Why Writing More Often Can Feel So Difficult for Artists
By Thea Fiore-Bloom, PhD
Have a dream writing project that you can’t seem to start, never mind finish?
Or maybe you wish you would write more posts for your art blog?
You should know all writers, even the famous ones, spend a disproportionate amount of time – trying not to write.
Sitting down to write can seem impossible.
What is standing in our way of getting some words on a page?
And how can we help ourselves write, even for 15 miniature minutes a day?
Ralph Keyes has a beautiful answer for us in his book, The Courage To Write.
But before we get to what will help us write more, we need to mention three surprising things that won’t.
Here are 3 Things That Won’t Help You Write More
1. Truck Loads of Talent Won’t Help
If only we had truckloads of writing talent.
Then we’d write all the time, right?
We’d be skipping meals to rush to our computers to pour out our buckets of brilliance.
But it’s not a lack of talent, skill, or even schooling that kills the dream of consistent writing.
Veteran writing teachers will tell you the most talented writers in their class are usually the ones who give up on writing the fastest.
Who in their class ends up published or even famous?
The average writer with the drive to work, explore, and persist is the one who sees their work in print.
“Like teachers, editors find that the writers they publish most often are seldom the best ones. Brilliant writers tend to have trouble producing publishable material on a regular basis,” writes Keyes.
“Like teachers, editors find that the writers they publish most often are seldom the best ones. Brilliant writers tend to have trouble producing publishable material on a regular basis.”
-Ralph Keyes.
But maybe we know the reason we aren’t writing isn’t about talent.
It’s about time.
We’re too busy just trying to make a living, right?
2. Having Tons of Time Won’t Help You Write More Either
Sorry, in my experience, it’s not a lack of time that dashes the dream either.
You know that expression; Want something done? Ask a busy person.
It’s often true, isn’t it?
Think of the most efficient person you know.
If they’re like the extremely busy people I know, they have systems, limits, and methods for getting things done. And done fast.
The most successful magazine journalists I’ve met (the ones who put me to shame productivity-wise) have been mothers of young kids. Some with day jobs!
These moms know they have zero time for resistance. (For the greatest book I’ve ever read for overcoming resistance, go here.)
After they put that baby down for a nap, they power out a few more paragraphs. The cumulative effect is impressive.
Okay, maybe we use lack of time as an excuse.
But the lack of $ money $ thing, that’s real, my friend.
Right?
3. Even Airplanes Full of Cash Won’t Help You Write More
Too much money can also be bad for writers.
Because too much money often equals too much time.
Coffee shops in Los Angeles, Paris, and Portland are spilling over with frustrated, desperate, wanna-be published writers who’ve got boxes of money.
Money enough to be sipping turmeric-boba lattes all day and staring plaintively into their MacBook Airs.
Waiting for their computers to do something — anything.
Because these writers have no deadlines, they tend not to finish projects.
They’re still trying to work on that blockbuster screenplay they told you about ten years ago.
I’m not saying — “Hey, it’s swell to be broke.”
It’s not.
I’m not saying — “You’re a failure if you haven’t finished your screenplay.”
You’re not.
My point here is that cartons of cash won’t lessen writing avoidance.
It often increases it.
‘Okay,’ you say;
‘Fortunately, I’m not Pulitzer-prize-type-of-talented, or filthy rich.
So what’s stopping me from pounding out the pages?’
What’s The Real Reason We Don’t Write More?
Fear.
We don’t write that post once a week or even once a month because we’re shaking in our boots with fear.
You and I may not be finishing that book because we’re afraid of being exposed and laughed at for our wildly different take on things.
We may get nauseous even thinking of being vulnerable on the page.
And who’s to blame us?
Studies still say the most shared fear humans have is public speaking.
And as Ralph Keyes puts it:
“Writing is merely public speaking on paper, but to a much larger audience.”
If you take nothing else from this post, please remember this:
Dreading writing is normal.
Therefore, you are normal.
But if everyone dreads it, what differentiates the person who sits down to eke out those first drafts from the person who doesn’t?
What Will Help You Write Again and More Often
I believe Keyes would say two things differentiate the consistent writer from the occasional writer: acceptance and courage.
Consistent writers have come to accept that writing is frightening and revealing – and they do it anyway.
“The most understandable trap is to wait for fear to subside before starting one’s writing journey,” writes Keyes.
“It doesn’t, won’t, and shouldn’t.”
“Too much good writing comes from writers on the edge.
Trying to portage around normal writing anxieties merely postpones the day when we confront our fears directly and find the courage to write.”
– Ralph Keyes
So if you really want to write more, start here:
- Accept that writing may always feel a little scary.
- Accept that the fear is not a sign you should stop.It is often a sign that you are saying something real.
- Know all writers-especially those you admire- are feeling the same disemboweling terror you are.
- Every day, every imperfect paragraph. Every moment of wondering, “Is this any good?”
- Remember, you’ll survive it.
- You’ll even thrive as a result of living on the sexy thin line between fear and courage.
- Finally, remind yourself that at heart, you’re a psychological Wonder Woman who feels the fear and shows up anyway.
-
“Yesenia Torres as Wonder Woman,” Photo by Carlos David for Personae Project,
Give It A Go
Give it a go.
Just keep a barf bucket by your desk, just in case.
(And if you want someone to hold your hand while you’re barfing, you could always consider doing one-on-one coaching with me.)
Or check out my posts, The 5 Best Books on Writing I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Earlier, or 5 Secrets To Improve How You Write About Your Art.
Anyway, even if you never publish a thing, you still win.
Here’s why:
“Past their twenties, most people’s lives become rather predictable.
Writers’ lives don’t.
Taking chances is a lifelong occupation.
I often meet people who lament – sometimes bitterly – their choice of career.
I’ve rarely met any writers who feel this way.”
– Ralph Keyes (The Courage To Write)
I don’t think I’ve ever met an artist who lamented their choice to become an artist, either.
Have you?
Does anything here ring true for you as an actor, artist, musician, or photographer?
Let me know your thoughts in the COMMENTS. 🙂
You may also like these other Charmed Studio posts:
How To Write a Kick-Butt Opening Paragraph: With this Easy Paragraph Sandwich Template
Start Writing Your Book in 7 Days, With Tea
How Do I Get More Comments on My Art Blog? 7 Secrets You Won’t Hear Anywhere Else
Get Your Foot in the Door of a Museum Store: Insider Tips from a Top Museum Store Manager
51 Blog Post Topics for Heart-Centered Artists for 2020
Artists and Priorities: A Magical Method for Organizing Your Time
This post is dedicated to artist and subscriber Kat Bergman. Thank you, Kat, for always laughing at my jokes. It helps me be brave and leave the humor in my writing.
Check out this encouraging two-minute clip from cartoonist/ musician James Kochalka.
He thinks that if you can draw or play guitar, you probably can write too.
This post may contain Amazon affiliate links. This means if you buy books or stuff via my blog I may receive a tiny commission and do a happy dance. There is no extra fee for you. I only link to items I personally use and love; products that I think help heart-centered artists.
I bet you “naturally talented“ authors have to work like beavers for what appears easily come by. And if it is easily come by, I bet too, like the actor George Sanders, get bored… This is yet another *brilliant* post, Thea. You mentioned somewhere else something I’d been told long ago when I was a singer suffering from stage fright, and my accompanist said to me, “Forget yourself! Think instead: what do you want to give to or share with your audience?” And finally some of the best stuff I’ve had published came from a place of anxiety. Fear is only a feeling, not the reality. “Nothing can be done except little by little.” —Charles Baudelaire
Marnie, bless your head for this wonderful comment.
Have you written a post yet based on your stage fright tale?
If not, please do. It will be so helpful to others.
I wish you were there to tell me to “forget yourself!” when I was cast as the voice of the dragon in some Hobbit-based play in high school. I developed instantaneous laryngitis 5 minutes before the last dress rehearsal. I folded like a beach chair and was re-cast.
But that was then, this is now. Now it’s Baudelaire all the way. Poco a Poco.
Thanks for making The Charmed Studio a more meaningful place.
A beautiful inspiring article, as always, Thea.
I have recently started to realise why it takes me several days to write a 1500-2000 words blog post. A new challenge that I never thought would be such a huge challenge to me. And that is the “readability” score level.
Throughout my long professional career, I have always written long deep professional analytical business type of reports and cases. Now, I find it quite challenging to write articles at 5th or 6th grade level, which I believe is the recommended level for blog posts.
Selecting and using the appropriate vocabulary for that level doesn’t seem to come easily or naturally to me. So I spend a great deal of my time editing and re-editing the article but still unable to bring it to that level.
Suhail, Thanks for raising this important point. I have a bunch of ideas that I think will help you. But before I launch into those can you tell me what “readability score” plugin are you using?
Is it Yoast?
I use Microsoft Word spelling and grammar facility which also includes “readability” score level. I also use other online readability score checkers, e.g. readable.com, readability formulas, etc. I don’t have Yoast plugin.
Okay,from what I have read readability scores (which are usually derived from the Flesch Reading Ease Scale) do have value. But the prevailing advice of going for a 5th-6th grade reading level? I agree with you- that’s insane. That is way too low a bar in my opinion for blog content, especially for the smart artists you write for. I think shooting for a score at the upper end of 60-70 as opposed to 90-100 (5th and 6th graders) is the norm Yoast goes for. Reading ease is based on two things, sentence length and length of words. My advice here would be to worry less about the length of the words you choose.I use long words and still get a green light from Yoast plug in. Why? I think it is because I finally figured out (after much beating my head against my desk) to use a mix of long and SHORT sentences. (I like Yoast because it specifically checks for sentence length and highlights my overly long sentences.) As I came to find out,short sentences don’t dumb down a piece. They can empower your writing. They can impart excitement, unclog the flow and create surprising shifts in tone and rhythm. (Think Hemingway for example.) I have a post that may help that includes a section on how to shorten sentences if that is something you want to try. Improve Your Art Writing Overnight By Forbidding Yourself To Do These Two Things.
Also here is some backup info from Yoast the reading ease score.
Hope that helps, let me know what you think.
PS some of my posts that involve technical terms like say for music, will never get that reading ease green light from Yoast and I am okay with that. These two posts for example tank on reading ease because they involve many musical terms and scientific terms yet they still do well with readers. You do you!
1.
The 10 Greatest Scientists You’ve Never Heard Of
2. The Music of Impressionism: With Discography
Thea, these are great tips to improve readability scores. I’m currently drafting a new blog post about our local art galleries. The initial draft scored 54, which is “hard to read”. I will go through it again to shorten long sentences and the lengths of words. Wish me luck and thank you.
You got this Suhail. Breaking up the sentences when you edit the piece will get easier over time. Eventually, you will write shorter sentences to begin with and not have to wrestle with the pieces as much when you are finished. But remember, writing is re-writing. Oh and try to read your work out loud. Awkward sentences can hide on the page if the author is just going over them visually. But when we read our work aloud, we literally hear what is not working, and we hear it fairly easily.
I recommend all bloggers take Yoast’s SEO copywriting course, I am not an affiliate or anything like that. I just know how much it helped me improve my writing and my google search rankings. If you have strong SEO writing it allows you to leave Facebook, Instagram and Twitter entirely if you don’t enjoy promoting your head off on social media.
PS RE big words
Big words or even technical words are usually not the problem. It’s the words around those words.Let me explain. In my experience coaching brainy writers I see I can help them write material readers love by teaching them how to eliminate “jargon” words. Here’s an article for any writer out there on the difference between big words and jargon.
https://www.plainlanguage.gov/guidelines/words/avoid-jargon/
I know writing is a skill and I’m now beginning to see just the tip of the iceberg. There is still a lot to learn. I’m on the third draft of the same article and looks like I will be spending the rest of the evening re-writing it to improve readability. The past couple of days have been a great eye-opener. Thanks ever so much for the valuable information, Thea.
Third draft! Way to go Suhail!! Congratulations. The more drafts the better. I do an embarrassing amount of drafts on blogs. Remember to let it rest for a day and then eyeball it again. Good writing, like a good roast, needs to sit and cool for a bit to let the juices settle. You will see everything more clearly if you set it aside for a day or two and come back to it for final polish.
Something else caught my attention in your reply. You mentioned “SEO writing it allows you to leave Facebook, Instagram and Twitter”. Although I’m not on any of them, it would be interesting to know more about “SEO writing”.
It feels like I’m going back to school to learn how to write.
If you aren’t on social media (great for you!) and you want more people to come to your site it would be vital in my opinion to learn about SEO which is Search Engine Optimization. If you are interested I suggest you read over my post on SEO for artists as an intro. Or if you are tired of reading maybe listen to my podcast on it.https://the-charmed-studio.simplecast.com/episodes/seo-for-artists-a-beginners-guide-to-holistic-seo-for-heart-centered-creatives-who-want-more-traffic-qZvDr8_u.
And down the road after you rest for a month, lol, consider taking that Yoast course I hyperlinked to in my last comment to you. I’m not going to lie, SEO is no cake walk, but if you learn the Heart-Centered way to do SEO I suggest in my post and podcast, it will help you grow your art business in a holistic way.
Thanks again for the tips, Thea. I am going through the information you mentioned.
It seems I’ve opened the floodgates on writing. A lot more than I expected.
Over the past week or so, I’ve been spending a lot of my time learning to write. And there is a lot more learning to do.
I’m already missing my studio and painting. Painting abstract is far easier than SEO writing lol.
You made me crack up! Yes, run to your studio, be free!! Art is such a different cognitive experience.But then come back to your desk now and then because you have so much to offer the world through your wise words.
Keep the faith, believe in your thoughts and vision, and go one step at a time.
Thank you for a great article. As an abstract artist, I enjoy tremendously creating abstract paintings. I also like to share the hidden beauty of abstract art with others, but the challenge I always come across is finding interesting topics to write about abstract art. Interesting topics to other people that they may find useful, helpful, educational, entertaining, etc. I have already written several articles about abstract painting on my website, but I seem to be stuck at the moment for more articles. I’m conscious of repeating similar topics again and again.
Hi Suhail,
If it makes you feel better, the problem you mention is a huge one for many, many artists. I wrote an article to address this and I hope it helps. 51 Art Newsletter Topics That Your Readers Will Love
Let me know if this gives you some new ideas or jumping-off points.
As always, thanks for reading and commenting. I appreciate it.
That is another great article and enjoyed reading it a lot. It never ever occurred to me that writing personal stories might be of interest to anyone. I have always been thinking about writing art articles without bringing personal experiences in. Why would anybody be interested in my personal stories? But it might be food for thought. Thank you.
Hi Suhail, Think of stories as EXAMPLES. Good, clear, writing includes one example for every major factual point you make. Facts need stories to bring them to life. We all hesitate to include our own stories on our blogs, falsely believing that we aren’t interesting. But it isn’t true. The ironic thing is, personal story-based writing usually makes for an artist’s most popular and accessible blog and podcast content. One of my most popular posts and podcasts to date was a little story about a morning I had on the beach a few years back and who I met there and what happened.No famous people involved.
You can hear it here:Letting Go of Approval: A Story for Artists (That Involves Underwear)
Also, for another example pop on over and read the story of how mega blogger Jon Morrow’s uses personal story to make his writing shine.
How Vulnerability Can Make Your Art Writing Shine
Hope this helps. Take care.
“…turmeric laced lattes…” Ha! I love it, and the article. Succinct, direct, pragmatic (in the best way), thus, excellent! Thank you, Mmlle. Fiore-Bloom.
LOL, I’m guilty of drinking a number of those tumeric laced lattes myself. AT Peets, when I am avoiding writing. Thank you so much Michael for reading the piece and for your kindness and presence.
Truer words were never written. I find I always do my best writing when I know I’m going to have to leave in a half hour or so. The closer I get to the time to go the more into my writing I become, so that I am inevitably late.
Thanks for the great compliment Gina. I like your technique! You could patent it and call it “The- I’m -Leaving -But-I -Am- Just -Gonna- Jot -This- One- Thing- Down” Technique. 🙂 Those 30-40 minute jot down sessions get to the heart of the matter. Yes, what we scribble down when we have limited time can be our best writing. I wonder why? Maybe because we just get to the point because we are on the fly. No time to mire and obscure our true meaning in a word soup of padding and missed connections. Is that why you think?
Could be. But to get back to the point of your blog, I think it takes away the fear because the expectation that you could/should continue writing is gone. Also, we all want the opposite of what we have. Tell me I have to write & I’llI clean 10 litter boxes first. But tell me I can’t write & out comes a flood of words. I start out just “jotting something down” & before I know it I’m writing. I have to start getting up from my computer every hour & I’ll even have to set an alarm. I’m thinking this might improve my procrastination problems. What do you think?
Actually that’s a great idea. You can pretend it is for the health of your spine. ( Which it actually is anyway.)
Great as always, Thea. Keep these coming!
In order to be doing anything really of note, we absolutely HAVE to have one foot in the light (the things we know and can predict) and one foot in the dark (the unknown, terrifying abyss.) I think this is what you mean when you say “that sexy thin line between fear and courage.” I also think that that is what the concept of faith is really all about at its core.
Thanks so much Chey. “That sexy thin line between fear and courage” line was the only sentence of this post I felt totally comfortable with and didn’t re-write 20 times! So it’s amazing and gratifying to me you singled it out.
Yes, one foot in the known and one foot in the unknown (as you so eloquently put it) is where the action is. I had a writing teacher once say academic writing was a tight rope walk between creativity and rigor. But I think writing in general, even acedemic writing, is a tightrope walk between creativity and fear. Fear can crowd out rigor. Fear can trump a lot of things. If writing was a rock, paper, scissors game- fear is a multi-use tool that can convert like a transformer into rock, paper or scissors to counter and crush what sign we throw— but only if we don’t acknowledge the fear is there. I think acknowledging that fear is in the room with us diminishes its power over us and allows us to have faith that even though we don’t know what we are doing exactly, we’re goin’ in anyway and hoping for the best. And the best in my eyes is when someone else benefits from us putting our liver out on the table. The super best is if you find out someone identified or benefited from the writing and tells you in a wonderful comment like you sent me. Then all the liver exposure is worth while right?
I feel like this was written for me! Thanks so much for these different ways of thinking, I will let you know soon if they slapped my fear in the face 😀
So glad you got something out of the post.You can slap that fear down as you say but it has a way of popping right back up again.Maybe keep trying to live WITH it, accept fear as this feral cousin who sleeps over a lot. lol. And try to write anyway.
haha! that is a terribly funny way to put it – I’ll try:D
Thanks for reading, and for always laughing at my jokes Kiko! Good luck with your budding, new group on D.A.
Been using prayer to turn over fear to God. Working it!
That’s great John. Having celestial help sounds like a plan. Maybe when you sit down at that desk by the window looking out on your pond you could ask God to hold the fear for you, just for an hour, or whatever the amount of time you are writing. 🙂 That’s not a big ask right?
Returning to the simple prayers of my Catholic upbringing is calming the monkey mind and bringing me easier connection to my own Higher Self. Been a beautiful process.
I feel more peaceful just reading about it. I’m happy for you John. Maybe a post on the relationship to spirituality and creativity should be in the offing?
The more I retrace my steps through the Catholic rituals of my youth, which I abandoned with SpeedRacer rapidness, the more I see how powerful the words and rituals of that system CAN be if they are tweaked enough to resonate with one’s one truth and time. For me, that is the treasure trove of creativity as it is coming directly from source and our connection to it. Heck, there may even be a new `religion’ in the offing here! Ha! And I am awaiting a new rosary! Who would have know this evolution would have occurred!