Good afternoon, critters!
At an academic conference in February, I am holding a panel on working with anxiety. Anxiety is something that myself and millions of students, writers, and people have to deal with on a daily basis. It can affect us in many ways, and the act of handling anxiety itself can feel, well, stressful on its own.
If I may ask, how does anxiety and fear affect your writing and creative-process?
I have strong anxiety regarding to my writing. Where people can write a 1000 words a day, I only write about 200 because I’m not confident with it and continuously editing or deleting it altogether. Then I get depressed with the lack of progress I make so yeah, fun times.
I think it’s good when I’m anxious to write. But, if I’m too anxious about other matters, that generally prevents me from writing.
Anxiety is good, usually. My doubts and fears (“You’ve lost it!” “I knew you couldn’t finish that series!” “You’re old and your mind’s going!” “Young people aren’t interested in the stuff you write about anymore!”) drive me to do the best work I possibly can, because success in the marketplace or other competition is the only way to silence them.
That said… Just about all authors suffer from block once in a while and very often some form of anxiety-- if not most of the time!-- lies at the root. I try to deal with it pretty much the same way as any other anxiety, because block translates itself eventually into a little voice that says “See? You never were a real writer, and the fact that you can’t write now proves it!” I know how to deal with destructive voices-- see above. But during that period between freezing up and the voice manifesting itself, well… To that extent anxiety has won and I’m forced to take a few days off or at least spend them editing.
I’ve also noticed that my quality sometimes deteriorates when I change jobs or there’s a death in the family or even if I buy a car and worry about all the money I just spent. Usually it’s only weeks afterwards, at editing time, that I notice, put two and two together and understand what went wrong. On the other hand I recently wrote some stuffs in the hospital after suffering a heart attack but before being told the damage wasn’t all that serious. I was genuinely worried I might have only a short time left to live. And yet… That came out just fine. So go figure!
I also don’t write worth a damn if I’m really, absolutely deathly ill. But again, I never notice until editing time. Apparently the critical facilities are dampened too.
If you haven’t already, I recommend looking into Eric Maisel’s book on this topic:
I also took his online course on it via DailyOM a few years back and found it very informative. A lot of what we call writer’s block is, as Rabbit mentions above, some form of anxiety in disguise, and it was interesting for me to learn that some of the same relaxation/meditation-type techniques that can help with general anxiety/panic can also be a good way to deal with avoidance of writing and anxiety related to that.
http://www.dailyom.com/cgi-bin/courses/courseoverview.cgi?cid=48
I’ve also found that I really can’t write during high-stress times. I have to let it go for a while, maybe take notes, but actual drafting doesn’t happen, and I have to just accept that – rather than feeling guilty or trying to force it, winding up with crap, and then feeling like it was a waste of time anyway. I wish I could use writing as an escape the way I know some people do, but for me it requires too much mental and emotional energy that’s already being used to deal with whatever it is I have to deal with.
This is covered a bit in the wonderful book ‘Around the Writer’s Block’ by Rosanne Bane.
But for me, I have managed to get to the point where my only true anxiety is when I am about to hit the send button in a submission. There have been points where it has taken me up to ten minutes to hit it. I am aware it’s because I am submitting something that is a part of me out, but at the same point, fear tends to be irrational in this point. I recognize that and have to tell myself just to hit send.
I know a friend who transforms all his anxious feelings into his character’s emotional states… and keeps writing/living through them. :3 Quite a smart, yet difficult, tactic.