Easily Overcome Writer's Resistance

or Writer's Block

Kate Arms-Roberts

Kate Arms-Roberts

Founder, Improv Living Improve Your Life With the Power of Improv Mission: Using the tools of embodied creativity

and improvised performance forms to empower people to change the world

Supporting Creative Work

Theatre: Acting coach and Director

Writing Circle Facilitator: Writing on the spot and critique groups

InterPlay: Fun, easy practices and principles for creating improvisationally in a non-judgmental, environment

Today's Goal

To understand the source of writer's block

And the simple ways to reduce resistance

Who this training is for

People who want to write, but find themselves having making it happen.

Problems You May Be Facing

You set a time to write, sit down at your computer and fritter away your time on Facebook?

You let helping other people interfere with your commitments to yourself to write?

Or, when you sit down to write, you simply find that your ideas are gone and all the things you thought you wanted to write about aren't in your mind anymore?

The Goal

Understand where resistance comes from Understand why resistance will never go

away completely Develop systems to reduce resistance and

create anyway

The Ugly Truth

Resistance doesn't go away. Any time to start a new project, you are

stepping into the unknown and the unknown always triggers fear.

The Good News You can reduce resistance AND learn ways

of writing despite it.

The Challenge

Creative resistance is grounded in fear, but not all fear is conscious.

With unconscious fear, you need a way of managing the fear.

With conscious fear, you need to feel safe to explore and exorcise the fears.

Fear

“If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), "Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?" chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.”

― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles

Freeze, Flight, or Fight

The faces of Resistance are the faces of fear:

Freeze: Classic Writer's Block – sitting at the computer and nothing comes.

Flight: Always finding something else to do.

Fight: self-criticism, perfectionism

Two Sources of Fear

Fear of the unknown – writing into something that scares you, or just is unfamiliar

Fear based on a past experience

Dealing with Fear

Fear doesn't go away. You need a system for managing it.

Notice

Reduce through Ritual

Daily Practices

The first step in managing resistance is to notice that you are experiencing it.

The fact that you are on this call means that you have already noticed yourself suffering

from resistance and writer's block.

Notice

Reduce through Routine

Starting routine

Ending routine

As many senses engaged as possible

3 Daily Practices to Retrain Your Brain

1) Process activities – creative play

2) Product activities – work towards a product

3) Self-Care

Process Activities

To keep the playfulness from which creativity flows easily, cultivate creative practices that do not have any drive towards completion of a product.

Take 15-minutes a day to keep yourself in play.

Writing

Music

Drawing

DancingColouring

PaintingSinging

Daydreaming

Knitting

Product Activities

Set yourself a small goal that you can actually make – 15 minutes a day

Do more if you have time or inclination, but only make the 15 minute commitment to yourself.

Idea Generation

ResearchMind-mapping

Sketches

Story-boarding

Getting or giving feedbackWriting

Editing

Taking a class

Querying

Self-Care

Self-care gives you what you need in your life in order to be the writer that you strive to be.

Sleep

Exercise

Meditation

Time to focus on one thing

Play

Record and Reward

Recording your progress and rewarding your habit development will motivate you to build your habits.

Because the commitments are for short periods of time, you want to focus on rewarding the doing, not the result.

Rewarding the result stresses the brain and increases fear.

Celebrate

When you create, acknowledge your successes!

What Now?

Take this information and put it to use now Work with me and I will help you develop

specific habits, rituals, and routines to reduce your resistance and design rewards for writing despite the resistance that remains.

Working with Me

Custom program based on where you are and your specific needs

Identifying your blocks Crafting a ritual or routine to hold your

creativity Building a system of rewards to support

building your new habits Celebration of your creative output

Take Action

Apply for a Focus Session: a short call during which we will assess where you are, discuss what you need to move forward, and set-up a plan for taking action.

www.improvliving.com/writingwithease

What Happens if You Wait?

Resistance will win.

Every day you wait to use these skills is another day you let your dreams slip away.

Fast Action Reward

For anyone who applies for a focus session in the next 48 hours:

Poster with the 3 Daily Practices

Voice and Movement Integration Exercise .mp3

Q & A

www.improvliving.com/writingwithease/