If someone forwarded this letter to you, welcome! I hope you enjoy it! You can get your own copy of future letters by going to http://www.todayiwrite.com and simply typing your email address in the box there.
A reader writes: "You write about speaking in one's own voice being the key to fluency, and this has made me notice how much more liberated I feel when writing emails than with any other form of writing. Currently, indeed, the majority of my written words take this form. Emails have even replaced journaling.
"There's something about the medium which encourages both intimacy and informality, and these two make me feel safe and free. I find your observation that varied sentence lengths and relaxed grammar help you write as yourself also ring true for me. Especially the latter. But how relaxed is relaxed? I still have to decide which rules are important, and which negotiable. I notice that I am not prepared to be relaxed around spelling, for instance."
Newsletter 16: April 21, 2008
"Don't get it right, get it writ."
Last week, talking about thinking outside the box, I asked you, "how would you plant ten trees in five rows of four trees each?" One reader replies, "You have ruined my week. What is the answer?" Thanks for reminding me, and here it is: http://www.davidmcgarva.com/images/5star.jpg.
That puzzle was a favorite of the late Dr Milton Erickson, the father of modern brief psychotherapy: getting people out of normal modes of thinking was something he loved to do.
Also on the subject of thinking outside the box, a third reader drew my attention to this fun video.
Dr Erickson was fond of "prescribing the symptom." On one occasion he instructed an overweight patient to gain exactly ten pounds (don't try this at home, I am not a doctor). When you gain ten pounds you learn, and maybe believe for the first time, that you truly can control your weight. And that's when you finally do take control. For without the faith in yourself, why would you bother?
You know how... maybe this is just me, but I don't think so... how it's a relief, when you have a toothache, to bite down on it? The pain gets worse but at least you're in charge. You're willing to pay quite a price to interrupt the endless "make it stop" helplessness.
Here's a thing you can do to help a friend whose writer's block is caused by perfectionism. This actually works. Tell them their assignment is to write badly. To bring you some bad writing.
And then, no matter what they bring you, they've succeeded. Bad writing fulfills the assignment. Good writing is its own reward. Your friend can't avoid success.
(A friend who's determined to be blocked will try bringing you nothing. For that friend, you have to prescribe his particular symptom: set him the task of writing nothing: and now, write or not write, he can't help doing something right.)
You can do this for yourself too. I was just talking with a movie writer who refers to the first draft as a "puke draft." That's what professionals expect it to be, and they write it anyway. Writing puke is better than writing nothing. If you don't write you can't revise, can't submit, can't publish.
This is letter 16. Only six weeks ago I said I was a tenth of the way to having sent you a hundred. Since then we've gone to a ninth of the way, an eighth, a seventh and now a sixth. From 1/10 to 1/6... how fast things grow when you simply keep going!
Something you can try this week: write it, write it badly, write it for future editing, don't go back for anything, write it.
David
David Jung McGarva
+1 (818) 707 1871
Write me: david at todayiwrite dot com
To get this newsletter every week, enter your email address below.
Privacy policy: I'll send you nothing but the weekly letter, and I'll never voluntarily share your address with anyone.
