One of the delicious paradoxes of cognition is that I often don't know what I think until I write it down. I can feel that there is something off about an argument, or something interesting about a topic, but I can't tell what it is until I've committed it to paper.
On an entirely separate note my intuitions about the differences between work and labour are the exact opposite of yours. For me labour means something that is satisfying, productive in the literal sense, purposeful. Everything that work is to you. Work is the hollow thing I do for pay, the thing that leaves me exhausted and which I wish I could survive without. It is your labour. I suspect this is a UK / US two nations divided by a common tongue thing.
My explanation for this phenomenon: when you think about a thing, there's inevitably some fuzziness involved; you can be in two (or more) minds about what you think and feel. The act of sitting and writing it down forces you to commit to one wording, and if there's anything 'off' about your position - logical leaps, internal inconsistencies, handwaving, emotional disconnect - it will show up right there on the page.
Gonna shill for a moment to point out that if the fear of being wrong (factually or otherwise) stops you from writing, it shouldn't. Embrace it, you'll have more fun that way. I only got around to starting my own substack once i decided to be wrong: https://bewrong.substack.com/about
Right on point. I feel like at least for me, "writer's block" is two separate problems:
1. Being uncomfortable with my thoughts, i.e. fear of being wrong, fear of sounding stupid, fear of going against the popular opinion.
2. Being uncomfortable with my writing, i.e. feeling that my writing sounds too boring, or too primitive, or too complex, in any case worse than what I have in my head.
Sometimes I struggle with both, sometimes it's one or the other.
I guess the solution to #1 is to embrace it, and the solution to #2 is to deliberate-practice it and keep improving. Writing from abundance, as David Perell says.
me too. this is why i started writing in the first place. couldn't bring myself to talk. i was so ashamed, but knew I needed to "let go of my words" somewhere. as the years went by, my mind absorbed more and more ambition and stories around "how to write" and what "good writing is," and so in time i needed to re-learn how to simply let go of my thoughts in writing without needing them to sound good or land or whatever
Such a lovely sentiment! Maybe framing it in confrontational terms isn't the *most* helpful way to guide people being comfortable with their own thoughts.
Great post, Sasha. Really opened my eyes as a writer and writing coach. I wanted to share my solution and a post from my new Substack. chipscanlan.substack.com. Lower your standards.
At first. I'm a huge believer in freewriting so you can turn off that "you suck" voice in your head. Here's the link. https://www.chipswritinglessons.com/2019/09/09/craft-lesson-how-to-tune-out-usuck-fm-and-free-yourself-to-write-2/ I hope you'll check out my site and if you like it perhaps give a shout-out, which would be huge coming from you. "Make Something Crazy" is just what I need for my memoir0n-progress. Perhaps if I sell enough books by then, I can take part. Thanks for your honesty and kindness to writers.
I completely agree that we should write what we think and what we feel - not the version of us that we think others may like. 100%. And we should always write under Cunningham's Law.
But I also think that if we have writer's block, we should *start* lying. But as we our truth, we shouldn't lie to be liked by others. Find the most outrageous lie. Lie big. And by all means say that you are lying. Lying gets a bad rap because people use it to do bad things. But lying is underrated.
Wish I read this back in 2004 or whatever it was. I started working at the university newspaper on the design team, periodically submitting zany fiction to my friend who worked the Culture section. I loved it. The next year I ended up falling into the editor-in-chief position. I suddenly had to write news articles about student politics and regular editorials about campus issues. It ruined me. I didn’t care! I felt like a total liar. And I didn’t really get back to writing until just this year, and this is the very lesson that’s been sitting nonverbal in the back of my mind. Can you please send this to me back then????
I keep thinking about and re-reading this essay months after first reading it, which is for me the distinctive difference between top-quality essays and the lower-quality ones. Thank you.
I see in my students that fear is often the biggest factor in writer's block: fear of not being perfect, specifically. Probably the best advice I've ever heard is the advice the poet William Stafford gave his students: "Lower your standards and keep going."
this is interesting theory that have no connection whatsoever to my lived experience. maybe I never had this form of writing blog?
what i sometimes have, that can be called writing block, is similar to reading block - Ugh Field around starting to read or write. sometimes weirdly miscalibrated. (aka, start writing feel unfun and then i starting and oops, why is so late, i planned to go sleep! in reading it was at least calibrated Ugh Field, sensible if unfortunate reaction to reality when i dislike 75% of the books i tried to read).
it was hard to start writing posts until it stopped, and i still don't know why, and don't know how to have the same transformation in fiction writing.
but generally, i don't use the therm "writing block", because i don't think there is actually one thing in the territory people are trying to pointing at when they use this term.
how can i tell if someone talking about the weird ugh field that make starting aversive and hard, despite writing being neutral-to-fun, or the situation in which i try to write and instead if it starting to happen all by itslef it doesn't, and i need to do it with force, or staring at black page (that i typical minded my way into not even considering as option)?
(also, the obvious thing to do about AI is writing about the gap between belief and alief. a lot of desire to avoid Truth is skill issue. not all of in, journalists do have to lie to keep their job. but a lot of it feel to me like mistrust in the ability to write something that will not be read as farther from the truth then the outright lie. writing to adversarial readership is corrosive.)
I think that there is a difference between thinking as it is and thinking on the paper (as you write). I think that people (with writer's block) like thinking as it is as, while thinking in this way you can be reflexive and censor thoughts that dont align with your sense of self to some extent- like people who suppress their trauma to be 'normal'.
However, thinking on paper is quite automatic. Surrealists discovered that a long time ago. Gestalt therapy requires you to write down your dreams instead of speaking about it. That is one point in which I think you could have been more nuanced. But this was a very good article nonetheless, especially on a day during the duration of which i wondered 'why dont I write much'. Thank you <3
I might expand the above distinction into a more comprehensive article- I will send it to you to read it if you are interested!
One of the delicious paradoxes of cognition is that I often don't know what I think until I write it down. I can feel that there is something off about an argument, or something interesting about a topic, but I can't tell what it is until I've committed it to paper.
On an entirely separate note my intuitions about the differences between work and labour are the exact opposite of yours. For me labour means something that is satisfying, productive in the literal sense, purposeful. Everything that work is to you. Work is the hollow thing I do for pay, the thing that leaves me exhausted and which I wish I could survive without. It is your labour. I suspect this is a UK / US two nations divided by a common tongue thing.
My explanation for this phenomenon: when you think about a thing, there's inevitably some fuzziness involved; you can be in two (or more) minds about what you think and feel. The act of sitting and writing it down forces you to commit to one wording, and if there's anything 'off' about your position - logical leaps, internal inconsistencies, handwaving, emotional disconnect - it will show up right there on the page.
Gonna shill for a moment to point out that if the fear of being wrong (factually or otherwise) stops you from writing, it shouldn't. Embrace it, you'll have more fun that way. I only got around to starting my own substack once i decided to be wrong: https://bewrong.substack.com/about
Right on point. I feel like at least for me, "writer's block" is two separate problems:
1. Being uncomfortable with my thoughts, i.e. fear of being wrong, fear of sounding stupid, fear of going against the popular opinion.
2. Being uncomfortable with my writing, i.e. feeling that my writing sounds too boring, or too primitive, or too complex, in any case worse than what I have in my head.
Sometimes I struggle with both, sometimes it's one or the other.
I guess the solution to #1 is to embrace it, and the solution to #2 is to deliberate-practice it and keep improving. Writing from abundance, as David Perell says.
"No one ever gets talkers block" - Seth Godin
Many people do, including myself
me too. this is why i started writing in the first place. couldn't bring myself to talk. i was so ashamed, but knew I needed to "let go of my words" somewhere. as the years went by, my mind absorbed more and more ambition and stories around "how to write" and what "good writing is," and so in time i needed to re-learn how to simply let go of my thoughts in writing without needing them to sound good or land or whatever
Such a lovely sentiment! Maybe framing it in confrontational terms isn't the *most* helpful way to guide people being comfortable with their own thoughts.
MAYBE ///YOU'RE/// NOT A HELPFUL FRAMING!!!!
The confrontational style works great for some. Tough love.
I would take a novel about misunderstood teen gymnasts with pet magic lions over anything about sad suburbanites anytime!
Great post, Sasha. Really opened my eyes as a writer and writing coach. I wanted to share my solution and a post from my new Substack. chipscanlan.substack.com. Lower your standards.
At first. I'm a huge believer in freewriting so you can turn off that "you suck" voice in your head. Here's the link. https://www.chipswritinglessons.com/2019/09/09/craft-lesson-how-to-tune-out-usuck-fm-and-free-yourself-to-write-2/ I hope you'll check out my site and if you like it perhaps give a shout-out, which would be huge coming from you. "Make Something Crazy" is just what I need for my memoir0n-progress. Perhaps if I sell enough books by then, I can take part. Thanks for your honesty and kindness to writers.
I completely agree that we should write what we think and what we feel - not the version of us that we think others may like. 100%. And we should always write under Cunningham's Law.
But I also think that if we have writer's block, we should *start* lying. But as we our truth, we shouldn't lie to be liked by others. Find the most outrageous lie. Lie big. And by all means say that you are lying. Lying gets a bad rap because people use it to do bad things. But lying is underrated.
Wish I read this back in 2004 or whatever it was. I started working at the university newspaper on the design team, periodically submitting zany fiction to my friend who worked the Culture section. I loved it. The next year I ended up falling into the editor-in-chief position. I suddenly had to write news articles about student politics and regular editorials about campus issues. It ruined me. I didn’t care! I felt like a total liar. And I didn’t really get back to writing until just this year, and this is the very lesson that’s been sitting nonverbal in the back of my mind. Can you please send this to me back then????
I keep thinking about and re-reading this essay months after first reading it, which is for me the distinctive difference between top-quality essays and the lower-quality ones. Thank you.
I see in my students that fear is often the biggest factor in writer's block: fear of not being perfect, specifically. Probably the best advice I've ever heard is the advice the poet William Stafford gave his students: "Lower your standards and keep going."
Fresh! Even works with technical topics, I have found. Once you're on to something it's just a matter of going with the flow.
I'm speechless, this was quite the write up!
Love your style of writing and the IDGAF attitude you bring to "you shouldn't GAF" to your audience - v meta.
Excited for more verbal poetry and structured write ups about whatever comes to your mind.
this is interesting theory that have no connection whatsoever to my lived experience. maybe I never had this form of writing blog?
what i sometimes have, that can be called writing block, is similar to reading block - Ugh Field around starting to read or write. sometimes weirdly miscalibrated. (aka, start writing feel unfun and then i starting and oops, why is so late, i planned to go sleep! in reading it was at least calibrated Ugh Field, sensible if unfortunate reaction to reality when i dislike 75% of the books i tried to read).
it was hard to start writing posts until it stopped, and i still don't know why, and don't know how to have the same transformation in fiction writing.
but generally, i don't use the therm "writing block", because i don't think there is actually one thing in the territory people are trying to pointing at when they use this term.
how can i tell if someone talking about the weird ugh field that make starting aversive and hard, despite writing being neutral-to-fun, or the situation in which i try to write and instead if it starting to happen all by itslef it doesn't, and i need to do it with force, or staring at black page (that i typical minded my way into not even considering as option)?
(also, the obvious thing to do about AI is writing about the gap between belief and alief. a lot of desire to avoid Truth is skill issue. not all of in, journalists do have to lie to keep their job. but a lot of it feel to me like mistrust in the ability to write something that will not be read as farther from the truth then the outright lie. writing to adversarial readership is corrosive.)
Hey Sasha,
This cured my writer's block. I just wrote a 500+ word post in <1hr after reading this.
Thank you man <3.
thank you for this- genuinely <3
I think that there is a difference between thinking as it is and thinking on the paper (as you write). I think that people (with writer's block) like thinking as it is as, while thinking in this way you can be reflexive and censor thoughts that dont align with your sense of self to some extent- like people who suppress their trauma to be 'normal'.
However, thinking on paper is quite automatic. Surrealists discovered that a long time ago. Gestalt therapy requires you to write down your dreams instead of speaking about it. That is one point in which I think you could have been more nuanced. But this was a very good article nonetheless, especially on a day during the duration of which i wondered 'why dont I write much'. Thank you <3
I might expand the above distinction into a more comprehensive article- I will send it to you to read it if you are interested!