FAQ: Is Writing Public Therapy?

Is writing just a way to overshare about family traumas and display our hurts for sympathy? For many it is, sure. That’s undeniable in this age of media-borne gut spilling, nudity – emotional and otherwise – and melodrama. From Facebook rants and revelations to the sad manufacturing of shocking secrets on reality shows… It seems there are millions lining up to can their personal pain for public consumption.

It’s true that many who are attracted to writing and creating, are driven there by an assortment of personal demons. They grew up in toxic emotional environments, were bullied for their sensitivity and experienced traumas ranging from unsettling to devastating.

These people might, in their desire for acknowledgment, put their pure and unadulterated pain on public display on any number of forums. On the other had, they might, at some point, become proficient in an art form that will allow them to melt and re-forge their crummy childhoods, misadventures and miserable mistakes into something beautiful, useful, maybe even something that can heal.

Sometimes I wonder how all those, who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear, which is inherent in a human condition ~Graham Greene

Recently, I’ve had several writers come to me with the concern that what they want to write about is too dark, “I can’t subject people to this sad, difficult stuff… Can I?”

Please do.

We will follow you into the dark night of the soul. We’ll match you step for step as you plunge headlong into the inkiest shadows. Without shadow, nothing has dimension, which is why some of the darkest writing can be the most illuminating. And besides, unless we’ve been kept in a cryo-sleep chamber since birth, we’ve all accumulated some dark matter. And what is better than a story that acknowledges our vulnerabilities, bringing light and warmth to the cold, abandoned parts.

I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear. ~Joan Didion

Maybe you don’t want to spend time in the dark. It could be that your inner critic speaks to you of fiends and monsters. Your inner critic would not want me to remind you that princesses have to go into the woods, princes have to enter the cavern to battle the dragon and heroes have to journey to the underworld. But, all of them return with treasure.

With insight, humanity and some craft, you can hold both the dark and the light and bring across what you find in the tension that comes of that holding, acknowledging our human frailty in striving and loving.

And don’t let your inner critic shame you away from the dark, either. Yes, writing is therapeutic. It’s the most ancient of therapies. Humans have been healing themselves through story before they even found language. The pursuit of meaning is our most human trait, and writing is a very efficient way to mine meaning.

For more on this topic, here’s an article in the NYT that came out just as I was writing this: inspired partially by this article in the NYT: Why Talk Therapy Is on the Wane and Writing Workshops Are on the Rise.

FAQ: How Do I Kill my Inner Critic?

The bad news: eradicating your Inner Critics is virtually impossible. The good news: eradicating your Inner Critics is not the only road to Creative Freedom.

I’ve road-tested all the recommended methods for exorcising inner critics with varying degrees of failure. And when I manage to successfully terminate one, new ones arrive, and soon I’m too busy playing Whack-a-Critic to write. You could become a top IC assassin, but that means time away from the creative space, which means the ICs win.

After much experimentation, I’ve developed some techniques that serve me well in maintaining my creative ballast and productivity despite the best efforts of the worst of the ICs:

Take a listen. (This first step is a repeat from the previous FAQ: What Do I Do about my Inner Critic? It bears repeating since it can immediately reduce the inner cacophony to more bearable levels.) Stop trying to shut them out. What happens when you ignore a boor? They talk louder. If you confront them with open ears, they will most likely 1) deflate, having nothing interesting or important to say. 2) shrink in mortification rather than cop to the disturbing things they’ve been saying to the back of your head. 3) make a legitimate comment or request and be done with it.

Take back the boss chair. More often than not, we give our IC expert status and make them the boss of us. How did they come to have this authority? “Well, my IC is inside me,” you say, “She must know the truth about me.” But, Look deeper and you’ll find a voice that really knows the truth about you. It’s the voice that comes from your center, your core. It’s the voice that knows what you’re truly capable of, what’s unique and powerful about you. Let’s call this voice The Partner. Put The Partner in the boss chair and watch the riff-raff tremble. The Partner is your new Head of Human Resources.

Take stock. Are any of your ICs even qualified to talk about writing? Can they edit? Can they spot an awkward sentence? Can they help your work reach it’s highest potential? If so, The Partner may recommend promotion. If not, give them a job they can handle, like sweeping up or filing. Many of them will leave rather than accept this blow to their self-importance.

Take a closer look at the IC job description. Even the most qualified IC’s are not to be present in the writing room until after the second or third draft is finished. They aren’t needed until critical thinking is called for. In the early part of the process, when you’re dreaming and streaming, it’s just you and The Partner and the pen.

Take control of your process. If an IC insists on monitoring the early part of your process and won’t shake loose, do your best to annoy the crap out of them by doing everything they hate. It goes something like this:

IC: “Don’t write that! It’s cliché!”

You as many cliché’s as you can think of. The IC turns a funny color.

IC: You can’t just write any old garbage! You have to write something original!

You write at least two pages of unoriginal garbage that nobody would ever want to read. The IC throws up her hands. Or maybe just throws up

IC: I give up! I can’t do anything for you! You’re destined for obscurity!

The IC storms out. The Partner rises, closes the door firmly after her and smiles. You smile back, let down your guard and let your pen walk you into the unknown.

Hopefully the IC will give up on you permanently and go off in search of someone easier to control.

To read more FAQs click here.

FAQ: What do I do about the Inner Critic?

I’ve never met a creative person who didn’t have an inner critic or five or a hundred, whispering mean nothings in their ear as they strive toward artistic expression. Everybody has some combination of inner party-poopers, perfectionists, hard-asses and worry-warts to keep the creative risk-taking in check.

In my work with writers, I’ve had the dubious honor of meeting hundreds of inner critics. They come in every shape, size and species:

• Goody Two-Shoes, “Don’t write that, it’s mean. Or that either, it’s too sad.”
• Party Dude, “Writing is booooooring.”
• Real Friend, “Because I love you, I will always tell you the truth about yourself and your writing. And the truth is, you don’t have what it takes.”
• Psychopath, “If you try and write a single word I’ll lock you up in my basement and feeds bits of you to my pigs.” No, really.

To get relief and take back your process, start by courting some perspective: realize that you weren’t born with this unpleasant entourage. The mean voices may feel like a part of you, they may even feel like they are you, but not so. As a small child, you were free of these inner critics and you were uninhibited. Then at some point, a bully puffed himself up by making you feel small, “Loser!” A teacher used humiliation as motivator, “Weak effort!.” Mom and Dad want to keep you safe, “You’ll put your eye out!” Each voice rode in on a shot of adrenaline that seared it into your psyche so that it felt hard-wired.

“Okay, so they’re not me. They still drive me crazy!” Right. What to do?

My mother used to tell me to ignore the mean kid up the street and he’d get bored and leave me alone. Where did she get this idea? If I ignored him he just upped the torment to new levels until I flipped out, which delighted him no end. When you ignore a boor, what happens? They talk louder. They’ll take negative attention over no attention at all.

But, what if you turn toward them and listen? They will most likely 1) deflate, having nothing interesting or important to say. 2) shrink in mortification, rather than cop to those nasty, disturbing comments they’ve been throwing at the back of your head. 3) make a legitimate comment or request and be done with it. Unless it’s the psychopath with the pigs, in which case you may want to seek professional help. As in: hire an assassin.

When you listen to what your inner critics are saying, the first thing you’ll notice is very little of it is true. The rest of it is not true all the time. And if any of it is true, fine. You’re working on it.

These voices self-perpetuate by making you believe they are the expert on you, and without their guidance you will crash and burn. But, they are experts on nothing other than self-perpetuation.  They’re like some news organizations who ratchet up your panic levels so that you’ll stay tuned, “We’re all going to die tomorrow. Learn all the terrifying facts tonight at 11.”

So, the first step in working with inner critics is to see them for what they are. In the next FAQ I’ll give you some tactics for disempowering, evicting or, in the rare case, re-training them.

Click here for more Frequently Asked Questions.

FAQ: Who Should I Trust?

If I had a dollar for every writer who has limped into my classroom, injured by some carelessly cutting, red-inked comment in the margin of a story they’d poured themselves into, I’d be able to afford health insurance. And often, these self-same injured writers are the ones who say, “Be brutally honest. Rip it to shreds. Take no prisoners.” They have been sold the unhelpful idea that improvement comes through mortification.

Let’s pretend your latest creation is a 5-year old child. You’ve invested nine months of morning sickness and mood swings, endured the violent joy of birth, weathered the terrible twos. You’ve got a solid investment in this kid and you want to make sure she turns out great. So, of course you whip up some snacks and invite 10 or 20 tough-minded critics over.

“Okay, what can be improved here? Don’t hold back,” you say.

“Wow. Kinda chunky. You need to get her down to half that size.”

“Her vocabulary could sure use work.”

“I’m bored. She’s boooring. Can she sing? Paint? Something?”

“Sex change. Immediately. Boy children are hot right now. Girls are in the dumper.”

This kind of lacerating critic will complain that we’ve gotten soft. We’re so afraid of harming self-esteem that everybody gets a ribbon regardless of skill, originality or effort. But, if we go about it consciously, we can be rigorous without ripping and tearing. We can support what’s working and improve what’s not. You don’t need a sadist to hold you accountable to your potential.

When I was an actor, I encountered two kinds of directors – One treated you like a sexy, smart superstar and the other treated you like an impediment to great art. With the former, I could take big risks, ask tough questions and fly high. With the latter I was immobilized by that killer of creativity: self-consciousness.

Here are a few ways to get feedback without wounding your writing:

• Early stage work should only be shared with someone who 1) knows and loves your voice/work. 2) has an investment in your development as an artist. 3) has an understanding of the writing process.
• When the writing is more developed and less fragile, share it with a coach, a writing group, a fellow writer, an editor or anyone who has 1) compassion. 2) experience and skill. 3) an understanding of the writing process.
• Set them up for success: Let them know what you’re working on in the writing so they can help you move toward it.
• When someone tells you what’s working in your writing, treat this as valuable information. You need to know what you’re building on.
• Friends and family will ask to see your writing. You will want to give them your writing. Be strong. Put your writing first. Friends and family who have no feedback skills will have no idea why it’s not okay to call your piece about suicide, “Cute!”
• Know the difference between opinion and feedback. Opinion tells you something about the speaker. Feedback tells you something about your work.

You’re probably in good hands if:

• They always start by telling you what’s working.
• After receiving feedback, you feel encouraged to continue working on the piece.
• They are focused on helping the writing become what it’s trying to become, rather than what they think it should become.

Now go write!
To read more Frequently Asked Questions click here.

FAQ #4: How Do I Achieve Greatness?

“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.” ~ Ernest Hemingway

If you take two hockey players of matching physical and intellectual powers with the same socio-economic advantages who practice the same amount of hours, why does only one of them become Wayne Gretsky? Are some humans just born with more talent?

Malcom Gladwell wonders if the secret to Gretsky’s greatness might not be, “an extraordinary love” for the sport that makes him want to live and breathe it and engage it at any opportunity.

Gladwell, in his book Outliers, does us all a huge favor by debunking the idea of inborn talent or “giftedness.” His book popularizes “the 10,000 hour rule” which comes from a study showing that expertise is achieved after 10,000 hours of practice regardless of the initial promise of ability. 10,000 hours breaks down to about five years of 40-hour weeks. Not five years of studying, not five years of doing, but five years of practice. I know. Yikes. This would be why you need the “extraordinary love.”

Okay, say you’re down for the struggle. You’re signed on for the 10K. How do writers practice? What is the writer’s equivalent of scales or the batting cage or sprints?

The first step is to identify the areas of your writing that go clunk. In his book Talent is Overrated, Geoff Colvin concludes that 10,000 hours won’t get you greatness unless you undertake something called “deliberate practice,” which focuses on improving what’s not working rather than grinding on a rote routine. And the wonderful thing about all of this is that we can stop freaking out when our writing goes clunk, because that’s what practice is for.

I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter. ~ James Michener

The other wonderful thing is that many of your practice opportunities are happening in the moment to moment of your life. Embracing and giving over to your “extraordinary love” of writing will allow you to be in your life as a writer. You’ll engage writing through your curiosity about how relationships work, what makes people grow and change, why something is funny and what value you might extract from your singular experience of the world. Here are a few ways to practice in your everyday life:

• Material – Notice what makes you curious.
• Dialogue – Eavesdrop. Observe the musicality of speech in others and try to discern what desires motivate their speech.
• Character – Notice the way people’s actions betray underlying emotion.
• Stakes – Notice the reaction in yourself and others, when valued relationships, ideals and property are threatened. Notice the lengths we go to in order to protect what we value.

Then there are plenty of fun exercises to sharpen your skills on the page:

• Exposition – Write about an emotional moment without describing thoughts or feelings. For instance, instead of “I didn’t want to let on, but I was devastated by the news,” you might try, “I scratched the dog’s ears until I was sure I could speak without crying.”
• Point of View – Tell one character’s version of the story, then have another character fill you in on what he neglected to mention.
• Sensory detail – Describe your environment, focusing on senses other than vision.

Due to the extremely subjective nature of writing, it’s often necessary to share your work with a coach, writing group or editor in order to identify what isn’t working. Whomever you choose to share your work with, they should also be adept at identifying what is working in your writing, which is extremely valuable information that we have a hard time discerning on our own.

Now go write!

Next time: With whom should I share my work?

For more FAQs click here

FAQ: Do I Have What it Takes?

If you’re asking this question, you’re already on the right track. If you’re asking this question, it means you’re not complacent. If you’re asking this question, you harbor a healthy humility toward a demanding craft. You understand this isn’t some log you can just fall off of.

Okay, so, humility. Check. What else?

• Are you driven to create something of value in the world?
• Do you hunger for meaning?
• Do you have a reckless, eager curiosity that makes you want to see what’s under everybody’s hood?
• Do you have an itchy restlessness pressing you to give expression to the inexpressible?

And most importantly:

• Do you have a love of, or at least a tolerance for, getting lost on your way to an unknown destination through uncharted territory with no guarantee of arriving anywhere you’d want to be?

The most important ability writers must develop, above all else, is the ability to be comfortable with discomfort. All the negative internal chatter, all the reasons to give up or never start in the first place, all the uncertainty, not to mention the enormous, crippling yearning to write something truly profound, something that will change the world, something that will end war in the Middle East and solve world hunger. To be a writer, you must learn that these feelings won’t kill you – they might make you throw up, but they won’t kill you. And once you know that, you can keep your pen moving no matter what your inner critic throws at your head.

Which brings us back to the above-mentioned log. If you want writing to be like falling off of one, you will be bummed.

The most destructive myth about creativity is the myth of “the Gift.” The expectation that there are fully-formed stories and poems programmed into your DNA by God is like saying that Yo Yo Ma should never have had to learn to read music, study form and practice slavishly for hours and hours a day.

Ray Bradbury said, “If you want to be a writer, write a million words.” This prescription would require you to write a thousand words a day for almost three years. Living with the impatience and pressure of our I-want-something-for-nothing-and-I-want-it-now culture, three years can sound outrageous! Unfair! Excessive! What do you think, I’m made of time?!

But, that’s okay, because if you decide you have what it takes, the reward is worth the time you’ll put in. As you suspected, the more you develop your writing, the more complex and exciting your world becomes. Writing will continually lead you to new understanding, a more layered and textured relationship with your world and better juicier questions to provoke your eager, restless curiosity.

So, yes, you have what it takes my intrepid, discomfort-tolerant friend.

Now go write.

Next FAQ: How do I make all that practice pay off?

FAQ of the Week: Is Writing Narcissistic?

I S    W R I T I N G    N A R C I S S I S T I C ?

First of all, narcissism is a clinical personality disorder that drives some poor souls to force their way, with charisma blazing, into the center of absolutely everyone’s universe. So, while some folks with narcissistic personality disorder write, my Google searches reveal no direct connection between writing and narcissism.

The fact that I come across this concern so often is disturbing. And by often, I mean that most writers polish this nasty little worry to a lesser or greater degree – “I’m whining, I’m navel gazing, It’s me, me, me, who cares?”  And in order to reassure ourselves that we’re not egomaniacs, we make planning the dinner party a very big deal and writing a very little deal. Where did we get this hang-up? Don’t answer that. Don’t care. Doesn’t matter. What matters is getting clear on the terrific loss that occurs when creativity is categorized as egotistical and shamed onto the sidelines.

The word “narcissism” is derived from the Greek myth in which a young man gets caught in a loop of self-love so strong that he dies of starvation rather than leave his reflection long enough to get a sandwich. If you are paralyzed with love for your own words to the point of not being able write another because the last was so devastatingly beautiful… We may have an exception to the rule. But, in most cases, writing mines of the “self” in a way that leads to a deeper, richer relationship with the world.

Writing is the bloom that is drawn up and out  of all our confusion and struggle. We sacrifice a lot of energy for that bloom, but there’s no denying that it’s worth it. That flowering is a miracle that takes our breath away.

Even the most navel-gazing journal entry strives toward evolving the mind and soul. And at its best,  a piece of writing can elevate the consciousness of millions of people over hundreds of years. A good story can turn your life around, drop you deeper into understanding, lift you out of darkness and put you in touch with higher values. If you want to move the human race into the enlightened age, the prescription is: Write stories, consume stories. Write poetry, consume poetry. Wonder. Be curious. Create. Repeat.

Now go write.

FAQ of the Week: Why Write?

W H Y     W R I T E ?

WRITE TO GET RICH AND FAMOUS. Sure, why not. You could win the Nobel Prize, an Academy Award, the hearts and minds of the people. You could wipe the annoying smirk off the faces of anybody who ever doubted you. You could own your own island and fly there in your personal jet. But, if these things don’t happen, does it mean that writing is a waste of time? Well… do you have children because they improve your portfolio? When you take in a gorgeous sunset or obey the urge to get your feet in some surf or burst into song or bake a birthday cake, do you do it for the dividends?

“There are days I envy my brother the teacher – if only because he doesn’t wake up thinking “If I can’t be one of the Top 20 Teachers in North America, why don’t I just goddamn quit?” – James Rocchi, film critic

Many, if not most, of the things that make our lives worth living, do not boost our bottom line. That doesn’t mean they don’t need to be done.

WRITE BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO.  Anaïs Nin said, “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” If stories, poems, characters, comedy and insight are trying to come through you, then you must write.

WRITE BECAUSE, IF YOU DON’T, THAT SOUND THAT ONLY YOU CAN MAKE, WILL NEVER BE HEARD. No one has the unique combination of your life experience, DNA, brain structure, rhythm and perception. No one sees beauty the way you do. No one has the insights that you do. If you don’t write, these things that can only come through you, will have not way to enter the world and they will be lost.

WRITE BECAUSE YOU’RE CURIOUS. When an idea or a question or even an image pushes its way into your mind and pulses like a neon sign on the inside wall of your forehead, it wants to be written about.

“The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which have been hidden by the answers.” – James Baldwin

When he was a child, my husband tells me, he used to take apart the toaster, the telephone, the hairdryer, reducing it to its tiniest pieces to see what was at work inside the thing. No matter what kind of trouble he might get in, he couldn’t help himself. That’s what a writer does. And, in the process of disassembling ideas and experiences and examining their insides, new understanding forms. These discoveries of meaning are like delicious rocket fuel for the soul.

Now go write!