Flowing with “Unflow” in the writing process

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

In describing their productivity, writers often discuss the presence or lack of a ‘flow’ of words. There is a body of psychological theory and research, initially developed by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, that addresses the concept of flow in a general way, and much of this work is applicable to the writing process.

Nakamura and Csíkszentmihályi identify the following six factors as accompanying an experience of ‘flow.’*

1. intense and focused concentration on the present moment
2. merging of action and awareness
3. a loss of reflective self-consciousness
4. a sense of personal control over the situation or activity
5. a distortion of temporal experience, one’s subjective experience of time is altered

6. experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding, also referred to as autotelic experience   

   Those aspects can appear independently of each other, but only in combination do they constitute a so-called flow experience.

   *Nakamura, J., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2009). Flow theory and research. In C. R. Snyder & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), Handbook of positive psychology (pp. 195-206). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

For blocked and struggling writers, you can conclude from the description above that a state of flow has many advantages, but it’s not necessarily something you can generate at will. Flow involves a shift of attention away from self-consciousness in order to become deeply immersed in the project at hand, and sometimes this occurs in unpredictable ways.

Some of the barriers to writing, such as fears about failure, criticism, overwhelm or success, are not part of the writer’s experience when he/she is in the ‘flow.’ OK, that sounds great, but how do you get there, especially if flow is something you can’t will into existence?

Probably most writers have had some experience of being totally absorbed in their work to the point of losing track of time and feeling full engaged. Sometimes the words just flow, and we give thanks to the writing gods for their good grace, but often this is not the case, even with very high-quality and successful writing. Flow might best be understood as a possible experience in writing, and one that alternates with periods of what I call ‘unflow.’ I’m most interested in unflow, because most of our lives, and writing, involve that state.

As the opposite of flow, unflow is characterized by enhanced self-consciousness, partial engagement in one’s work, a separation of action and awareness, a sense of stress and strain, boredom and frustration. In short, all the things that contribute to avoiding, resisting, blocking, procrastinating, etc.

Fortunately, humanity is capable of wrestling amazing creativity and productivity out of the unflow, one way or the other. Episodically you might be blessed with periods of flow states that come and go, and that is wonderful, but you can’t count on that or wait for it. You also have to flow with the unflow to keep things moving. For writers, this means continuing to sit down at the laptop to work, even if your words are flowing like cold molasses.

If you make greater peace with the unflow, and don’t use it as an reason to avoid, you end up having more opportunities to actually find the flow, because you’re showing up regularly at the keyboard, which is where the flowing takes place.

It’s easy to love the flow. Love the unflow too.

 

“You’ve had the power all along to return to Kansas…and write your novel.”

In the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz, when Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, informs Dorothy of her power, she isn’t referring to Dorothy’s writing block, but she could have been. Like a struggling writer who’s lost touch with the muse, Dorothy had lost her connection with her home, Kansas.

As we journey toward our OZ’s, we musn’t lose touch with our Kansas’s.

Writing frequently starts out as a grand Yellow Brick Road adventure, but sooner or later the flying monkeys of procrastination, the poppy fields of sloth and torpor, and the green witches of anxiety start plaguing us, trying to prevent us from reaching OZ. Eventually we realize we are confused, lost, hopeless and not in Kansas anymore. And to top it off, if we finally do reach OZ, the Wizard turns out to be something different than we expected.

Glinda is heartily rebuked by the Scarecrow for not telling Dorothy sooner about her power, and Glinda responds, non-defensively, that Dorothy wasn’t ready to hear it earlier and had to learn things for herself. If you have ever tried to tell a blocked writer to have more self-confidence, you know this is very true.

Talent that is obvious to others may be partially or completely  concealed from the angst-ridden writer’s awareness. You can point towards it, but at the end of the day a writer remembers their power to go to Kansas in their own time, and frequently only after a good bit bewilderment, frustration, anxiety, wizard disillusionment and bad witch melting.

Nevertheless, it normally doesn’t hurt to, every once in a while, encourage a lost writer (or ourselves) to tap the heels of our red shoes together three times. Right Todo?

There’s no place like writing.

A blocked Paul Dano writes his girlfriend into existence in “Ruby Sparks.”

Paul Dano overcomes writer’s block when he meets the girl of his dreams…literally

Armed with only a recurring dream about a marvelous girl and Eliot Gould for a shrink, Paul Dano manages to bust through a tenacious ‘second novel syndrome’ writer’s block in the movie Ruby Sparks. Unfortunately, he relapses, but fortunately, he starts writing again until, unfortunately, he stops writing once more, until fortunately, he resolves his personal issues and writes an entirely different, better manuscript that (spoiler alert) becomes published and receives wide acclaim by the final scene.

It is not uncommon for an author to mine his or her dreams for creative inspiration, and geek, genius, wunderkind Paul Dano uses this technique to find his muse after Eliot Gould recommends that he write about his dream girl. Problem is, he then begins to find unexplained women’s undergarments in his desk drawer, until eventually, he finds the dream girl herself scrambling eggs in his kitchen. The science-defying space-time dynamics that made this fascinating development possible are never fully explained, but somehow Dano manages to write a girl character (played by Zoe Kazan) into three dimensional existence using his electric typewriter. He falls in love, of course, and complications ensue.

While this movie employs many of the expected conventions of the ‘writer’s block’ film genre, it does so in unconventional, delightful and surprising ways. Hollywood frequently presents a writer  protagonist who: 1) is brilliant, 2) has had fantastic success with first novel, 3) is blocked on the second novel, 4) has unresolved personal problems with relationships and love, 5) meets someone who helps him learn and grow despite his flaws, and 6) finishes the movie with a new book published and new love blooming. Ruby Sparks has all these elements, but scrambles them up in unexpected ways that keep the movie engaging.

This movie also presents ideas about character development, and how writing can be either a vehicle for self-aggrandizement or a means of serving the story being told. Mainly it is enjoyable, quirky, and funny as it explores some serious themes with a bizarre plot. If you’re a writer, check it out.

Good book for procrastinators: The Willpower Instinct, by Kelly McGonigal

It takes willpower to buy, read and utilize a book about willpower

For those of you who are postponing your writing, you may want to have a look at this book, The Willpower Instinct. The challenge is that somehow you have to muster up the willpower it takes to buy and read this book before you’ve bought it, read it and learned how to muster up the willpower to buy it and read it.

McGonigal, a psychology instructor at Stanford University, approaches several issues related to self-control by citing relevant scientific research findings and presenting them in interesting ways that are understandable to the general public.

I like her explanations of the built-in conflicting impulses humans contain because of our brain’s evolution. By virtue of having a large, complex brain with the capacity for abstract thought as well as instant survival responses, we have both powerful impulses to seek immediate gratification (avoiding writing our novels) and to pursue longer term goals (working on our novels). It’s predictable that internal conflict will arise because our mammalian fight/flight survival wiring will be at odds with our forebrain’s judgements, at least from time to time.

McGonigal’s book presents a number of concepts that will help you understand why seemingly reachable goals can be so elusive, and each chapter includes exercises that can help expand your own self-control. She makes some good points about how the physiological and neurological impacts of poor nutrition and stress are related to decreased willpower, and about how healthy eating habits and stress management are useful in improving productivity.

If you are a blocked or procrastinating writer, you will relate to the issues discussed in The Willpower Instinct. Now… are you able to muster up enough willpower to click on the book cover above and learn more about it?

Registration is now open for my fall class at Stanford; space is limited

Click this link to go to register for my upcoming class“Overcoming Writing Blocks and Procrastination” (EGL 96, Mondays, 6:30 – 8:45 pm) offered through Stanford University’s Continuing Studies Program, Mondays, 6:30 – 8:45 pm
5 weeks, September 24 – October 22
1 unit(s), $260
Limit: 30

Here is the course description from the catalog:

Overcoming Writing Blocks and Procrastination

This course will provide information, guidance, and strategies for writers who would like to improve their writing productivity. Students will learn about the different forms of writing blocks, how to assess their own issues, and a number of approaches to making positive changes. Each class will include a presentation on a specific aspect of writing productivity, small group discussions, and exercises designed to promote better writing habits and self-awareness. This course will be useful to writers of all types, genres, and skill levels, as we will focus on the process of writing, not the content or style of what is written. Reading materials for the course will include a workbook written by the instructor, several articles, and a list of recommended texts.

David Rasch, Psychologist

David Rasch has been working with writers who struggle with blocks, procrastination, and other writing productivity problems for twenty years. He has been a therapist, workshop leader, writing consultant, and director at Stanford’s Faculty and Staff Help Center, and he currently serves as the Stanford Ombuds. Rasch is past president of the Central Coast Writers branch of the California Writers Club. He received their centennial Short Story Award in 2009, and the Monterey County Weekly’s Short Story award for 2010. He is author of The Blocked Writer’s Book of the Dead.

Textbooks for this course:

(Required) David Rasch, The Blocked Writer’s Book of the Dead (ISBN 978-1-935530-32-9)

Writing Blocks and Orchid Screenplays: How Do You Do Something You Don’t Know How to Do?

Nicholas Cage blocking as he confronts a new challenge: adapting a book about orchids into a screenplay.

To grow and develop as a writer you need to face challenges and problems that are new. This means plunging into projects that you do not have a clear road map for, and somehow trusting that you will find your way to a successful completion. This can be difficult to do, or even agonizing, as a blocked Nicholas Cage discovers in the movie ”Adaptation.“

Cage plays an uber-neurotic Charlie Kaufman (the real-life screenwriter for this movie) who has taken on a project he doesn’t know how to do. He has monumental inner struggles trying to figure out how to write a screenplay adaptation of a non-fiction book about an eccentric scientist who harvests protected orchids from the everglades.

A writer confronting the unknown is fertile soil for orchid blocks to sprout and flourish in. When the right answer or a clear direction is not apparent, fears and doubts readily arise. The voice-over for Nicholas Cage’s confusion, desperation, self-loathing, and fear of failure as he struggles to write this screenplay is one of the best, and funniest, cinematic depictions of a blocked writer’s tortured thought process that I’ve ever encountered.

The hopeful miracle in the movie is that the protagonist eventually finds the answers to his literary conundrums in ways he never could have anticipated or planned. He just keeps trying different angles and groping in the dark until something unexpectedly clicks into place. The process of struggling with writing can itself be the best path for clarifying and discovering what it is you want to say. Sometimes you can’t figure it all out ahead of time and there is no other way but to wade into the confusion, continue to write, and see what emerges.

The good news is that you don’t have to know all the answers when you are learning to write something new. Whether you’re embarking on a dissertation, book, article, or screenplay for the first time, if you keep at it, something will emerge, and it may be quite different from what you originally expected.

This approach requires developing the ability to tolerate those times when you are lost and searching without panicking or pulling the plug, even when your inner voices are self-critical and discouraging. And as Cage finds out through the course of his travails, when things seem hopeless, it helps to find people who can offer support or advice that encourage you to open your eyes, or to just keep going.

Taking on new projects and challenges as a writer may require a lot of inner and outer work. Orchids sometimes take a long time to bloom.  But writing would probably be much less interesting if you never had to adapt, and always knew what the final flower will look like.

FDR, writing avoidance and the lizard brain

Sometimes when I contemplate facing a writing task I feel an agonizing resistance in my guts, without really understanding why. The most striking experience of this sort occurs when I am doing taxes or writing checks to pay bills. My stomach gets tense and a visceral sense of dread envelopes me. My body reactions are not wholly explainable by the facts of the situation, because I’m plenty capable of doing the taxes and I have enough money to pay the bills.

Humans are biologically wired with automatic, reptilian brain responses that help us avoid danger and recover from stress. These primitive physical reactions occur with great rapidity and  powerful force, and they may interfere with your writing plans. For instance, if your body’s survival alarms are triggered by sitting down in front of your computer, you may find it hard to stay there. The lizard brain will take over, stand you back up and direct you to a safer place, like the kitchen, where you can soothe your neurons with pudding.

In his first inaugural address, FDR said “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” Now I don’t know if FDR struggled with writing blocks, but he has a point about fear, especially as it relates to apparently safe activities like writing.

When you sit down to write, the fear is usually not about physical death, but about ego injuries like failure, criticism or public humiliation. The body, however, responds as if these are life-threatening crises, and powerful neurological impulses are activated in your archaic lizard brain that thwart your writing aspirations by compelling you to flee to the refrigerator, or television, for safety.

FDR stated later in his inaugural address: “Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously.” And even though he was talking about unemployed workers during the 1929 depression, the same words hold for non-writing writers during the 2012 depression who need to face their scared lizard brains wisely and courageously, and get back to work.