Resistance, the Antimuse

Resistance can manifest itself in so many ways. Some of the causes are more obvious: Self-doubt; negative self-talk; perfectionism; fear of failure, success–yes, that’s a real thing–of risk, of rejection, of criticism, of judgement… Basically, fear of anything that blocks your writing time. The list of why’s and causes are endless. But fear is at the root of all of them.

It’s the antimuse.

But resistance is a slippery sucker that will try to convince you it’s okay by manifesting itself in what appears to be positive–or at least innocent–on the outside.

Not so.

Some clues you’re probably giving in to resistance:

Distractions: There’s nothing wrong with distractions, unless you allow the distractions to–well, distract. On the surface, it’s a good opportunity to practice self-control, to overcome. And you may persuade yourself that’s the case. But more often, it’s not. We’re prone to pivoting our attention to anything shiny or easier than writing.

Squirrel brain.

Because, let’s face it, writing is hard work. And many times, as the saying goes, we like to have written, but not actually write. And each time we’re distracted from what we’re doing, it takes an additional 23 minutes to get back on track. That’s a lot of missed words on the page! To the person who says, “I wish I had time to sit and write a book like you do,” or “I’m going to write a book when I retire/when my kids are grown/when I have room for a home office…” To that I say, “Good luck!”

Switching Projects (Also called Context Switching): Changing things up isn’t a bad thing, it’s why you’re making the switch. (A worthwhile note–if your “switch” is to allow a “quick peek” at social media or email–or the latest so-called newsworthy item–you’ve just entered the black hole from which you might never recover for the rest of the day because your productivity will abruptly end.) Whether you’re switching from writing electronically to putting it on paper, no matter what it is–plotting, first draft, outlining, or anything else–WHY are you switching? Is your current method not working for you? Curious to try something else to see if it works better? Your old way of doing something has grown stale and isn’t serving a purpose of moving you forward? Or does something else just look better because you’ve hit a tough patch, and learning something else will take your focus off the hard work. I get it. Learning is fun. I often joke I’m a recovering student. But if you can’t define a concrete reason why you want to change things up, and even if you do have a solid why but it doesn’t move the needle forward on your creative endeavor, it probably falls in the resistence bucket.

Perfectionism: Perfectionism is a first cousin of procrastination. We all want to create our best possible work to put out into the world. And that’s great! What isn’t great is when that need to be perfect stops you from creating because–well, what if? And from there a million and one reasons, born from that four-letter-word, FEAR, crop up. Play whack-a-mole and stuff them all back into their hidey-hole. Learning to know when you’ve done the absolute best you can, is truly an art. But writers are creatives/artists. You can learn!

Reading: Your antimuse can really create a valid arguement for this one. After all, I believe it was Stephen King who said if you don’t have time to read, you don’t have time to write. While reading is not only critical for a writer, both for enjoyment and study, it can also be a “valid” reason not to write. So says resistance. Reading just one chapter, finishing a chapter, getting inspired, etc. Each excuse/reason equates to less words on your page. When I retired from my W2 job, I was elated to be free from schedules. Until I realized a schedule was my best friend. Without one, I tend to run willy-nilly, putting off “hard” things, thinking I had all day to get to it, when before I knew it, it was the end of the day and I accomlished nothing that was on my list. Now I have a rule–no reading during scheduled writing time. No matter what!

In case you couldn’t tell, I’m a huge fan of Steven Pressfield’s book, The War of Art. I highly recommend it and have included the link here for your ease. 🙂

How are some ways resistance shows up in your life, blocking your productivity?