In Spite of the Army of Voices In My Head, I Wrote a Book
The story was told through a friend of a friend, and I may butcher the telling of it, but it lodged itself in me, and now I’m telling you.
A reluctant PHD student of poetry was challenged by his professor that the only way to get his doctorate, was to write a poem everyday, put it in an envelope, and slide it under the door of the professors office. The professor said he didn’t care if it was a good poem or had perfect sentence structure. That’s it. One poem a day. Under his door. Of course the story ends with the student not only graduating with honours but becoming a renowned poet of his day. I never learned his name, but the image dropped into me.
One envelope a day, slid under the door.
When I finally committed to writing my non-fiction book on creativity, I had many ideas. So many, in fact, they tumbled into my head at the most inopportune times. I had to stop whatever I was doing - driving the car, eating with a friend, plucking my eyebrows, and catch them before they dissipated into thin air. For months this went on until finally I had to write the damn book.
That was when the trouble started.
I would tell myself, “I’m going to write today.” And then the regular routines and obligations of life got in the way, or my friends and family would get in the way, or ….. well, I would get in the way. At the end of each day I felt hollow and berated myself for lacking in fortitude.
“How’s your book coming?” my people would ask.
“Oh, it’s coming,” I muttered, feeling like a fraud.
Steven Pressfield, the author of THE WAR OF ART and the fierce advocate for writers, says of his own writing, “At the end of the day, I’m not interested in how many words I’ve written or whether it was any good or not, I’m only interested in whether I’ve been able to overcome my own resistance.”
Finally, utterly miserable with myself, I took to making a daily two hour slot for writing, and commanded myself to get in the chair with no negotiation.
I noticed in the minutes before I sat down I would get anxious, edgy.
I might suddenly be gripped by the urge to google the mating habits of polar bears, to clean out my sock drawer or call a friend to “check in.”
I came to think of these desires as my ego’s need to keep things safe and normal, not growing, not doing the thing that is ultimately fulfilling to my life.
Its so much easier to do things you have certainty about.Things you know how to do rather than face that scary chair with the looming blank screen mired with uncertainty. What if I don’t say it right, what if I’m laughed at, what if I wasn’t saying anything unique, what if it wasn’t good enough? What if I WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH? What makes me think I’m a writer? Who did I think I was, anyway?
The more I noticed this phenomenon as I determinidly began to regularly sit down in the chair, the more I started to laugh. I would start to welcome these voices, “Oh, here you are again trying to stop me. Well, today you aren’t gonna win. Buckle in there in the back seat. Can’t touch the dials, can’t touch the wheel, cuz I’m driving today.”
Other days, it’s more of a battle, and I have to use a more forceful approach.
“Shut the fuck up, you sons of beetches, I’m writing now.”
I notice it always takes 5–10 minutes after I get in the drivers seat, those voices fall asleep like a fat cranky toddler, head lobbing about, strapped in her car seat.
I am finished with the book now. I have 20 more pages on the final edit before it begins the publishing process. I don’t know what the reaction will be or whether it will make five cents.
But I wrote a book and I like it. I won. I defeated the resistance army, one stinking day at a time. One slide under the door a day.
