m thinking, I’m thinking…
Published on October 16, 2004 at 1:28 pm. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/adhd.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: In which I pretend I’m writing
I’m getting it. I’m really getting it. What Meryl Ray Cohen said. I thought it was a psychotherapist’s neat reframe. “Just because you’re not actually typing, it doesn’t mean you’re not writing,” yeah, yeah, “there’s a necessary period of gestation during which you can’t expect yourself to deliver.” So that’s all true, but how do you know when you’re gestating and you haven’t just stopped work? Will my belly swell more than it already has? The familiar ignored terror: am I between books or is this permanent?
And now I’m getting it. It really is ok to leave a project on the back burner, for long enough that in the old days I would have felt bad about it, and I just know that it’s taking shape and some time soon there will be a brainspew into the poor old computer. I wonder how I know.
And some time soon is now; I jotted an outline and now there is no reason, simply no reason, not to type a draft. The pressure to get that done is strong enough that quite soon I’ll stop my diversion activities and do the writing; and I’ll feel so good about it that I’ll be happy not to be playing with something else; and even though we know that writing to deadlines, fun though it is, doesn’t produce the best work… don’t we? Well, that’s another thing we have to get around to. Remind me to tell you about Bob Boice’s research. Now pay attention… even though we know that writing to deadlines, fun though it is, doesn’t produce the best work, that’s ok. Because I’ve not been idling and because I’m not going to write something ill-prepared in a panic. Not me! I’ve been gestating.
Published on October 12, 2004 at 8:58 pm. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/in-which-i-pretend-im-writing.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: Writing in flow
Looking around for catchy slogans for this project, rather than do anything urgent, I fell across this advice from S. L. Viehl, which I happened to like. I’m still on a break.
Published on September 9, 2004 at 9:43 am. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/writing-in-flow.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: “Writer’s block:” exactly what this time?
So, imaginary reader (okay, there are people out there, I just don’t know your names yet) the gaps between my posts are getting longer. That happens with new blogs, yes; but this last break has been quite long. What have I been doing? Do I want to tell you the truth about that?
I don’t call it writer’s block; I take Susan Day’s advice and call it a break in production; I take Dennis Palumbo’s advice and welcome it as a creative tension.
What is really going on is just what I said last time, just that I set myself the task of writing a particular post and it turned out to be a difficult one and somehow I didn’t turn to writing something else. “Something else” could have been a diversion or discussion, like this one. Or I could have leapfrogged the problem post and written some later part of the Today I Write project. Or some earlier part - goodness knows there are enough topics I told you I’d come back to!
So there are three possibly different questions here which have something to do with our subject. (1) Why was that post hard to write - and it still is - and (2) why did I let that small problem with one task forbid me to do anything on my other tasks and (3) can I honestly claim that ten days of not writing was gestation time?
Well, let’s see.
(1) the item was hard to write simply because, when I came to look at the subject, it was a large complex one and I couldn’t see how to summarize it or where to start on it. And now, I think I do know how to do that (although I’ll have to go back and complete the reading first)
(3) and to that extent I can claim to have been successfully gestating the item. But that’s no excuse for not writing something else. But here’s the thing. The other writing project that I would have got on with, a thing about reversal theory, is one with which I have a very similar problem. So I had no easy place to run.
(2) I don’t know. This, I think, would be a key discovery that could help me produce more of the stuff I can produce and want to produce. The way to find that key is probably to sit here quietly concentrating on it. Please hold…
[for the benefit of search engines, a message from our sponsors: writer's block writers block writer's block writers block writer's block writers block. I now return you to your regularly scheduled post]
[days later] …well, it’s not about the difficulty of blogging. For blogging is easy and fun unless you set yourself up to fail by making it hard, for example by deciding what to write about before you know what you want to say or how you want to say it. Which is maybe one of the ways we make writing hard in general, ya think? If you know for sure that the next thing you will write is chapter seven, doesn’t that remove some of the fun and freedom and doesn’t that also make it harder to be spontaneous and creative and make it easier to fail? Am I making sense, reader - this means you - let me know.
No, it’s not about that. It’s about the other project lurking behind the blog, the other thing I “want” to be writing right now, the thing I’ve done the preparation for, the thing where I know what I want to write about but I don’t know exactly what I want to say. It’s ok to leave things on the back burner, because it’s good that they simmer. But leave them there too long, without attention, and they burn and the whole kitchen stinks. Or your fire burns out and they get cold and you know you have killed them with neglect. You know you have betrayed your gift again.
If you’ll excuse me, I have something I need to write in another place. There will be a planned pause in Today I Write. This gives me permission not to blame myself for it. How long is the pause? Maybe seven days, maybe seven hours. My guess is that by giving myself permission not to be worrying about the blog, I can fool myself into enjoying the other thing and getting it done.
Ah, reader, how quickly we turn all our fun projects into chores! My dream, one purpose of Today I Write, is to develop new ways to turn them back.
Published on September 4, 2004 at 9:01 pm. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/writers-block-exactly-what-this-time.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: Writer’s block in all its variety
While we’re talking about academic writing, let me share my favorite scholarly aricle on writer’s block “Writer’s Block: A Definition by Example” by Michael Bracken. Thank you.
Published on August 3, 2004 at 3:36 pm. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/writers-block-in-all-its-variety.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: Writer’s block: “the pause that represses”
Another story that I came across during my own research. We’ll keep this short as it’s after midnight on Monday morning, and Monday’s my 12-hour day at the psychotherapy center in Encino. But it’s a good story for anyone interested in writer’s block.
Meryl Ray Cohen interviewed eight graduate students who had survived writer’s block with their doctoral dissertations. To her surprise, seven of them said they had never been blocked before. This made Cohen wonder if there was something specially challenging about dissertations.
Here’s what she decided after analyzing the interviews. Two things.
1) sometimes a writer is working productively, even when he’s not actually producing text. Some people write to find out what they want to say, while for others preparation comes before writing. If the writer doesn’t understand this, especially the fact that there is this quiet phase of developing ideas or “idea ripening,” he can wrongly believe he is “blocked.”
2) any pause in text production may “harden” into writer’s block if the writer feels anxious enough about it. Theres no need for that to happen.
These are important ideas. Once again it looks like writer’s block is something we create for ourselves. Does that mean it doesn’t exist? Yes and no. Like any other demon, if you believe in it you give it power, and then it exists as your own personal perfect antagonist.
Anyway, back to Cohen: she has some tips for dissertation writing, which might be useful to all of us in our larger projects.
1) don’t get blocked in the first place!… keep the task in perspective, and stayinvolved in leisure and other activities. And write regularly, at least four times a week. And stay involved with other people who know and understand what you are living with (this may be more appropriate for dissertations than for creative writing… but that’s a whole other conversation).
2) if you do get blocked, the experience is one of losing control. Cohen doesn’t want to give you directions, because that leaves you still not in charge. I agree with that; and I agree that her suggestions are only suggestions and that you must put together your own plan for working through block.
The suggestions are these:
(a) consider working for a short time each day but at least four days a week
(b) consider establishing continuity of working, with rituals or at least regular patterns
(c) if bad associations have developed, consider changing the facts that trigger them; moving your desk; working at different times of day; whatever.
(d) consider that it might be ok to set small goals such as 200 words a day, or even less - ten minutes a day - and to work up slowly; what really matters is that you’re in charge and that Anxiety isn’t.
Cohen must know something about productive writing; she finished her own dissertation and, if you have access to academic databases, here�s the reference:
Cohen, M. R. (1998). The pause that represses: The experience of working through writer’s block during the dissertation writing process. (Pub. No. AAT 9930434). Abstract retrieved on June 9, 2003, from ProQuest Digital Dissertations database.
Published on at 10:45 am. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/writers-block-the-pause-that-represses.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: The block from outer space
Dramatic writers still look to Aristotle as the father of it all. His Poetics describes concepts that we still rely on today and covers the whole field. Let’s see what Aristotle says about writer’s block.
Er… nothing.
Let’s turn to the Romans. Terence? Plautus? What did they…
Nothing.
The story of Shakespeare in Love - a wonderful movie about how love cures writer’s block, go rent it as your reward after today’s writing - has, sadly, been revealed as apocryphal.
The fact is that block was invented in the nineteenth century. It was invented by people who believed in “inspiration.” Inspiration means (1) that you have to sit waiting for the Muse to descend on you and you can’t do much to encourage her (2) but you still get to beat yourself up when she doesn’t. It’s a pretty notion, and let’s not get into arguing about it today because it ties in with all sorts of deep dark things that could make for a long hard argument (spirituality, religion, genius).
But isn’t that interesting? If block was invented, like the tooth fairy, then you - you, personally - you, the writer, killing time surfing the web - you don’t have to believe. You don’t have to buy in.
This post relies on Joan Acocella’s masterly New Yorker article and she in turn acknowledges Zachary Leader’s book (which is still on my reading pile, so we’ll talk about that later too).
Acocella says that block is an American invention, too; she’s heard that it has less hold in what she calls ‘England’. That was not my experience of writing in the UK, or of working with other British writers, or of looking at the bookshop self-help shelves. And it doesn’t fit with her reliance on Coleridge, Shelley, Wordsworth and… y’know, that crowd. But that doesn’t matter - the point stands - some people believe in it and suffer from it, other people don’t believe in it and don’t suffer from it.
I’ve suffered from it, and I’ve been a believer. Yet with everything I learn about the psychology of writing I get closer to believing that I suffered from something imaginary.
I really suspect that writer’s block is just another of those unconscious choices that I made when I was about 18 and that I can unmake when I’m ready. You too? Come on this journey with me?
What if there was no Block Monster hiding under the desk? What if the bigger writers just said that to scare us?
What then?
What now?
Published on July 31, 2004 at 9:19 am. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/the-block-from-outer-space.html
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