A Great Writing Session

The notion of writer’s block always upset me. It was presented as something that came externally, like bad luck, which you couldn’t fight against. In general I have a problem believing that we can’t get better at any activity we concentrate on, and that would include writing. I believe there are ways of improving your chances of having a good writing session—no guarantees, of course—but what fun would that be?

1. Meditate before you write. Meditate is a big word, and meditating is an even bigger concept. What I mean is concentrate on something—a statue, your breath, a wall—until you realize that life will go on after your writing session is over. In exactly the same way.
2. Leave material in your subconscious before you write. Maybe you make some notes and leave them by your bedside, to dream over them. Maybe you review your plans at the coffee shop before you go to your office. First you think about it, then you don’t think about it.
3. Cast a sacred circle around you when you write. Mystical enough for ya? You can do this literally with incense and candles; you can do it psychologically by simply not allowing anything unrelated to the writing to approach your flow of words. Thoreau asked, “What business have I in the woods, if I am thinking of something out of the woods?” The same applies to writing.
4. Don’t start with too much. Don’t try to cram everything you can think of into your writing for the day. Some days you might use a lot of the notes you prepared, and get the feeling like you are putting it all together. But to attain to capture a true vision you have to honor the blank page in front of you—and what is taking shape there—more than anything you brought with you.
5. Don’t start with too little. You might bring as little as a list of topics that you have brainstormed about your subject. When you have nothing at all by your side, you can still uncover original material, but you might also find yourself struggling unnecessarily, especially at the beginning.
6. Don’t look back. The golden rule of writing is to take it one draft at a time. One day at a time. One paragraph at a time. You can go back a sentence or two only if that helps you recover the flow, or straighten out tenses. Do you remember the story of Lot’s wife who was turned into a pillar of salt for looking back? When you land on a new indented paragraph there’s a new world ahead for you to discover.
7. You’ll get another crack at it. Except with the most extreme of deadlines, you will have another opportunity to review the material you are generating. You can get an expert opinion; you can let it sit in your subconscious (see #2, above). You will have plenty of time to worry about what’s not working, and you will be right about a lot of it. But you literally cannot fix it right now. One draft at a time.
8. Forgive your enemies. I had to put this in because I believe critical voices—which are not yours—are the essence of writer’s block. If you can’t forgive a particular enemy from a place deep down, at least call some kind of truce in your mind: you know, something like we’re all broken in some way, we’re all in process… Writing exposes you to enough self-criticism without other voices attacking you while you are vulnerable.
9. Set a date for your next writing session. And then look forward to it! Don’t worry about your chores, or your bank account, or the perception others might have of you as a dreamer or disconnected for wanting to write. We know that there are few things more rewarding than writing; treasure your time to bring forth something that has never yet occurred.

If I were to try to sum all of these keys to a great writing session, it would come out something like: Have the day. Whatever part of it you can reasonably allow yourself.