Writer's Block

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Permalink Reply by Michael Kramer on June 12, 2010 at 7:29am

If it's for you, as opposed to a client, that makes it easier in many ways. The best book on the subject is Robert Boice, Professors as Writers: A Self-Help Guide to Productive Writing.

Don't worry about the title. It's not just for professors. It's for anyone who wants to write.

Boice gives some useful historical information on the role that "automatic writing" has played in the history of hypnosis. You could put yourself in a trance and start doing your own automatic writing. Boice notes:
"In my experience, all of the automatic writers wrote almost immediately and produced impressively good writing. Most achieved the unthinkable--good clear prose (or, in a few cases, good poetry), with no conscious effort" (51).

Boice later discovered that, for most people, "freewriting," in the style of Peter Elbow (Google him) was more effective than automatic writing. Elbow has written a lot of books. You don't need to read them, since Boice gives all you need to know. But if you are passionate about this stuff, Elbow is worth a read.

As for motivation and focus. Boice lays it all out for you.

There is a lot of individual variation in what motivates people. For me, setting goals and keeping accurate records are highly motivating. I set an annual goal for how many minutes I plan to spend writing. I then have daily goals of what I will do in order to reach the annual goal. Each weekday, I start my timer and write. A good free online timer is timeleft:

http://www.nestersoft.com/timeleft/

As I said, you can do some personal experimentation to determine what motivates you. Some people work best when they can give themselves gold starts (I'm serious). Others need to make a commitment to another person. Then there's the old give someone $500 (or whatever) and tell them to mail it to the American Nazi Party if you don't do X by the date of Y (unless you're a Nazi, in which case you'll have to mail it to some group that Nazis dislike, like Blacks, Jews, Communists, Roma, Gays).

One of the keys that I have regarding motivation is to understand that motivation is a fiction. If you think that you need to feel motivated to X (write, go to the gym, make calls, clean the dishes, etc.) then you are unlikely to do X. Successful people know (see David D. Burns, The Feeling Good Handbook) that Action precedes Motivation. That is, do it, even when you don't feel like it. Often, you start feeling like doing it after you start doing it.

To put it another way (see David Reynolds, A Handbook for Constructive Living) you can feel like doing X (eating, web-surfing, smoking, biting your nails) and do not-X. Again, the nice thing is that it is often the case that once you do or not do something for a while, it feels better.

I've referred to a lot of stuff here. To summarize, buy the Boice book and follow his program. Everything else is optional.

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Permalink Reply by Donna Carter on June 12, 2010 at 8:28am

Writers block could also be the way you are telling yourself you don't feel
comfortable with your knowledge of the topic. It might be productive to research
a few key areas where you would like to move toward. Be it truth or fiction.

One time in college I had to write a fictional story. The only rule was...it was to be about a tree.
So, I picked my favorite place with my favorite tree...
Researched all the basics about this particular tree, tree growth, how long it takes to grow, what it needs to grow...etc. etc, and then added little people that lived in the tree and functioned the way 'sustenance' might function in the tree. So as...the tree fed the people, and the people fed the tree. Totally fictional....with a background and foundation of truth.

Research a topic.
Then talk about what you know.
Who can stop talking/writing when they think they know about something?

my best,
~D.

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Permalink Reply by Aline Hoffman on June 13, 2010 at 11:31am

Just three weeks ago I had the wonderful opportunity of working with an author experiencing writer's block. He'd been to my office before to resolve several other issues, thus rapport was already established. Parts Therapy worked wonders - the conflicting part, which kept pushing him off balance, came to understand that his task really was to protect this author from outside distractions. With this realization the part changed its name and an acceptable agreement between this part and the motivating part was reached. The client, grinning from ear to ear upon emerging, was delighted with his discoveries and the agreement.

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Permalink Reply by Aino / Akpolarmom on June 13, 2010 at 11:40pm

Lynn, this year I participated in NANOWRIMO for my 7th year. It is a challenge to write 50,000 word novel in the month of November.... To stay on track you have to write average of 1667 words a day for the 30 days in November. Now I have never had writers block during the event, because it is free creation time. They suggest you turn off your editing function, as not to be suckered into correcting, as it is simply a word count that determines if you "win/ meet the 50,000 word limit". hehe.
Any way, this year I was not going to participate and made the fatal decision to enter the chat room on AIM where we meet with our state's participant just to say 'Hi and good luck!" Getting a lot of "What???" and "Why aren't you?" 2 min til midnight I decide to give in and give it a go. Nothing planned and 50,000 words to go. I mentioned that in the room and they say write "what you know. "
Well, I have done nothing but hypno stuff all year it seems, so I thought, why not do this whole project while in trance and see what comes out of it. But what to write about, and again "what do you know?" So the novel or the first 50,000 words of "Trance Stories " was done before the deadline. "Trance Stories" is a collection of stories shared by a hand full of hypnotists of all kinds at a retreat.Writing in a trance was quite interesting. After I allowed myself to drop into a focused trance, I simply imagined myself as the hypnotist and did an induction on the client / volunteer, etc. in the story and doing so deepened my own trance. I also associated myself with the hypnotee and found my self in some interesting scenarios fully associated with a story I didn't know where it was going. Imagine going thru a panic attack fully associated, I learned a lot from that. Another benefit for writing in trance was that my word speed almost doubled from last year. So my daily 1667 words went by faster than I had expected.

I can certainly recommend using trance. I believe that it will remove some of the self talk and negative suggestions you may have instilled. It can give you details you may not have thought of. Also what I used to do in the past before writing in trance was write different places in the story. If you were in a great mood write a part that is happy and up beat, if sad write the sad parts.Sometimes you are in the mood of the antagonist, sometimes you feel like a hero. I often worked in 5-6 different areas / times of the novels I was working on. No one says you have to work from beginning to start.

I think Stephen King was the one saying that ' writers block doesn't exist, only laziness to write. So write anything even if it is your name and address over and over or shift to something total different, as not to allow your 'block' to let you off the hook.'
I don't remember who said "If I get writer's block, I simply play with them, stack them and finally knock them down" but I like that one....

Write on!
Aino

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Permalink Reply by Aline Hoffman on June 14, 2010 at 9:20am

Greetings Lic,

The conflicting part was behaving "almost like a younger brother" who was being neglected when the client was writing. So pushing him off task was the part's way to getting attention.

Be well,
Aline

Licentious Maladay said:

Aline,

Interersting case! What did the part believe his role was BEFORE the realignment?

Lic

Aline Hoffman said:

Just three weeks ago I had the wonderful opportunity of working with an author experiencing writer's block. He'd been to my office before to resolve several other issues, thus rapport was already established. Parts Therapy worked wonders - the conflicting part, which kept pushing him off balance, came to understand that his task really was to protect this author from outside distractions. With this realization the part changed its name and an acceptable agreement between this part and the motivating part was reached. The client, grinning from ear to ear upon emerging, was delighted with his discoveries and the agreement.

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Permalink Reply by Roy Hunter on June 15, 2010 at 9:24am

As a published author of several books, I can provide a credible way that has worked for me many times over the years. First, you need to have your topic chosen in advance (for an article), or the goal or objectives of the chapter if writing a book.

1. Use self-hypnosis to establish your peaceful place, and create your peaceful place trigger.

2. When you sit down to write, use your peaceful place trigger and enter a light trance state. Daydream effectively communicating your message for a few seconds (or longer if needed).

3. Write from your heart WITHOUT trying to correct grammar or typos in your first draft, and keep writing until you either finish the article or chapter, or until you need a break.

4. AFTER taking a break, go back in an analytical state of mind to edit your work for spelling, grammar and content.

If you need help getting it ready for a publisher, contact me privately.

Roy Hunter, PhD, FAPHP
www.royhunter.com

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Permalink Reply by Steve Andrade on June 18, 2010 at 10:07pm

J Lynn,

I apologize for taking an unsatisfactory direction in my previous reply.

I was hoping to connect more closely with the present situation at hand, but that’s not as important as keeping on good terms for communication purposes.

I want to share what I have experienced with creativity in hopes there might be something in it for anyone reading.

I have always had an artistic gift and after discovering it, discovered frustration to the point of setting it aside for 36 years.

Five years ago, one year before I had heard of hypnotherapy and NLP, I was taking some psychology classes at the local junior college. I originally signed up for a nutrition class to learn more about blood sugar and managing it, and was just drawn to the psychology classes by some internal force. A couple of years before that I had come to the conclusion that I understood more than I knew and needed to do something about that.

I had a reading disorder that I didn’t know I had, I just thought everyone struggled as much as I did when having to read.

So, not drawing or painting, was also accompanied with not reading anything, no books, no magazines, no newspapers, even junk mail was too much. Even long emails were too much. I realized that I couldn’t possibly take both classes, the reading would be too much, so it was drop the psychology class, or just take it anyway to see what it was about and then retake later.

In the same building as the psychology class were the art classes. I was so excited and decided to walk thru and see what people were doing. I was looking and said to myself, “I could do this, I could do better than this,” and decided to sign up for the painting class. Well they said I couldn’t that I needed all these other classes first to teach me art first. I set up an appointment with a counselor with photos of the few things I did one year in high school. She let me take the classes.

The problem I remember that had kept me from creating art wasn’t clear to me, I just knew it was more frustrating than it was worth to do art.

I tried to break it down in order to try something different. I had recently signed up for some community meditation classes in order to correct my reading disorder that the college had tested me for for the first time and offered me books on tape. I told them I didn’t want books on tape, I wanted to fix my reading disorder, they threw up their hands.

Slowing my thinking and learning down seemed to be a direction I wanted to try in order to reteach myself to read.

In the process of taking the meditation class, I was learning a lot about life, in fact one of the assigned reading books for the meditation class was, “The Power of Now.”

I went to the local library, asked for the power of now, they gave me, practicing the power of now, I thought it was the book I asked for, to find out later, it is the work book, a much simpler summary of the original book. I went to the library because I didn't want to buy a book and get stuck with a book if I couldn't fix my reading disorder. The book was very easy to read. But some of the concepts, like living in the moment, or in the now, changed my thinking and my life.

The first meditation class was about perception, I hadn’t heard of hypnotherapy or NLP at that time, but I was on my way and didn’t even know it.

So I was full of learning about the benefits of living in the moment and accepting what is.

Back to the problem with the art thing. It seemed that when I did the few things I did in high school and at home back then, I would enter a trance state without even knowing it. Hours would fly by in the blink of an eye.

And then the next time I wanted to continue on the same piece of work, nothing happened. If anything, everything I tried messed up the work from before. I waited for inspiration, and waited, and waited, it never came when I waited for it.

And then there were the standards I had accepted unconsciously from my mom who also had some art talent but never used it. See believed that good art looked like the photo. If it wasn’t exactly identical it wasn’t any good, which is so far from the truth, but in my little world, that was the only standard to go by.

You put those two things together and a person can be so frustrated with art that they don’t do it for let’s say, 36 years.

So now with my new understandings about life I tell myself that it’s going to be different this time, that what ever I do, I will accept as the best I can do at that moment and by accepting that fact, I could continue to do another one, and another one, and pretty soon each one would be with more experience than the last and that everything I do will be as good as I can do at that time and in order for me to continue painting, I would have to accept everything I do, good bad, ugly or stupid or even silly.

I realized many things, one, where I thought I had to wait for inspiration before, I realized that I created the trance state by just doing, by just starting with a mind set that says, there are no expectations and coming from a place of acceptance allowed what I needed.

I also realized that creativity is always flowing for everyone and anyone who allow themselves to tap into it, it's free flowing all the time.

My blocks were "expectations."

The moment I removed the expectations and accepted what is, and that what ever I do is from me and that’s all I can do and by accepting what ever turns out, that allows me to continue, to create, and as I get better at allowing the creativity to flow, I get better at directing its direction.

Dr. Wayne Dyer talks about how everything is connected or we are all one or all made up of the same stuff. Being all one is very spiritual. He talks about inspiration as really being in spirit.

When we remove the resistances, such as revenge, jealousy, anger, greed, ego, etc. we are able to experience a sense of oneness a little more, it is being there, in spirit where, amongst many good things, creativity always flows….inspiration, in-spirit.

Eliminate the expectations.

Start and accept.

Start and accept.

Once you get better at starting and accepting, then you can get better at guiding the direction, and even then, start and accept.

I was even telling myself while painting, “I like this, this is good,” no matter what it looked like, it was about setting my direction, not blocking my process.

The process of accepting is very much being in the moment. Being in the moment is very spiritual.

Dr. Wayne Dyer also says that when connecting or communicating with source, or energy that is all of us, or religiously speaking, when we are praying to what ever deity one may believe in, we are in the moment, not when we are complaining, but when we make connection, when all the resistances are set aside and we are in gratitude or a grace state we are in the moment and that is highly spiritual. There is no lack of inspiration when in-spirit, hence the word inspired.

It is always flowing, as we learn to allow it, we learn to enjoy it.

Enjoy,
Steve

Aline, I like your parts therapy example, nice work.

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