for novelists who struggle with resistance

A kind listener wrote to me and asked if I could talk about resistance, so that’s what we’re going to talk about today.Resistance. Which is…what exactly? The way I see resistance—it’s this tension point between wanting to do something, and simultaneously wanting not to do it.It’s like your brain—or soul, or being—is being pulled or pushed in two different directions at the same time. It’s like constantly swimming against the tide—you’re kicking your legs and pumping your arms for hours, and in the end you’re completely exhausted, and you’ve made zero progress.You know the feeling. It’s soul-killing. Bone-draining. But you know what isn’t soul-killing and bone-draining?Flow.Flow is the opposite of resistance. Instead of swimming against the tide, you’re going with it. You’re in harmony. You’re one with whatever you’re trying to make. You’re not fighting it.So the question is, how can you move from resistance to flow?Here’s one trick I use.Try to write at a time of day when your brain is most open to dreaming. For me, it’s 4 a.m., when no one is awake except me and the most conscientious birds. When I get up really early to write, my brain is still half-asleep, half in dream-state, and it’s easier to trick it into writing the stuff that doesn’t make sense. The part of my brain that produces resistance—the part that resists flow by telling me that my work is stupid, that no one is going to like it, that I have nothing to say, the part that is critical and striving and forever barking at me to be better—it’s drowsy at 4 in the morning. But the dream-part is wide awake and full of energy.So find your best dreaming hour—whether it’s 4 in the morning or 10 at night—and meet your writing there.Think about swimming in the sea. The first bit is the hardest. You have to walk in, against the waves. The water is cold. But once you dive in, your body adjusts to the temperature of the water. Best of all, once you’ve swum out into the deep, you can float, letting the water take you. You can swim with the waves, instead of against them. It’s the same with writing. In the beginning, your brain might feel a little cold. It might take a little time to warm up, for the words to come. But stay in the discomfort. Stay with it. Soon, you’ll be deep enough that you can start to swim.You’re going to have good days and bad days. Sometimes the ocean you’re wading into will seem too scary, too deep, too vast.So don’t concentrate on the whole ocean. Concentrate on your feet in the sand, your calves in the surf. Walk in. Push to get there. Once you’re deep enough, a wave always comes.And when it does, it’ll always catch you.