Welcome to the Short Story Project, Week Two! How did last week go? Did you write a draft? Or are you reading this with feelings of woe, as you have no draft written? Let’s talk about that.
I imagine there are actually quite a few of you who did not write a picture book draft last week. Perhaps you did not even read one of the short stories. You saw them, considered them, knew you wanted to write, but then couldn’t find the time.
We’ve all been there.
I was thinking recently about resistance. If you’ve read The War of Art, you know that the whole book is about resistance and creativity, and how the reason you aren’t getting your creative work done is because of this internal resistance, this fear. When I go to spin class every morning, there is talk about a different kind of resistance – the resistance wheel on the bike. Sometimes we dial it up, sometimes we turn it down. The idea, though, is to gradually increase the resistance, because working with that resistance makes us stronger. So it’s not so much about getting rid of resistance, but about acknowledging and working with it.
You have this internal resistance stopping you from doing the work, because you know it will be hard. But if we think of that resistance like turning up the resistance on a stationary bike, then it’s something you work with, something that makes you stronger. Yes, it’s hard. It’s supposed to be. You don’t get stronger (in exercise or in writing) by doing nothing.
If you didn’t write a picture book last week, is there something in you that is saying it won’t be good enough? (Or maybe you truly had a busy week! But did you? Really? Maybe yes but also, maybe not.)
You might think, ok, this internal resistance is one thing, and then I have this whole other pile of external resistance factors coming at me. You might be wondering how to work through the voice of your inner critic, AND the daily fires that alight around you. There isn’t a difference between those, though, not really. They’re all resistance. They are all something you need to learn to work with, and once you learn how to do that, you will be stronger.
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