Writing Secrets: Be Gentle With Yourself.
Do you ever get stuck creatively? What do you do with writer's block? How do you find confidence?
The design pages for Spark came to me this week. It’s my new book and it’s out in the world soon, for those of you wanting to write for young readers. In it, I talk about writer’s block, which is something all writers navigate. For you as a small thank you for being here, here’s an excerpt (and a glimpse at the gorgeous inner pages):
For years, when people asked me about writer’s block, I’d reply glibly, “Barbara Kingsolver says, ‘I have three children, I don’t have time for writer’s block.’” Except, it seems that wherever I got the quotation from doesn’t exist. Barbara Kingsolver doesn’t have three children, and I seem to have fabricated some sort of meaning from a made-up phrase.
YOUR WRITING LIFE
As I’ve been living a writing life longer, I’ve learned that there are patches of time where it’s impossible to write. Maybe life has thrown stuff at you so intensely that the idea of writing falls flat. My dad had an awful accident riding a horse, which led to him having emergency surgery for a brain bleed. My heart in my mouth, no writing happened until I knew he’d survived. The same for each of his subsequent surgeries. His advice to me has always been to “be gentle with yourself,” and so I take this to heart when I need a break.
Conversely, when life is busy, finding time to write becomes a priority for me. Writing itself makes me more able to cope and less likely to drop the ball. There’s something meditative and peaceful about writing, for me, and earning those days when the words flow and the story comes alive are worth the early mornings and snatched windows of time. That’s what Barbara Kingsolver’s not-quotation meant to me—in the moments when I do find time to write, I don’t have time to be blocked.
But while I don’t have time to be blocked, sometimes my confidence flags. And when my confidence flags, even if I don’t think I have time to be blocked, I get stuck. That hap- pens less often now. And that’s not because of the books I’ve published. They made me more focused on what other people thought about my writing. Interestingly it was the rejections that helped me become more confident.
Let me explain. It goes back to the purpose of writing, which I thought I knew when I was on that boat in Indonesia so many years ago. As I’ve done this more and more, the purpose of writing has become clearer for me. Writing opens up the world. It creates and invites conversations with other people, it forges connections, and it helps me understand and interpret the world I live in. My purpose, as I shared at the beginning, (note: this is in the opening of the book and a whole story) was originally publication because I wanted validation. Now I seek to share my books with the world because of the conversations I want to be able to have. Firstly, with an editor, and then, most importantly, with my readers. I want to talk about the things I’m passionate about—how social media tells stories, how ai is changing the world, how we steal identities, the impact of crime on a community, what our shadow selves are like, what anxiety and ADHD are like to live with for a parent. And some of my writing is just for me. I don’t want to edit it. I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to write it. That writing serves a purpose for me, too, because my overall aim is to feel that internal measure of satisfaction with my own words, line by line, story by story, conversation by conversation.
Confidence comes and goes. Some days are awful and some days are wonderful. In writing and in life. Showing up for the page is how the world makes sense for me.
Tips for When Your Confidence Flags and You’re Feeling Blocked
When you’re feeling a loss of confidence and are blocked, please come back to these questions for you: What are you passionate about? What do you want to share with others? What sparks your curiosity and makes you come alive?
Writer’s block can be very real and very unpleasant, but usually when the external world is blocked out and you sit with your own need to get into flow, you can ignite that fire again. Writing is likely your primary flow activity. Try writing to get into flow, not for any other goal.
SMALL TIP
Find an hour that you can repeat every day. Put the world away from your blank page. Free write until you feel ready to do all the other pieces again.
Thank you for being here. Ask me questions, share what you do if you get stuck on the page in comments or drop me a note. We’ve had a big change in our lives this week that I’m writing about for you in my next post here. Until then!
OTHER TIPS:
This guest post over at the fabulous
is perfect for today:
If you’re new here, my name is Alice Kuipers and I’m a writer, mother and dog-owner transplanted twenty years ago to the Canadian prairies from England. I’ve published fourteen books in 36 countries and my writing has been described as: “For storytellers and story lovers,” by Kirkus Reviews; ‘Gorgeous, heart-ripping, important,” by VOYA; and “Intense and wonderful” by Bif Naked. Join me for coffee breaks to look at lines from great writers twice a month. Xoxo