Realising THIS Completely Disarmed My Writer’s Block
The secret relationship between our emotional instincts and our writing
I have this really weird thing where every time I write, I want to stop.
It’s not exactly writer’s block. I have more ideas than I can muster. It’s more like when I sit down to write, a little voice in the back of my head is trying to pull me away. It’s determined to convince me that there’s something more important to be doing instead.
As someone whose job involves a lot of writing, this is disruptive to say the least. I find myself playing a tug-o-war every time I sit down with a pen.
So at the start of this week, I set myself the task of working out what on earth is going on. I think I may have just found the answer.
I’m afraid the time and effort I spend on writing will be a waste. And more so, I’m afraid of what that will mean about me.
Let me dig a bit deeper.
Rationalising My Irrational Fears
If you’ve read this far, I’m going to assume you’re a writer too. Us, literary types, are attracted to writing troubles like moths to a flame.
To make this worth your while, I want to make sure you walk away with actionable advice for your own struggles. To do that, we need to begin with the fundamentals — with the framework of human emotion.
We all possess an emotional system designed to protect us from harm. That system is made up of three lenses. At any given time, we use one of these lenses to perceive and react to the world. The lenses are:
- Systemic: focused on maintaining our comfort and safety
- Extrinsic: focused on maintaining our perceived moral value
- Intrinsic: focused on living life as the truest version of ourselves — free from emotional defence mechanisms and acting with compassion, curiosity and exploration.
It’s the first two — Systemic and Extrinsic — that we use to preserve our safety, either through maintaining comfort or social favour.
The trouble is, without the ability to understand and adjust them, our emotional instincts run wild, often doing more damage than good as we struggle to maintain a sense of physical and social safety.
Now, the reason I’m telling you all this is because the answer to good, enjoyable writing lies in the Intrinsic lens — the lens of exploration and curiosity.
It’s an age-old trope that writers spend more of their time trying to convince themselves to write, than actually writing. Let me tell you, I’m no exception to the rule. Even today, I spent a good two hours thinking (with my eyes closed) before I managed to get words out. But I’m beginning to believe that that has more to do with our emotional instincts, than it does with motivation, discipline, or just plain reps.
The Path Most Traveled
My relationship with writing started when I was about eight. My first ever project was a remake of the Winnie the Pooh series, starring yours truly and my assortment of stuffed toys.
By the end of primary school, I was accustomed to winning praise for my (terrible) poems. Most likely because I was the only kid who participated in creative writing with any sort of enthusiasm.
Early high school brought a new level of validation when a series of my short stories got the attention of my English teacher. Their very emotional and edgy nature caused a stir amongst some of the faculty, and I had my first brush with criticism.
Generally unfazed, I signed up for an extension course in my final year of high school. I got this an ego boost every time I told someone I was going to university early to study creative writing. Little did I know this would nip the enthusiasm right out of me for a long time.
For 6 months, I was hit with criticism after criticism with next to no direction on how to improve my writing. I would later learn (in photography school) that this kind of “tough love” is the norm in creative industries. But for baby Ellisha, it was too much.
I dropped out of the course and swore off writing for five years.
It took changing careers and becoming a digital nomad for me to crack that door open again. In 2022, I got 60,000 words into a novel before my fear kicked in again.
I’ve heard this story over and over again. We, writers, get filled with inspiration and set about a project only to abandon it for other things.
I kept telling myself I was too busy to go back to my manuscript — that I didn’t have the head space or the time to tackle it. But then I’d pick up another project — something unrelated to writing like a UI design or an emotional framework — and I’d make all the time in the world for it.
It’s not that I don’t care about my novel. I love the characters to death, and had the time of my life writing it.
There’s something else getting in the way.
Moral Value: A Writer’s Death Trap
It’s only now, after developing the Charette (emotional) Framework that I can understand the pattern I fell into.
Can you see it?
It’s so easy to dismiss our writing troubles as a lack of confidence or inspiration. But it’s another thing entirely to dig down a level, and examine the emotional instincts that create and empower that lack of confidence. And then, it’s a whole other fight to learn how to adjust our behavior to overcome our emotional instincts.
Obviously, we don’t have the space to get that deep in just this article. Unfortunately, human emotion isn’t quite that simple. But if you’re interested in going deeper, I have a course that teaches you how to use the full emotional framework to create emotional clarity and overcome your defense mechanisms.
In the meantime, I can show you where I went wrong.
Remember those lenses I talked about? Well, my mistake is that every time I go to write, I activate my Extrinsic lens.
Writing becomes a measurement of my moral value. Somewhere along the way, I learnt that if my writing is bad, my social safety will be jeopardized.
That sounds a bit dramatic, doesn’t it?
But how many times have you sat down to write “x” amount of words? Or set a sprint timer, and then felt bad when you just stare at a blank screen for 25 minutes? Or determined the value of your day by how many scenes or articles you got in writing?
The writing community is rife with Extrinsic value. Like most other communities, status and success are the key drivers to most people’s participation — be it conscious or not. Even on Medium, I find myself feeling one way or the other based on claps and responses and article gets.
Our need for moral validation is interwoven into every social media platform, book sale, and writing event.
No wonder we freeze up when it comes to writing! The stakes are hecking high!
For me, at least, it’s an instinctual need for moral validation that makes me hesitate. I find myself needing to be convinced that an article will be received well in order for my emotional instincts to not interfere. It find myself wanting to stop writing because if I continue, I risk lowering my perceived moral value. I risk emotional damage.
So what’s the answer?
The typical advice would be to not worry about what other people think.
Whilst that’s valid, it’s not exactly helpful. One: it’s hard to implement. After all, why do we write if not to communicate with other people? And two: actively trying to not care is just as destructive as caring too much. It certainly just as exhausting.
Pulling the Right Lever
The pattern most of us fall into is trying to manipulate our Extrinsic lens into order to validate us. We push ourselves to write more and more, until we burn out or give up altogether.
Thankfully, there are more emotional lenses than just the Extrinsic. The Systemic won’t help us much here, but the Intrinsic will yield us some amazing results.
By stepping into the Intrinsic lens — into a mindset of exploration and curiosity — we rid ourselves of the need for moral validation. Inherently, if we choose to act through pure curiousity, we can no longer label a piece of writing as a success or failure.
It is instead, an exploration. Be that of your skills, characters, or story. Other people’s reaction to your writing is an extension of that. When someone chooses to comment on your work, they are simply adding to your exploration.
Now, I’m not naïve. Not every comment is created equal, and you have to take everything with a grain of salt. But if you can detach your moral/social value from your work, then that becomes so much easier.
Learning to shed your defense mechanisms and live through the Intrinsic lens takes a lot more understanding and practice than this article will allow. If you’re interested, I have a course that teaches the full framework and how to live as your truest self. But for now, I’ll leave you with this.
The next time you’re struggling to get your words onto a page, ask yourself:
- What is it about this piece that makes me want to defend my moral value?
- Is writing this really as risky as I think?
- Would it bring me more long-term damage if I didn’t write it?
I’m going to go give it a try now!
Keep growing, Ellisha x
P.S. You can download a worksheet with those questions (as well as 5+ other emotion exercises) for free here.
P.P.S. If you give them a go, I’d love to hear how you went in the responses, or you can send me an email at ellisha<at>charettesociety.com
