“Nothing
diminishes anxiety faster than action.” --Walter Inglis Anderson
I read this quote the other day and the same evening my husband
commented that one of his clients was suffering paralysis through
analysis. It got me thinking about the
balance between weighing ones options and acting on a decision. The pondering of every possible alternative
to find the perfect solution—which almost never exists-- can lead to nothing
happening at all. On the other hand,
snap decisions made with too little deliberation may miss details that affect
the success of the final outcome. You
can see the dilemma.
A personality profile test my company use to give was designed to tell us which prospective employee would commit sins of omission
and which sins of commission. In other words, it identified who would screw up through what
they didn’t do and who would screw up through what they did. To no one’s surprise, I fell into the latter
category. Hey, it’s easier to apologize than get permission, right?
I thought about how the two personality traits relate to writing.
Some people dive in and start writing with little more than a protagonist and a
vague premise—Lee Child and Nora Roberts have been very successful and
prolific with this approach. Other authors begin with detailed character
descriptions and plots that act as a chapter by chapter guide to what needs to
go on the page. Both methods have merits and disadvantages recognized by
pantsers and plotters alike.
Unfortunately, there usually comes a point in a story (or several points) where a writer gets stuck. In my case, I know where I’ve been and where I’m going but
flounder on the page in front of me. Some people call this writer’s block,
others writer’s hell. Analysis only makes the anxiety worse. Staring at the
scene brings no solution. Going for a walk or having lunch, reading a book or
watching a movie may distract but the hurdle still looms in the back of my mind,
nagging and insisting I suck. Yep, welcome to my Sunday afternoon.
Over time most writers develop their own methods to break through the
block—the last resort, the desperate effort to climb out of the morass. Mine is WRITE OR DIE. In Kamikaze mode. With dire consequences. I take a deep breath, get into the
zone (setting and POV character’s head), click start and type like the devil
himself is after me. My typing skills are horrible but in Write or Die only forward
momentum counts. No time for analysis or picking the perfect word. No time to
worry about varying sentence structure or not re-using favorite words again and
again. The only thing that matters is the characters’ journey, the story
unfolding and not having the screen turn red or my laptop scream at me. The action of writing, getting imperfect words
and sentences down on the page, relieves the anxiety and frees my mind to be
creative. As for the typos, and crappy writing…oddly, it isn’t usually all that
bad. It turns out my subconscious is a much
better writer than I give it credit for. My typing, however, still stinks!
So tell us, are you an omissions or commissions
sinner? How do you break through blocks and make decisions?
