Getting Out of Your Own Way
Wednesday, August 18, 2010 at 6:00AM in J.D. Rhoades by J.D. Rhoades
I’m getting to the end of the current WIP, or as I call it, “the part where stuff blows up.” The creative part of my head doesn't really have room for much else other than trying to keep track of where each player in a medium--to-large cast of characters is and where they’re going, while a mini-Gotterdammerung is raining death and destruction all around. In short, I am having more fun that a human being is allowed to have in most states, and I’d really like to get back to it. So today’s entry will of necessity be rather short.
One of my daily must-reads is Ta-Nehisi Coates’ blog over at the Atlantic website. Whatever your political persuasion, I definitely recommend it for thoughtful and fair minded discussion on a wide variety of topics. Recently Coates, in the course of talking about a writing retreat he was apparently making, made one of those observations that stuck with me:
There's a great jazz pianist up here with whom I have shared meals and talked often. The first day we met he informed me that the essence of our work was learning to get out of our own fucking way. I am learning that out here--how to get out of my own fucking way--and really listen to what I care about, what I truly ache to say.
That’s such a perfect (if profane) expression of what it takes to get the right words down on paper: getting out of your own way. Forgetting about marketability, forgetting about expectations, forgetting about “what will my agent/editor/spouse/mom think if she reads this” , and just letting the story come out the way it plays in your head. Trusting your own vision and talent. Listening “to what you care about, what you truly ache to say.”
It sounds so simple, but it’s so hard to do sometimes. Real life intrudes with interruptions, demands, and pressures. Doubt slithers in. Those Black Birds come and perch on your shoulders, second guessing and criticizing every paragraph, every sentence, sometimes every word. It’s so easy to make things hard.
I grew up near a golf course, and way back in my early years, I played the game a little. I haven’t picked up a club since I turned sixteen, got my driver’s license, and discovered a lot of other fun things to do. But I still remember how good it felt when the swing went just right and the club head connected with the ball exactly at that magical place they call the “sweet spot.” I understand why people get obsessed with the game, because that feeling is so powerful, and it comes so seldom--seemingly at random.
It isn’t random, of course. Making that happen consistently comes from constant practice and repetition and learning not to over-think your swing and tighten up at the wrong moment. It takes a lot of work to learn how to get out of your own way. It was more work than I was willing to do to get really good at golf, and it’s a lot more than a lot of people are willing to do to learn how to write well. But that’s what it takes.
Even if you've put in the time, it's still easy to over-think, to balk, to trip over your own expectations and insecurities. So share with us, if you would, what tricks and tips you have for getting out of your own way.
Reader Comments (25)
Yes, everyone has the distractions of having to live. Not just writers.
I've not written for 3 days and I need to.
Thanks for the post, J.D. It reminds me that I am blocking myself and I need to get out of my f*&*£$% way.
Recently I came across a pile of index cards I'd made during undergrad -- sets of quotations I liked and had hanging all over my dorm room. Samuel Beckett's "Fail. Fail Again. Fail Better." jumped out at me. I hung it up next to my bathroom mirror. Why did I ever stop hanging up these quotes? Daily, I need that reminder that my best stuff flows when I just write. No excuses.
Keep on having fun you're way.
Oh man. Whenever asked, "Do you ever have writer's block?" my answer invariably is, "I didn't used to believe in it, but I do now. In my case it's all related to doubts about marketability. Worrying about whether the book will sell grinds me to a total dead-stop."
Amen, brother. Amen.
Until you can settle for that, you will always be in your own way.
Also, I find coffee essential. Sad, but true. It turns off the inner critic.
Right now, I work at McDonalds, trying to get through another year of college (I think I'll make it, but this is gonna be a close one). I start dreading my shift when I wake up in the morning; if it's a six-hour or longer shift (which it usually is; they seem to like me) then I'm so exhausted after I take a nap. Got ten hours of sleep last night? STill gonna wind up taking that nap. That, or I'll be too zombied to do anything.
It's easier at college. I'm still doing about eight hours of work a day, but it doesn't tire me out that much. Also, I can't refuse work right now, and they keep scheduling me when I write best. It's not a specific time of day: it's usually when my parents are asleep, one or both dogs are in my room snoring, and my sister's got something else to do than bug me. That only happens when they're all out of the house (which is far less since sis finished college and hasn't gotten a job yet) or sleeping, because otherwise I really am looking over my shoulder. At college, privacy is easier, even with a roommate.
Of course, I tend to think everything I wrote stinks until I'm a few thousand words down the road, but that's another story.
Sitting on top of my head, he always sits on my head, never my shoulder, Puddleglum, says, “You have a hell of a lot of hubris thinking you can write a novel.”
‘I am writing a novel.”
“If you say so, but you’ll never finish it.”
“Yes I will!”
“No you won’t and even if you do it will be a piece of crap because you have no talent."
“Yes it probably will be crap and so with the next one and maybe the next one too, I am learning. As for talent, I haven’t a clue and won’t till I get the crap out the way so I can tell."
“Self delusion is such a useful thing. But it won’t matter because you have no stories. Real writers have stories, plots with cleaver twists, endings that go, ‘Wow.’"
“I have stories!”
“ Ah, Goldilocks and Hansel and Gretel won’t cut it, and by some miracle you do finish a novel no one is going to like it, except maybe Gizmo, but he’s a dog and likes to eat cat shit."
“Go AWAY! Go back to the marsh and get a bad case of moss growth between your legs.”
“You don’t have a muse! All writers have a muse. All you ever get is a bad case of gas.”
“Go AWAY”
“If if a miracle happens and you do produce something worth publishing, it will never be published, you’ll expend all this effort just to collect rejections the rest of your life.”
“That’s it I done with you, go suck on a leech or something.”
‘Hey, I’m you friend, I just to want you to remember, ‘life’s not all fricasseed frogs and eel pie you know.’”
Etc….
And then he’s gone. I can write without getting in the way. But I know he’ll be back tomorrow, I just need to learn how to send him on an extended vacation or kill him. Please tell me there is a way to kill him.
Alex - I couldn’t do much of anything without coffee. A pot before noon, a Starbucks run and a couple of Red Bulls and I’m ready to go.
...probably.
When we write here about our work spaces (Sept 6 - 19) I'm going to talk about how organizing my space is helping me get out of my way while writing.
The rest of the time . . . well . . . watch out!
Peace and love,
Paula R.