Writer's block, an owner's guide: Writer’s Block and the Zone (part 3 of several)

<weird mode on> Let’s be 1960s-spiritual today.

A few days ago I said something humorous, but in admiring awe, about Csikszentmihalyi still not being able to define flow after decades of research into it. I meant that in the best way, of course. He knows what he’s talking about and so do you.

One interesting thing is that he expressly identifies it as the same thing as religious ecstasy. So now we’re close to saying that flow is the state you’re in during a peak experience (look it up: Abraham Maslow discovered a lot more interesting stuff than just that darn pyramid they show you in every introductory business course). Well – of course it is! When you see the face of a god or you write a poem, you are doing nothing else at that moment, right? You are totally there, doing what you’re doing, thinking what you’re thinking, seeing what you’re seeing, and this is flow, and this is the Zone.

Now let’s talk about how a writer should live.

Csikszentmihalyi (by the way, that’s “chick sent me high”) doesn’t say people should not set goals. He likes goals.

Once again it’s what I called the Zen of the Zone. The spiritual master seeks enlightenment by not seeking enlightenment, right? Yet at the end of a life well lived the master is closer to enlightenment than at the start. Call it what you like, I call that an entire life of passionately seeking a stated goal.

</weird mode>

Csikszentmihalyi says that:

- flow tends to occur when a person faces a clear set of goals that require appropriate responses. This would be one of the reasons that the journalists I’ve asked all find news-writing easier than their spare-time writing.

- flow activities provide immediate feedback: you know how well you are doing. This is one of the ways in which driving or climbing is different from paper-pushing. I suppose this eliminates the temptation to worry about progress, and so to distract yourself. Again, this would explain why journalism is relatively (experts tell me) easy and why would-be novelists can lose focus.

- flow, and here we get to the fun part where we can do something about it, tends to occur when a person’s skills are fully involved in overcoming a challenge that is just about manageable.

Stop and think about that. Flow tends to occur when a person’s skills are fully involved in overcoming a challenge that is just about manageable. Climbing a rockface doesn’t do it; climbing a hard one that tests you is what does it.

In sporting activities (and computer games) we always want to advance to harder levels. In heaven’s name why would anyone want to do something so stupid? How would you explain that to a scientist from Mars?

I noticed this decades ago but I didn’t have a context to put it in: the things that adults like doing, from sex and psychotherapy to golf and chess, are all things that we can never do perfectly. Things where there’s always room for improvement.

Explain to the Martian why you seek out activities that you know you will never be able to do right?

Because you’re human, and that’s what we do.

Why do you write, when it is so darn hard?

Stop and answer that.

Moving on now.

Here’s a diagram by Csikszentmihalyi entitled “the quality of experience as a function of the relationship between challenges and skills.” It’s self explanatory and interesting.

Let’s relate it to writer’s block, ok? I’ll make this material up at the keyboard so I’m challenging my skills; almost unaware of the jazz music, of Camilla the cat restlessly wandering, of the coffee pot being empty.

So; when you have to write something that’s routine, say a regular report, but this time it’s going to the most critical boss or teacher who holds your life in her hands, how do you feel? Anyone? That’s right, Johnny, you feel anxious.

In the opposite situation, when the task calls for all of your skill but it’s of no special importance, maybe like rewriting a chapter that you already wrote about a complex subject, that already says everything you want it to say but doesn’t say it very clearly… then you feel relaxed. I’ve been doing a lot of that kind of rewriting on this blog recently, and let me tell you it is more relaxing than the task of settling down to create this article out of my head.

If your writing project is easy for you, and is also of no great importance, your attitude is likely to be apathetic. Not good for getting it done, getting it done well, or feeling like you had a good day.

We’ve been all over the wheel except the top right spoke. Try a demanding task that uses all of your existing skills. Let’s say you’re still writing that important report that you knew how to write, but because of anxiety you’ve procrastinated and so now you’re up against a firm deadline. Now you sit down at 11pm and you really get into it and in that last hour you can feel the talent rushing down your arms and out of your fingertips and the task is getting done and you feel good and you weren’t trying to get into the Zone but you are suddenly in flow and is this why so many of us are turned on by deadlines? Do we procrastinate in order to make an easy task difficult, because we like to be up at the top of the diagram?

The Martians must be laughing their space socks off.

to be continued… (click)

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Published on April 10, 2005 at 12:14 pm. Linking to this article? Thank you! The permanent address is http://www.todayiwrite.com/journal/writers-block-and-the-zone-part-3-of-several.html

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