Writer's block, an owner's guide: Not drowned, not waving
I’m still alive and active and I’m entering the final week or two of my break from writing this web site. As I said (maybe not in these words) I’m fully occupied by a project which is important, demanding and time-sensitive. It’s the perfect situation to make me get down to work (why? read back over the last twelve months of this). Being a writer, at this moment, would be a form of procrastination.
And that’s all I have to say / write.
Published on June 22, 2005 at 9:16 am. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/not-drowned-not-waving.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: Structured procrastination
I said I was back from vacation. If you thought that meant I was gonna be writing a large number of deep essays here that would transform your life, yeah, well, I hoped that too.
But for the next few weeks I need to spend a lot of my time reviewing everything I know about psychotherapy (for a reason we’ll talk about afterwards) and most of it’s not relevant to writer’s block. So writing Today I Write takes a lower place in My Priorities.
And that possibly means I will give it more attention than usual.
Does that surprise you? I’ve noticed that I very often spend my time and energy on the second-most-important thing I should be doing. So one way to get myself to do something - like writing - is to make sure I have something else more important to do. Right now, I’m writing because I should be asleep in bed.
John Perry noticed the same thing I did and he has some sensible advice on dealing with it. So if what I just said makes sense in your life too, read his notes on Structured Procrastination.
If it doesn’t make sense in your life, go look around this site for other ideas that do. When it comes to dealing with writer’s block a lot of things are true that (seem to) contradict each other.
The psychology of motivation is like that. One day, when there’s time, I’ll think about the contradictions and some other day the answer, the connection among all of them, will come to me out of nowhere, as answers do when you let things simmer (and that’s a whole other area of creative experience that we haven’t looked at for a while).
Published on May 25, 2005 at 1:45 am. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/structured-procrastination.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: McJung is on vacation
Tonight my daughter (one of ‘em) is arriving in California from Europe for the first time in a year, and maybe the last time for a further year.
My writing is taking a back seat. You probably won’t find much new on this web site for a couple of weeks. Feel free to look, though, and to contribute.
At this time I’d hoped to offer a smart professional mailing list so that I could let regular readers know when I was back (I’ll be in and out, but I mean really back). Sadly, offering a smart professional mailing list is not something I’m ready to do. I told you why.
Instead, if you’d like to be on an amusingly clumsy mailing list, go ahead and enter your email address David’s inner nerd adds: we have mt-notifier here, and it works, and right now the boss is too busy to tell you how to access it. MT mavens who already know how are welcome to go ahead at the default location.
Published on May 3, 2005 at 9:39 am. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/mcjung-is-on-vacation.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: Who are you?
I’ve noticed a growing band of people reading this web site - with a sudden surge in interest when I started to write about weblog software and hosting. Who are you? Is anyone reading what for me is the core material here - the stuff I say about the science of writer’s block? How does that information affect you? What can you contribute to the discussion?
In case you’re not used to weblogging, let me tell you this is a two way process. Your part is to type something in the “Your comment” box and click Post. Your comment will appear on this page and perhaps I (or other readers) will respond to you. For that to work, you have to make the first move.
Responses to this article (2 responses)
Published on April 29, 2005 at 7:36 pm. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/who-are-you.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: A digression about procrastination
This was going to be a long discussion of copyright. I’ve deleted all that for the usual reason: it wasn’t about writer’s block. Writing it out was useful, of course, for me if not for you. And it did inspire some thoughts about procrastination.
One of the ways we can procrastinate is by looking ahead.
Now, positive visualization is great. You can get to a place much more easily if you’ve decided what place you’re headed for. Me, for example, I want to get to a place where I’m the author of two published books and a successful doctoral dissertation, all of ‘em about writer’s block. Because I know that, I can face steadily in that direction and push forward through the treacle and the solid rock and can course-correct for mission drift.
Looking ahead in that way is fine.
But if you’re one of those writers who (1) worry about whether or not it’s safe to reveal your brilliant idea to a producer who just might steal it, or (2) obsess about whether a script should be held together by two brads or three, and all the time while you’re thinking about this what you’re really doing is trying to ignore the knowledge that you have not written a single word of the darn thing… if you are living in the future and doing nothing about ever getting there, then you are in trouble.
Do you want to get off it and start being a writer? Do you want to tell people “I’m a writer” without the stomach-grinding knowledge that you can’t handle their next question?
Up to you. Being a some-other-day writer is a legitimate choice. “Today I write!” is also a legitimate choice, and I’ve tried both, and this one’s harder to do but easier to live with afterwards. Up to you.
If you do answer yes, I’d be honored if you’d let me help you:
(1) Sending your manuscript to editors(/ producers/ agents) is one of the things that you sometimes see successful professional-minded writers doing. Sending them fake-legalistic documents, which you know they won’t sign, is one of the things that you rarely see successful professional-minded writers doing. Now, when you approach an editor, do you want to look like a sane competent professional-minded writer, or not? Okay then.
(2) If there were a right answer, you’d already know it.
You’re welcome, I accept PayPal, and now go write something.
Published on April 8, 2005 at 7:53 pm. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/a-digression-about-procrastination.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: Adding this site to My Yahoo
My latest way of wasting my own writing time: I’ve provided an easy way for you to add this weblog to your My Yahoo page. Just click the My Yahoo thingie over there on your left
Published on April 6, 2005 at 7:59 pm. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/adding-this-site-to-my-yahoo.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: About the author
David Jung McGarva, MBA, MA, grew up in Scotland, where he worked in law offices and in civil service settings for 25 years before answering an unexpected but compelling call to Southern California. Since then he has been a movie extra, a 9-1-1 operator and a census taker as well as working in psychotherapy, hypnotherapy and counseling.
With degrees in three fields, including two in psychology from The Open University in England and Phillips Graduate Institute in California, and with training in psychotherapy at the California Family Counseling Center and elsewhere, David brings a unique perspective to psychology, counseling and coaching. He is known as a gentle therapist, more interested in unleashing the client’s potential for growth and achievement than in unearthing past mistakes.
As a British Writers Guild member since 1993, David takes a particular interest in the challenges facing creative clients. His interest in writer’s block has led to various projects at Saybrook Graduate School and Research Institute, San Francisco including an interview-based study a of an established Hollywood writer’s experiences.
Upcoming projects include an account of the novel-writing process, a social history of creative block and a workshop on flow for writers.
David and Monica Jung McGarva are the parents and step-parents of four adults on three continents, and live quietly in Los Angeles County.
Published on April 1, 2005 at 7:44 pm. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/about-the-author.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: A writer’s block workshop
I’ve said it before, and before that. And before that. Here, in a web site about writer’s block, I am writing fewer and fewer entries. Friends find it hilarious.
This month’s excuse: All my creativity on this subject is going straight into planning the Encino workshop and I guess that online readers wouldn’t be interested to hear about Workshop Structure or about my ideas for Classroom Demonstrations. Or would you? (strokes beard wonderingly)
Right now I’m at a thrilling time with my vocation. After studying psychology at three universities and grad schools on two continents for seven or eight years (1) I’m about to attempt the last hurdle for the Californian license I hope to practice therapy under (2) I’m approaching the final phase (the research-and-guess-what-yes-it’s-writing! phase) of an American doctoral program at an amazing school where I get to hang out with people who know/knew Alan Watts and Rollo May and Werner Erhard and Irv Yalom and… it’s a blast for a Scottish lad to be anywhere near Sausalito [to do list: write about Anne Lamott] (3) I’m working full time doing something really useful and rewarding in psychology and (4) after some amusing challenges, the Today I Write workshop is finally scheduled to happen at a specific time and place.
Yes; the Today I Write workshop is finally scheduled to happen at a specific time and place. Specifically? At an address in Encino at 6pm on May 4th. Be there or be somewhere else. Prices and all that stuff will be announced later when you are over the first helpless excitement of it all. Buy the Today I Write writer’s t-shirt while you’re waiting!
So that’s my excuse for not writing this month. Anyone buy it?
Published on March 12, 2005 at 12:12 am. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/a-writers-block-workshop.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: Silence and creativity
‘dja notice I’ve been silent for a month? One reason is that real life is still getting in the way. I’m doing so much counseling and so much coaching and so much study on my various creativity interests that I make little time to be creatively productive (but doing psychotherapy is a very creative activity, remember). The other reason is that Today I Write has reached a natural plateau that I always meant it to reach: a place where I’m going to consolidate and organize the 12,000 or so words that I have here so that I know what aspects of writer’s block I want to research next; and so that I can say clearly what my own theory of blocking is; and so that I can say what are the effective things that writers can do and what are the expensive snake-oil quack cures for writer’s block. And thirdly, I’m busily putting together the writer’s block workshop that I’m leading later in the year.
Published on December 31, 2004 at 8:20 am. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/silence-and-creativity.html
Writer's block, an owner's guide: The Today I Write T-shirt
Be the puzzlement of all your friends
with this amazing Today I Write t-shirt! You know you already earned it.
Published on August 3, 2004 at 4:10 pm. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/the-today-i-write-t-shirt.html
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