How Resistance Shows Up In Our Writing Practice
5 steps to working through creative resistance
Welcome back to The Process, quiet creative!
I inadvertently took a little break from Substack. I’m currently writing to you from Australia! I’m nestled in the beautiful coastal town of Byron Bay. I’ve been here for over a week now. Time felt really slow when I first arrived, but as the days have gone on, they have only sped up. Each day has been blurring into one.
I needed the time to rest and just be. I’ve been swimming in crystal blue waters; hiking to waterfalls; being obscenely hot (it’s so humid here) and enjoying my downtime. I’ve been journaling a lot. I’ve been thinking a lot. I’ve also cried. It’s been an interesting and confronting process. But, I’m not here to share about my travels. I’m here to share more about resistance. It feels very pertinent that I share this, as I have been experiencing a lot of it recently.
I’m going to share how resistance shows up for me in my writing practice. I’m choosing to speak from my personal experiences, as this is what I can convey best. Hopefully, some if not all of what I share will resonate with you.
This is how I experience resistance: tiredness; lack of ideas; and comparison.
I’m going to break each down, and then provide a reframe to help us work through the resistance we face when it comes to our writing.
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Tiredness
Tiredness is one of the most common ways that resistance shows up for me in my creative practice. Specifically, a tiredness that tells me I can’t create what I want to. It manifests as a lack of energy and a lack of passion for what I am creating and doing.
It’s also important to acknowledge when creative tiredness is also clearly just burnout. As someone who has experienced cases of burnout, putting pressure on myself to write is only doing a disservice to my creative process and myself. I will be sharing more about the need for rest as creatives and writers in a future Substack article.
There’s the classic line that to become a great writer, you need to write every day. That’s partly true — consistency is key. But, this is also a disservice to the complexities of life. Ultimately, we want to be untangling ourselves from the paradigm of hustle culture, which tells us we should constantly be doing and optimising. Something I’ve learnt is creativity does not respond to hustling.
In my experience, what makes a writer or a creative is their ability to choose the moments of pause when it comes knocking. In this moment of pause and ease, we allow the waters of our creativity to flow and move (perhaps under the surface and out of our conscious knowing) but it’s there, waiting to unfurl.
Reframe
Perhaps our tiredness is genuine burnout. For this season, I have been managing burnout. Sometimes, we need to listen to our body and what it is telling us. There is a place for creative fatigue, especially if we are being a creative, artist, or writer full-time. The questions we should be asking ourselves when we are in a place of tiredness and creative fatigue is, how are we filling our cups? Are we overworking? Are we nourishing ourselves? Are we resting? We cannot give from an empty cup, especially when it comes to our creative practices. Taking time to rest does not mean you are failing your creative practice; rather I see it as a chance to breathe. Like a deep inhale, and a pause before the release. Are you creating space for that pause?
Coming to Australia has given me this opportunity to rest, pause, and realign the purpose of why I am on Substack. I’m still challenging the inner voice in my head which criticises me for taking a pause writing on here. But, if the pause is needed, we should be honouring that.
Lack of Ideas
Perhaps you are in a season where ideas of what to write are evading you. Perhaps your fear of perfectionism is blocking you from welcoming the ideas which are alive within you from making themselves known. I like this quote by Elizabeth Gilbert which talks about perfectionism in our creative practices:
“We must understand the need for perfectionism is a corrosive waste of time because nothing is ever beyond criticism. No matter how many hours you spend to render something flawless, somebody will always be able to find fault with it.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Something which stops me before I even start when it comes to my writing is the thought of how people will receive my work. I’ll have ideas for what I’m going to write, and before I even begin exploring these possibilities, my fear of how people will receive it stops me before I’ve even begun.
Reframe
Writing is a constant practice in not only bringing awareness to our words but also our thoughts. How are you talking to yourself when you sit down to write? It’s easy to let the inner critic take control, to the point of stifling your writing and creative practices. In these moments, honouring yourself with compassion is a means of bringing you back to what’s true — you deserve to write and share your story with the world!
Comparison
Comparison fatigue is real people! All the time we spend comparing ourselves to others could be spent creating. This is a trap I fall into, again and again, even beyond my writing practice. I yearn for validation in my writing through others’ opinions, but this does not serve me.
Reframe
What if the antidote to comparison was to do things in the community? Writing is a very solitary act. I’ve often found that it’s introverted folks that turn to writing to make sense of the world, of themselves. There’s also the narrative that as writers or creatives, we can soldier on on our own. Figure things out independently, rather than asking for help when we need it. The fear of making mistakes in front of others feels too vulnerable; like showing our weak underbelly, and admitting, I’m still just figuring this out. The antidote I’ve found to comparison has been joining a community; whether through mentorship, turning to the Substack community, or participating in workshops. Instead of seeing other writers as competition, we see each as a support system. When we do this, the comparison slowly starts to fall away. Folks in the space become co-collaborators and uplifters of our work and our practice.
Creative Exercise
Get quiet. Like an inhale, with a pause at the top before the release of the exhale breathe, welcome this silence and stillness. We don’t need to constantly be creating and doing. I like to lie down and let my mind simply wander. What arises in this space?
Welcome to moments of rest. We don’t constantly need to be creating — let’s challenge the paradigm of needing to do all the time, and welcome the stillness.
Join a community, whether through mentorship, workshops, or online communities, this is a fruitful space to learn alongside others, and be supported by them.
Journal Prompts
How does resistance show up in my writing practice?
What is my relationship with rest? How do I honour moments of rest in my day-to-day life?
If you are new here:
Hi, I’m Hannah!
I'm a writer & creative mentor based in the UK, a regular writing contributor to the transformational learning platform, Advaya, and work within the climate space focusing on fostering resilience amongst young people. I’m also a student of Zen Buddhism, an avid reader, and a lover of the natural world.
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