Dealing With Negativity While Writing
Admit it — every writer has, at least once in their life, experienced “negativity” while writing.
“Negativity” can come in all forms:
- Creativity block
- Procedural block (what I always faced while writing)
- Psychological block
- Procrastination block
- Distraction block
- Writer’s fatigue
- Many other dangers we aren’t aware of 😬
The forms of negativity I faced — and still face the most would probably be psychological block, distraction block and procedural block. I probably face all of them in minor quantities. So the question here is:
How the heck do we DEAL with this stuff?
I had recently attended an online masterclass by renowned shaman Rudá Iandê on Embracing Your Inner Beast. Over there it showed us how to turn our anger into our greatest virtue.
You see, negativity, after all, is an energy. It’s up to you how you wish to manipulate it.
Here is a story centered around this point:
Sara and Kyle are writers. Both of them are parents, have a job and bills to pay.
One fine weekend evening, both of them decide to finally sit down and start their manuscript. Everything is perfect — they have a cup of hot cocoa beside their laptop, all tabs closed except for their manuscript’s on the laptop, a cool breeze is blowing, soft rain is pattering on the rooftop — and then an unwanted visitor rings the doorbell.
Surprise! It’s Mr. Creative Block!
Kyle knows everything is perfect, that this is the moment he should begin writing his wonderful, amazing book. But he has no clue about how the heck he should start, how to deliver an amazing opening line, how to make the readers root for the character at the very beginning.
Sara knows everything is perfect, too. But she, too, has no idea about the title of her new poem, how moody or how happy the opening line should be, how she should show her sentiments and not tell them through the poem.
Both of them were prepared and tingling with excitement about the new Pulitzer-prize winning work they were about to produce — up until this moment.
What would you do in this situation? Would you be angry at yourself for not “being able” to produce anything at all? Or would you be disheartened and bring Miss Psychological Block knocking at your door?
Well, Sara did not take such an approach to her creative block. Instead of getting angry or disheartened, she switched off her laptop, got off her chair and curled up on the bed with her favourite book.
She embraced the creative block.
She understood that it is a writer’s nature to experience creative block and that it is alright to experience it. By doing this, not only did she accept her flaws, but she also made writing a safe space and not a space of tension and stress where all you think of when you hear the word writing is “writer’s block”.
Kyle, on the other hand, was both angry and disappointed. He stared furiously at the computer screen, hoping to suck out at least one idea from his brain, which only wasted time. When that did not work, his mood worsened to the point where he scolded his children for no solid reason.
He pushed away a natural experience.
While Sara was calm and efficient with herself, Kyle only left himself drained and in a low mood.
What this story tells us is that it’s OK to experience negativity. Not only in a writer’s POV, but also in life. It’s OK to feel basic human emotions. You are not supposed to be perfect, which is perfectly alright.
Instead of getting angry at yourself, find out writing prompts to get your creative juice flowing. Set aside a specific time to just write. Write about something or somebody who inspires you. Write about a topic you love even if you think it matters to nobody.
We’ve come to the end of this post and I hope you got something out of it. Love you guys, stay safe, continue writing.
And always remember, negativity is just an energy. It is up to YOU how you wish to use it.
