Writing Strategies — Venting
How venting can help you to beat writer’s block and look after your wellbeing by addressing the emotional side of the writing process
Introduction
This blog post is part of a series of writing strategies sourced from staff, students and researchers working at the University of Manchester Library. Try all of them out and see what works for you!
This post focuses on keeping a writing journal, often referred to as ‘venting’, and how it can help you to beat writer’s block and look after your wellbeing whilst writing by addressing the emotional side of the writing process.
What is keeping a writing journal, or venting?
The main idea is to keep a journal in which you write down all the things that are stopping you from writing. This might be other commitments (other pieces of work, deadlines, chores, etc), but it might also include difficult feelings about what you find hard, frustrating, boring, dull, or pointless about the specific piece of writing you‘re working on.
This can be a useful strategy to employ when you’re feeling overwhelmed by the idea of writing, or when you’re feeling overcome by an emotion but you don’t understand why.
The benefits of keeping a writing journal (venting)
This writing strategy is based on the psychological idea of venting; by addressing and accepting your feelings, you get things off your chest rather than allowing emotions to fester. Some supporters of this approach, David Sternberg (How to Complete and Survive a Doctoral Dissertation) and Pat Thomson, argue that we can’t pretend that writer’s block and other emotional responses to writing don’t exist, or that they don’t affect us all deeply; they’re a natural part of the writing process.
Addressing difficult feelings rather than pretending they don’t exist can help us to normalise these responses, allowing us to work with them, rather than feel bad about ourselves for finding things tricky at times.
Olivia, a Psychology PhD student and member of the Library Student Team, has found venting to be a useful way of dealing with negative feelings:
“Personally, I have sometimes found writing when I’m feeling very anxious can help to alleviate the intensity of the anxiety and lift a bit of a weight off my shoulders.”
“Expression through the written form, especially if you don’t feel comfortable talking about your feelings to anyone else, can be a healthy way of getting things off your chest.”
Addressing your feelings about writing can also reveal insights about yourself and how you work, which can help you to overcome similar challenges in the future. After writing, you can then revisit and reflect on your journaling. This can help you to identify the particular situations that you struggle with when trying to write, and the solutions or strategies that you used to overcome them.
Doing this regularly can also help you to identify in which situations you find it most difficult to write, and to build up a toolbox for how to deal with those situations. Celebrating your successes in addressing and managing difficult emotions about writing can improve your confidence by showing how you can overcome negative habits or emotions.
Conclusion
The benefits of keeping a writing journal are that it can help you to release pent-up emotions, understand yourself better as a writer, and help you to be kind to yourself when going through writing difficulties. Nevertheless, some psychologists argue that venting can keep us focused on the negatives rather than the positives, so check in with yourself to see how you feel afterwards.
There’s only one way to find which writing strategies work for you, and that’s by giving it a try!
Check out the My Research Essentials Medium publication for more writing strategies to try, or join our writing communities and write with us at our Shut Up and Write sessions and Writing retreats.
By Amanda from the Student Team
