Being blue
I work from my room, and very often I’m greeted by blue evening light through the curtains that creates in me, a very moody, pensive feeling. These are the type of days where I’m reminded that writing is lonely work, and I find myself being overwhelmed with thoughts when I’m looking at my own stories. Often, the anticipation of these thoughts cause me to feel like procrastinating, as I’m afraid of dealing with the feeling of dread that happens when I look at my manuscripts. For those out there who do any kind of solo work that involves writing, you would probably be able to identify with this feeling.
One way that I cope with the feeling of dread is to immediately identify the unproductive thoughts in question. I do this by opening my manuscript, listening to the thoughts in my head, then listing it down on paper. I get thoughts such as:
“My work is juvenile and clumsy. That’s an awful sentence.”
In reflection, when I read the thought back to myself, its easier to see how disproportionately negative the thought is. Something I’ve tried to pay attention to is the language that I use for myself, in relation to my work. Instead of immediately trying to combat the thought, I try and re-frame it in a different way.
“I can work on it later, besides, the writing is not the worst thing just because it is a rough draft in presentation.”
In addition, I try to frame my work, and improving it, as a process of exploration. What this means is that I ask myself questions.
“What in particular can I improve about this sentence?” “That phrase doesn’t look quite right. How can I edit this sentence to improve the flow of my paragraphs?”
I try to invite exploration, which is to write without the voice in my head sounding the alarm with every word I type. I think with any kind of work, especially creative work, there is a lot of uncertainty that is fundamental to the process of working. Instead of fearing it, dreading it, I try and enjoy the exploration of language, thinking about the different angles I can look at a paragraph and considering my options. And when I fail, and something looks clumsy, I remind myself that failure is inherently part of the process, and should not necessarily be alarming. There’s a great anecdote in the book ” The Upward Spiral “, where there is a man coming back from the lake where he had been fishing. A passerby greets him and asks him how the fishing is. “Great”, the man says. “And what did you catch?”, the passerby asks. “Nothing.”,says the man, “It’s called fishing, not catching.”
Despite cultivating a sense of exploration, it can still be a struggle just to process and re-frame my thoughts. It’s very tempting to try and chase away some dissatisfaction by seeking a greater sense of control. One of the signs I have noticed is that I begin to procrastinate heavily when I fear failure. Suddenly, it becomes very tempting to organize my bookshelf, or surf Youtube. It’s a sign of not necessarily about being lazy, but an indicator that for myself, it is a reflex to alleviate anxiety- I become too afraid of confronting failure, dreading the anticipation of the negative thoughts when I see my manuscript. Because the moment I start working, and putting the pen to paper, it alarms the perfectionist in me to make it concrete. If I keep it in my head, I can fantasize about how perfect it can be. But the moment I write it down, I have the fear that I have to confront my own limitations. This, for me, is a work in progress. One of my approaches is to tell myself that as long as I can write and think, I have the capacity to analyse my own work, and to analyse what I can accept as “good enough.”
I am learning, and also very often realizing that its possible to tolerate the feeling of dread instead of the automatic reflex to do something less productive. One of the ways I do this is to realize that there are very minute, productive things I can do to start small, and very often I am on my way, surprising myself with how effortless it can be. I do agree, and have understood, that this is a constant struggle- that which we must confront ourselves.
