If you can’t, don’t
People often say, I want to write, but I can’t.
Well, let’s break “writing” down a bit. “Writing” isn’t one single activity. When you say I want to write, but I can’t, what you probably mean is, I want to write, but I dread certain tasks I believe are necessary for writing.
Guess what? You don’t have to do those things. At all.
So you want to write a story. Maybe you start one, or maybe you don’t get that far. The point is, you hit a wall beyond which your anxiety refuses to let you go. You just…can’t…face it.
Whatever that wall is? Don’t do it. Ask instead, what can you do? You always have options. You always have a choice.
People rarely want to do anything if they’re forced to do it. The writing-advice blogosphere’s obsession with self-discipline might help some people get going, but it makes others feel trapped. Those folks don’t need to cultivate discipline, they need to cultivate freedom.
This is why “You shouldn’t write if you don’t want to” pisses me off. You do want to write, but a sense of obligation has crushed that desire so far down you can’t feel it anymore. The only way to get back in touch with it is to stop making yourself do things you can’t do. This doesn’t mean giving up, it means doing what you can do instead.
Is it impossible to start writing at all? Okay, you can’t do that right now. But you can probably open your writing app and create a new file.
You’ve got a file open on your desktop. That’s great, you can stop there if you want. But you might ask, could you start writing your story in it? Maybe you can’t. Could you type a few random words and phrases into it that aren’t related to your story? Maybe you can.
Now let’s say you’re looking at a document with some random words and phrases in it. Can you type one sentence on the next line that relates to your story? If you can’t, there’s almost certainly something else you can do. But if there isn’t, stop. You can ask again later. You get to choose.
At every point, remind yourself, I don’t have to do this if I don’t want to, because there’s always something else I can do instead.
I’ve been advised many times to “break a task down into steps.” But when you make a list of steps, you still feel obligated to do all of them eventually, and from where you’re standing, those future steps look very intimidating. That’s not what we’re doing here. Each action you take comes with no expectation that you’ll do anything next. It does come with that possibility, but that’s it. Who knows how you’ll feel, what you’ll be capable of, when you get there? You’ll practically be a different person.
You might have to get creative. Recently I had to write an email I couldn’t face, and somebody said, “Well, can you write a fake version you’ll never send?” I could. Once I’d done it, though, I decided it wasn’t too bad, and the effort of sending it was so minimal I had no reason not to.
Not all cases will be that easy. But the mere freedom to not do what you can’t do will help you see more alternatives. When I was depressed, I used to beat myself up for not getting to the grocery store. It turns out there are affordable ways to get your groceries delivered, but I didn’t even think to research them until I’d stopped blaming myself for being too lazy to leave the house.
Not forcing yourself to do stuff that hurts you does not mean giving up and doing nothing. It means learning some new moves.
