the struggle is real...but the suffering doesn't have to be

on Resistance and surrendering to creative rhythms

Water will always take the path of least resistance. Be the water. [Photo by Robert Zunikoff on Unsplash ]

Confession: there are times when I have hated writing.

I hated that it was so hard, I hated that it had such a hold on me that no matter how I tried (and oh, how I tried!), I couldn’t let it go. It felt like a toxic relationship - the constant yo-yo-ing between despair and rapture.

I’m sure there are plenty of people for whom this is not the case, people who have always had perfectly civilized relationships with their art - but I am not one of them. Up until recently, my practice was most often one of just showing up and doing the work - checking my whinge at the door, putting my butt in the chair and getting on with it.¹ Thugging it out, as my Eldest is fond of saying.

That’s all changing now.

Over the past couple of years, in an effort to understand those levels of toxicity in my creative practice, I’ve done some fairly deep and involved excavation of my relationship with my writing. I’ve read books, listened to podcasts, watched videos and written page after page after page in my journal. In the autumn of last year, I took a class unlike any other I’ve taken before in the realm of writing and creativity and it changed everything. It allowed all of the other disparate ideas and half-formed philosophies I’d gleaned from my previous searching to coalesce with a degree of clarity I hadn’t before enjoyed. It resulted in me letting go (finally, without a backward glance!) of so many ideas and rules that I’d held onto - most of them passed on to me by other people and embracing my own truth, my own reality as a creative person in this less-than-hospitable landscape.

I’m going to attempt to outline the key revelations…

Resistance as way-finder

Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art is one of the core texts that every writer will, at some point, consume in the pursuit of their art. It’s a fairly short, pithy, no-nonsense call-to-action of either choosing to ‘go pro’ or languish in the amateur aisle forever. “Run with the big dogs or stay on the porch with the pups.”

He was one of the first to conceptualize the concept of Resistance - with a capital R - that invisible force that stops us from doing our art, and offer solutions mostly to do with powering through and overcoming the paralysis of not-doing.

For a while there, I was on-board, having experienced this feeling on numerous occasions. The powering-through worked too (see footnote).

Until it didn’t.

Because that’s the thing. The faintly hustle-bro message of Mr. Pressfield’s book fails to allow for the notion that the reason we are resisting might be entirely valid. Furthermore, squashing that intuitive knowing will only delay the work which we are actually supposed to be doing.

Consider this: Resistance is your intuitive knowing clashing with your egoic doing.

In other words, where am I letting my ego (influenced by external forces) overshadow my natural creative impulses (influenced by internal forces)?

I know, right?

So now, when I feel myself getting obstinate about my writing, I ask myself a few salient questions and endeavour to come up with honest answers.

Firstly - the low-hanging fruit - am I physically well? Do I need more rest? Do I need to move my body more? Do I need to drink some water or eat something green?

Secondly - which is related both to the first and subsequent questions - am I mentally/emotionally well? If not, what do I need to restore my equilibrium?

Which leads to the next questions…

Is there something about this project which no longer aligns? Is it the wrong time for this project? What are my motivations for doing this particular work right now? How does this project align (or not) with my broader values for my life? Do I need a smaller project, with a faster loop-closure² to do alongside this thing that’s taking such a long time to do? Have I lost the joy for this project - and if so, can I get it back?

And the most telling question and the one which I’m guessing trips most people up…

Am I honouring my creative rhythms?

I’ve been at this writing lark for long enough now to know myself fairly well - even though I haven’t always listened to my intuitive knowings - and nine times out of ten, whenever I run into problems, it’s because I’m not honouring my personal creative rhythms.

Not your dance-monkey

…the felt tension between the call to write and the spiritual call to silence and stillness,…

Matt Cardin - Writing at the Wellspring

Although I’ve been ideologically on-board for a very long while now, it’s taken me an embarrassingly long time to act on the idea that algorithms and other external metrics of ‘success’ are lethal to the creative process.

My creative rhythm involves erratic periods of engagement followed by silences of varying lengths. Those silences are fallow times, times of intellectual and spiritual composting. My creative outputs are the exhalations following from the inhalations of my life - there needs to be time to process, to metabolize, those inhalations and that will not be done on command or to schedule. So, really not conducive to the capitalist agenda at all. It took some time, but I made my peace with that and have felt an enormous weight lifted. My creativity is now a thing of joy rather than one of resentment and obligation.

On trust over discipline…

There are people who swear by a daily practice - they commit to doing their creative endeavour every day - and I can absolutely see the value in that.

Sometimes I am that person - there are times when I’m writing or painting every day. But there are an equal amount of times when I’m not and I found that the thing that was driving me try and force myself into a daily practice was fear.

The last thing I ever want to be doing is creating out of fear.

Trust in the coherence of your deep self.

~ William Stafford

Fear is the currency of our modern age - it drives everything.

Just take a moment and think about that - then try and tell me I’m wrong.

Letting go of the fear of what *might* happen if I didn’t write everyday, if I didn’t rapid-release my books, if I didn’t market them a certain way, if I didn’t learn how to use social media like a normal person etc. etc., has been the most precious gift I’ve ever given myself.

What happened when I didn’t do any of those things?

Nothing.

Unless you count peace of mind, heart and soul and a restored faith in myself as an innately creative being who will *always*, and completely naturally, create.

I can trust that if I start to feel mentally/emotionally/spiritually crappy, it’s because I haven’t written or painted in a few days and even fifteen minutes spent doing either will restore me.

I know that I can trust my deep personal commitment to my creative expressions enough to show up when it’s time, and not before; it’s about knowing that writing is a calling that won’t go away (yes, even when I wish it would) and I will always, always come back to it.

It’s about letting myself go quiet and trusting there’s good reason for it and also trusting myself to do the work, when the time is right.³⁴

That was a hard trust to come by - having been told repeatedly that creativity had to be about discipline, and having periods of weeks, months, even years when I wasn’t writing much of anything.

The thing is, I wasn’t doing nothing during those times and everything I was doing - painting, raising my children, riding horses, planting gardens - would shape the work I’m doing now. And it was only during the times when I was trying to force myself into either the type or execution of certain writing work that I was miserable and that misery only led to not-writing.

I could’ve saved myself the misery and let myself not-write.

I don’t imagine writing will ever be not-hard. If it was, I’d be worried I wasn’t doing it wholeheartedly enough. But when I’m fully engaged with the work, when I’m thoroughly invested in the project, the challenge is enjoyable. It’s a puzzle to be solved, a knot to be untangled…it’s a heady mix of trial and titillation.

A few weeks ago, I finished up the first draft of a new novel. When I started, I thought it was going to be the second in the Winkle Village series only to realize, about two-thirds of the way through, that it was actually the third book and I’d still need to write the second one. Rather than fill me with disappointment and despair (oh no! my publishing plans are foiled!), I just rolled my eyes and started jotting down notes. Since that time, I’ve ‘done’ very little on either project and instead have spent my creative efforts painting and working on another Seekrit Project.

There was a time, not so long ago, when that would have sent me into throes of guilt and hand-wringing despair as I questioned whether I was a ‘real writer’, or else I would’ve forced myself to keep going, forging on with beginning the second book. But now I see this pause for what it is - my unconscious mind percolating all of the bits of notes I’ve taken and ideas I’ve had when doing the dishes and walking the dog. Soon - and I’m thinking maybe April will be a good time to sit back down and see what’s there - I’ll get back to it and it (and I) will be all the better for having taken a break.

~m. xo

Thank you for reading…if you’ve made it this far! Do feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts on this subject of creative rhythms and Resistance…or anything else! Community is the gift of this platform, so let’s take advantage of it while it’s still here.

Obviously, I’m still here. I think I’m going to stick around for a while — I’ve got something else in the works that will meet my philosophical and ideological needs and Substack is as good a place as any (for now) to do this writing-about-writing stuff, which is something I really do enjoy.

Thanks again, for your time and attention - both of which are very precious commodities. xo

1. To be fair, it will almost always come down to this - to the willingness to set everything else aside but the call to put words on a page/screen - with the caveat that we are human beings with human failings and not that we’re doggedly pursuing the entirely wrong path in some misguided effort to live up to someone elses’ vision for our art/lives.

2. Closing a creative loop means seeing a project through to completion. Sometimes we need to close a loop more quickly to remain motivated. Sometimes, due to neurodivergence, the need for shorter loop-closure times can mean the difference between finishing and not finishing…which can either create positive or negative momentum.

3. I recognize the privilege in being able to to do that. Having acknowledged that, I will also suggest that we can all choose the role our creativity will take in our lives. I’ve chosen not to depend on mine to earn me a living wage and so don’t have the pressure that some creatives may feel. And I would also gently invite those same creatives to challenge some of their own long-held beliefs about what they *have* to do and hold those beliefs up against what is actually true.

4. It’s also worth noting that during these fallow periods is often when I’m reading and learning about my craft(s) or otherwise topping up my well - so that I can be a better vessel for the creative spirit when it returns. So really, there’s no such thing as not-creating.