Unwanted empty writing time can be a breeding ground for gratuitous negativity.
If you’ve ever faced unwanted empty writing time between projects, or while waiting to hear from an editor, critique partners or agent, you may know what I mean.
Sure, you know the solution: “Get to work on something else.” But what if nothing else is pulling at you? What if you just don’t feel like you can begin something new? What if your brain can’t even come up with one single idea?
The two paths below show how you can choose to head into a downward spiral, or keep yourself a productive and resilient writer. The framework below is modeled on Martin Seligman’s ABCDE dispute format.
PATH ONE – Pessministic Explanatory Style: Here’s how a downward spiral can begin:
A (the “Adversity”): The plan for my internal deadline on this next revision is pushed back.
B (the “Belief”): in pessimistic explanatory style:
Maybe the agent and editor who were interested in my manuscript won’t be by the time I finish the revision?
Maybe somebody else will write a book like this before I finish mine…
Maybe I won’t be able to do the necessary revisions even when I do get it back…
I can’t even think of anything else I really want to work on!
C: (the “Consequences”): the emotional consequences of the statement above might be a sinking feeling, a little agitation, and a sadly-inviting blanket that could wrap you in more negative self-talk, becoming angry at yourself for doing negative self-talk, etc.
The result of that? Productivity down. And then usually, more negativity. And then, further loss of energy and productivity.
This is where you might often feel stuck. But you have a choice, even if you’ve come this far down the road. Maybe especially if you’ve come this far…So, here’s where PATH TWO (optimistic explanatory style) begins:
D: (the “Dispute”: a ‘dispute’ is a rational, less catastrophic challenge to your negative thoughts; for more details, go here):
Okay, wait a minute. This is interesting. I’m doing this because I have my heart in a manuscript that I can’t work on right now. That’s hard, but there’s nothing else I can do to speed it up. And even when I get it, the revision is likely to take longer than I think!
This isn’t helping me. In fact, it’s a big energy drain.
Whether or not the editor or agent is still interested is not in my control; getting upset about the possibility is distracting and draining.
I don’t even know what else I feel like writing right now; I don’t have another big idea; but I can certainly find productive ways to spend my writing time: 1) submitting polished manuscripts that need to go out again; 2) writing blog posts ahead of schedule to reduce the pressure on me once I begin working on my revision; 3) pitching some articles to writing blogs and magazines; 4) getting out of the house into my writing “office” so that I can see what comes.
E (this symbolizes “energization” – i.e., the positive energy the dispute has created):
Yep, I already feel better. Focused, productive. By the time I get to my revision, I’ll have lots of useful things done, and be able to go into it feeling that I’ve not wasted the waiting time!
Have you been able to use ‘disputing’ to change your path? Does anything seem to stand in the way of doing that? I’d love to hear your thoughts…
Beautiful post, Carol. It’s nice to know that at any point on that downward spiral that you can start shifting the momentum by taking a mental step back and looking at the whole picture. Even if you don’t turn it around right away just the act of looking in a different direction can eventually help to shift focus. Thanks, I needed to hear this today!!
Thanks, Paul…It is reassuring, isn’t it? And the thing that’s most impressive to me (and I’ll be blogging about it next week) is exactly what you highlight – that even if you encourage yourself to simply “look in another direction”, the focus can change. I recall that when I first found out about “learned optimism” I didn’t believe that just finding more optimistic language (without really “feeling it” sincerely) could change so much. But it did…and eventually, the words felt real.