Cultivate Patience to Write with More Consistency and JOY [Podcast]
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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Hey there, and welcome to Write for Joy! The Podcast. I’m Renee, and I’m here to help you make creative writing a joyful process so you can go from dreaming about writing to becoming a real writer. It’s time for you to start and finish the stories tugging at your heart...without it feeling like a slog. Let’s dive in!
As a creative writing coach and teacher, I often have my students do a “perfect writing day” exercise. This exercise has definitely made its rounds around the coaching world, often called the “Ideal Day” exercise. When I did some digging, the earliest version of this exercise that I could find appears in Barbara Sher’s book, Wishcraft, so I’m going to give her the originator credit.
The exercise is exactly what it sounds like: Students journal for 15-30 minutes on their perfect writing day. The beauty of this exercise is that it gets to the writer’s big why. It unveils their core drivers behind their desire to write.
Students will often share their perfect writing days with me, and over the years, I’ve noticed some themes:
Many writers love working outside in the sunshine, somewhere peaceful, even if there’s a low din of people bustling about.
Many writers love having a hot beverage by their side while writing. More specifically, a lot of the writers I work with prefer tea over coffee, including myself, which actually surprised me a bit, since writers are often portrayed as coffee-guzzling quirky creatives in pop culture.
But the theme I love most about the “perfect writing day” exercise is that more often than not, a writer’s perfect day includes deep focus and presence with the writing itself.
It’s rare for me to read a perfect writing day that includes landing an agent, getting a book deal with Penguin Random House, hitting the New York Times bestseller list, or signing over a book’s film rights to Hulu and Shonda Rhimes for a multi-season TV series starring Kerry Washington.
Don’t get me wrong, these goals are awesome, and we all want to be shooting for these heights of greatness. I personally believe we could all use a little more big-ass-dream energy from good people in the world these days.
That said, these perfect writing days rarely include those goals. Instead, these reflections talk about the joy of tapping into flow and getting lost in a story of your own creation.
They reflect on that juicy good feeling of finding the right words to express a simple yet important idea. The satisfaction of releasing the thoughts, feelings, and images onto a blank page. Even though the reader isn’t present with you in that moment of creation, you feel deep in your body that you’ve made a connection. You’ve expressed yourself on the deepest level, and for those moments of flow, you are fully alive –– fully human.
While book deals and awards are important and worthy of excitement and celebration, for most creative writers, they are not the intrinsic drivers.
The writing, the storytelling, the expression–getting LOST in the act of creation are the drivers.
The creative writing is the driver.
Take a beat to sit with that for a moment to see if it feels true for you. It’s okay if it doesn’t – but take a moment to breathe and bring awareness to your thoughts on what I’ve shared so far. I’ll pause for a moment.
Great job. I hope you took some deep juicy breaths there.
Now that we know that most of us are craving flow in our writing life, what’s actually getting in the way of creating this perfect writing day with rivers and oceans and waterfalls of creative flow?
Just like me and the writers I work with, I’m sure you have no problem listing off things that get in the way of your writing:
I’m too busy – there are too many things to do and writing gets shoved to the bottom of the list.
I procrastinate and go do the laundry, dishes, or scroll on social media!
I start to write, and immediately, I’m deflated by how bad the writing is!
For this episode, I actually want to dig into that last reason: I start to write and immediately, I’m deflated by how bad the writing is.
First, if you relate to this experience, congratulations! It means you’ve actually prioritized writing time, pushed past procrastination, and actually put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and wrote something. Even if it was just three words, that’s a huge win! Celebrate yourself for beginning, for taking the leap to write just one word.
And for my friends out there who are despairing because “I’ve never written a creative word in my life! I’m hopeless!” Listen – you’re not hopeless. Just listening to this podcast is a huge win and a step toward your joyful writing life, and what I’m going to share next will help.
Let’s get back to the original question: What blocks your flow when writing?
For a lot, if not all of us creative writers, we write a few sentences, a few paragraphs, and immediately start picking apart everything on the page.
Ugh, this is awful! Total garbage! Who would want to read this trash, this word salad, this dumpster fire of the English language!
I’ve had these thoughts. My students have had these thoughts. If you read the biographies and memoirs of your favorite writers, they’ve had them too.
Because thoughts can trigger emotional and physical feelings, your body might tense up. You might get overwhelmed by fatigue. The inspired and expanded feeling you felt when you first had that story idea and sat down to write has been quickly replaced with a lead ball of self-doubt that’s dragging you down, down, down.
Because you’re no longer in the physical or mental space to write, you give up and start replying to emails or go doom scrolling through your favorite news app.
But here’s the truth about what’s going on here.
In reality, the problem isn’t your quote-unquote “bad writing.” Your bad writing or lack of skill isn’t what’s blocking your flow.
In this scenario, what’s actually blocking your flow is a need for instant gratification.
I’ll say it again: in this scenario, your flow is blocked by a need for instant gratification.
In our constantly wired, social media entrenched, any dish of food you could imagine delivered to you within 30 minutes, world, we have been trained to expect instant gratification. Instant positive results.
And there’s nothing inherently wrong with instant gratification. We’ve solved a lot of problems in this world because we can connect with and get things to each other faster and with more ease.
But there are certain things in this world that require consistent time and effort before the really juicy results come in. And often, these things are the most wonderful things in the world.
A few examples off the top of my head:
Plants
Babies
Building muscle
A new album from your favorite musical artist
French onion soup
Healing the body from an injury
Diamonds
Winemaking
I could also add learning and mastering anything to this list. Learning a new language, learning a craft like woodworking or pottery, learning a science or computer code. Learning and mastering anything takes time and most importantly, patience.
And that’s really the point of this episode here: to unblock your creative flow and become a consistent and joyful writer, you want to grow your patience muscle.
I was reminded of this Patience principle while reading Dr. Judson Brewer’s incredible book, Unwinding Anxiety. In the book, Dr. Brewer explains how many students in his programs will come to him and say, “I’m doing all the exercises and implementing all the steps in this program, but I still have terrible anxiety! Why isn’t it working?”
At this point, Dr. Brewer asks them how long they’ve been struggling with anxious worry. Typically they respond with years! Or my entire life! Then he asks, “How long have you been in this program?” and they’ll respond, “About two weeks.”
And that’s when the lightbulb moment hits: it’s going to take some time to unwind years if not a lifetime of old conditioning and wiring. At this point, Dr. Brewer reminds them to build a habit of patience – like reducing a delicious ragu, positive change takes time and energy.
Whether you’re a novice or have been writing for years, your first draft is not going to be as polished and “perfect” as the final draft. For 99% of creative writers, that’s just not how it works. And again, it’s the perfectionism and impatience with yourself that’s actually blocking that beautiful euphoria that is creative flow –– it’s not your wobbly, raw writing.
The way I typically illustrate this to my students is with examples from the performing arts.
Take a moment to do a Google image search of a famous ballerina. Let’s go with Misty Copeland or Natalia Osipova. Scrolling through just a few of those images, I’m blown away by their muscle tone and the shapes their bodies can take. You’ll probably see a few photos of Misty or Natalia in a flying split (they call this a grand jeté in ballet).
Do you think Misty or Natalia woke up with those sculpted muscles? Do you think they stepped out of their cribs being able to execute a grand jeté with perfect technique?
No! They damn well didn’t! They spent years gently stretching to gain flexibility. They spent years doing thousands of simple tendu and pliés at the bar. They fell, sprained ankles, broke toes, pulled tendons, and spent many nights icing sore muscles after rehearsals.
Of course, learning an art is not all pain and tedious exercises. There’s joy in expressing yourself through art wherever you’re at.
Even as novices, most likely Mindy and Natalia could lose themselves in the movement. Even when their technique was still growing, even when their pirouettes were wobbly, they found flow and joy in the expression and movement –– not in perfect technique.
The same is true for writers. In the same way that a novice ballet dancer isn’t going to execute a perfect grand jete on the first try (or even on the 100th try!), you’re not going to spin Shakespearian-level writing from your fingertips the moment you sit down to write.
To take the metaphor even further, remember that professional dancers like Misty and Natalia rehearse for months when preparing for a new production. Misty doesn’t just wake up being able to dance a flawless Swan Lake. She needs to rehearse! She needs notes from the director! It takes months before the ballet is ready to be performed in front of a live audience.
It’s the same with writing. Even once you’ve become a masterful and skilled creative writer, your early drafts will still need work. They’ll still need editing, feedback, cutting, and rewriting.
I actually have an episode that goes deeper on the topic of early drafts and a mindset shift that can help ease perfectionism in the early stages of writing. It’s called Why I Reject the Idea of Shitty First Drafts (And What I Do Instead), and you’ll find it on my blog at writeforjoy.co. I’ll also link to it in the transcript as well.
But the shift I want to talk about here is cultivating the emotional muscle of patience.
How can you actually be patient with yourself and your creativity when a wobbly, ugly, unpolished sentence is glaring back at you from a hot white page?
Here’s what I do:
First, I notice the irritated or frustrated thoughts and emotions. Maybe I’ll even give them a name –– I sometimes call those emotions my inner editor, Diane.
Then I take a deep breath, and try to notice where I’m feeling those emotions in my body. Is it in my chest? Or maybe it’s in the front of my face, hot with annoyance. Maybe my throat is dry and tight, as if the words I want to write are blocked there. Sometimes, I notice that my legs are tingly and restless, and it’s my fidgety-ness that’s causing the discomfort.
Once I’ve taken a few moments to notice what’s going on in my mind and body, I just allow it to be there for a few beats and breathe. I don’t try to push it out or go to battle with it –– at least, not always –– because I know that just snowballs the uncomfortable feelings and thoughts.
Then, I remind myself that creating a beautiful piece of writing is not like flicking on a light switch. I’m not the Genie from Aladdin who can point her finger and zap out a bestselling novel.
I remind myself that my goal here is not perfection, but rather to be present with the writing process. My goal is to put one word onto the page, and then another, and then another, until my timer goes off. There will be time for editing later, and for now, my job is to tell the story in whatever wobbly words come to the surface.
That sequence there is an exercise in patience, and the more I practice that, the stronger my patience muscle becomes. Eventually, that raging inner critic is insignificant background noise, and I understand and believe in the creative process so deeply, that the idea of writing a perfect first draft sounds immature and silly, so it doesn’t even phase me.
And I’m about to get very meta here, but growing a patience muscle also requires patience! I guarantee you’ll go try this later, and you’ll get frustrated and say “Why am I so impatient?!” And to this I say, bring the same awareness and kindness to that feeling, and meet it with grace and more patience. Do it as many times as you need to, and don’t give up. Again, this isn’t going to be like turning on a light switch. Building muscle takes time, and you have everything you need to give yourself this gift.
One more tip for cultivating patience:
Borrow patience from another area of your life.
What I mean by that is, think of something in your life where you’ve already cultivated patience. Maybe you love Christmas or a certain holiday, and even though it’s your favorite time of the year, you don’t stress about it in July –– you just take a breath, smile, and think: It’ll be so great when Christmas gets here, but sitting on the beach is also nice! You’re a patient Christmas fan.
Or maybe you’re a cook, and you’re really great at slow cooking. You know certain dishes require days to marinate and then hours to cook. You’re such a seasoned cook at this point that the timeline doesn’t phase you, it’s just part of the process and you’re prepared for it. You’re a patient cook.
Or maybe you’re a physical therapist, and you have patients come in with terrible injuries. While your patients may feel discouraged and like they’ll never move the same way again, you know that with a few weeks and months of consistent effort, they’ll be back to full mobility. You’re a patient therapist.
I’m sure if you think hard enough, you’ll realize you have a skill or hobby that requires your patience. Harness that feeling, and bring it into your creative writing life. When you get frustrated at the sloppy sentences, take a breath and let the patience you’ve already cultivated in another part of your life ease the impatience.
Patience and grace are keys to unblocking your creative flow, which in turn, will help you become a consistent and prolific writer. I encourage you to stretch that muscle the next time you sit down to write, and please email me and let me know how it goes.
All right, let’s recap and land this baby. Here are 3 things I’d love you to take away from this episode:
For most creative writers, we’re seeking the joy and euphoria of creative flow more than the quick highs of accomplishment.
Impatience is what’s blocking your flow, not your sloppy writing.
Cultivate a patience muscle to unblock your flow and become a consistent and joyful writer.
I hope this message was inspiring to you and you’re ready to tap into flow and release the stories pressing on your heart. I encourage you to share this episode with a creative or writerly friend or loved-one who may need a boost of creative confidence.
For more episodes and letters of encouragement like this one, please subscribe below or at https://writeforjoy.co/subscribe.
Thanks so much for listening, and happy writing.
Want to get more podcast episodes like this straight to your inbox?
Sign up below to get emails with juicy tips, articles, and interviews to help you grow your creative writing practice. You’ll hear from me 1-3x per week.
By completing this form, you agree to receive email communication––including marketing for new writing programs and offers––from Renee Long. I respect your privacy, and you can read the privacy policy below. Unsubscribe anytime.