18 What Are Obstacles to Writing?
Daniss didn’t know what was up, but he just didn’t feel like writing. Daniss had never quite experienced that feeling before. He was an inveterate writer, always either at the keyboard or thinking about what he would write when he wasn’t writing. Yet recently, just when his latest writing project was near to wrapping up, Daniss hadn’t felt like sitting at the keyboard. And when he did force himself to sit down at the keyboard, Daniss didn’t have the appetite to write. Could he just be tired, needing a mental and physical break? Or was it something deeper that was interfering with his writing? Daniss didn’t know, but he wanted to find out. He was too much wrapped up into writing not to have the desire to pursue it.
Obstacles
Writing isn’t always easy. Writing can have considerable obstacles to it. Recognizing those obstacles can help you avoid them or, if you’re unable to avoid them, then to navigate them. That is, if you want or need to keep writing. You must decide whether writing is for you and, if so, whether your season for writing is the present. That said, don’t let obstacles throw you off the writing trail, when you know or sense that writing is your need or calling. Instead, see the obstacles for what they are. An obstacle may be a figment of your imagination, an illusion or deception that you haven’t yet recognized as such. Or an obstacle may be something real and concrete but with which you can deal to continue writing productively. Consider some of the following obstacles that you may encounter in your writing and how you might deal with them so that they don’t stop you from your appointed work.
Motivation
Writers sometimes question whether they have the motivation to write. Motivation can be an elusive quality. The desire to write can ebb and flow with the projects on which one works and in different seasons of life. Beware, though, waiting for motivation. Motivation is an ephemeral thing, if it even exists. We say that we lack motivation when we’re not writing and then claim that we’ve discovered motivation again when we write. Motivation is, in other words, in the evidence of the behavior of writing, not necessarily something that exists or doesn’t exist somewhere deep and hidden within us. And that realization that motivation may just be a way of describing the presence of the practice provides a hint to how to get past a lack of motivation: just start again to write. As soon as you write again, you can claim that motivation has returned. Don’t wait for motivation to appear. Make it appear by beginning again to write.
Procrastination
Procrastination is another obstacle for writers. To procrastinate is to put off until tomorrow, without sound excuse or reason, work that you could and should begin today. Procrastination makes work so much harder than it could and should be. When a writer procrastinates, the work hangs over the writer’s head, while the awful weight of beginning it gets heavier and heavier. Procrastinators feel that weight of starting, which only further feeds their procrastination. A procrastinator will think up anything not to get started. Yet starting a writing project isn’t actually that hard. Open and name a new digital file, and get started. Starting to write doesn’t mean that you’re suddenly chained to the keyboard for life. You may promptly get up from the keyboard to accomplish something else. But then get right back to work. To overcome your procrastination, start writing immediately, and restart writing as often as you stop. Once you start, you gain the smallest bit of momentum. When you restart, you gain more momentum. Soon, the writing flows again without procrastination.
Perfectionism
Perfectionism can be another obstacle for writers. Writers have a natural preference for order. Otherwise, they wouldn’t write. Writing requires moving tiny symbols around a page in incredibly precise and closely regulated orders. The rules for writing are many, especially when one includes not just grammar and punctuation but also word spellings and meanings, verb tenses, and innumerable other customs and usages. Just peruse popular writing manuals and guides, with their dizzying rules and exceptions, and ambiguous conventions. That’s the satisfying part of writing, to know the rules and conventions, and to exercise them excellently. Yet the same drive that pushes a writer to write excellently can push a writer over the edge into refusing to let a writing go until it approaches a level nearing perfection. Of course, in writing, nothing is perfect. Everything is only a purer or coarser expression. Perfectionism relates closely to obsession. Obsessive compulsives can struggle with letting go of their writing, with all the little variations that can look like imperfections. Yet that may be the antidote to perfectionism, to know that in writing, nothing is ever perfect.
Completion
Completion can be another obstacle for writers. Writing profusely is fine, as long as you finish projects. Some writers, though, will labor happily through a project until near its completion, only to slow and then stop before finishing it. If that’s you, then you know the habit or temptation. You may simply lose interest in the project, having tackled ninety percent of it. Or you may regret certain aspects of it, believing that you could have done better. Or you may instead just find another, newer project to be more attractive and stimulating. If you find that you have multiple writing projects going on at once, with several near completion, but you’re working on a newer project, then you should recognize that something has kept you from completing your other near-finished projects. Do you fear rejection or criticism of the finished product? Are you simply lacking in discipline and easily distracted with new projects? Try to get to the root of your issue. Once you discern the cause for your not completing projects, try changing the incentives so that you finish one before moving on to the next. Don’t, for instance, let yourself start an exciting new project except as a reward for finishing the prior one. Send periodic unfinished drafts for client review so that you don’t fear criticism or rejection of the final draft. Fix your problem with not completing writing projects. An unfinished project is not much better, and in some ways worse, than a project never attempted.
Distraction
Distraction can be another common obstacle for writers. Writing takes concentration. You can’t multitask when writing. If your mind isn’t concentrating on the text, your eyes aren’t tracking it, and your hands aren’t busily employed crafting it, then you’re not writing. For writers, distractions can come in the form of doorbells, phone calls, texts, emails, delivery persons at the door, and family members or colleagues walking into the writer’s workspace or calling out to the writer for some kind of help. Electronic distractions can come in the form of news and weather updates, social-media notifications, advertising pop-ups, and technology updates. Food and drink call from the kitchen, and pets need feeding and constant ushering in and out the door, while chores call from the laundry room, garage, or garden. You’ll also need to get in your daily walk and other exercise, and probably run an errand or two. Whether you write from home or an away-from-home workplace, you’ll find dozens of distractions. Getting any serious writing done can require a literal barring of the writer’s door. Help others recognize and respect your need to concentrate. Simply closing your workspace door can be a reasonable signal to leave you alone, at least for a spell. And when at the keyboard, discipline yourself not to succumb to the screen’s electronic distractions. First, meet your hourly or daily writing goal. Then, indulge yourself in distractions to your heart’s content.
Disability
Writers, like other workers, can suffer from disabilities. While writing isn’t generally physically arduous, a writer’s work disabilities can be either physical, mental, or both. A bad neck, back, hip, arm, hand, or even finger can slow or stop a writer. Sitting for long periods, as writing generally requires, while holding the head upright, arms and wrists poised, and hands and fingers nimbly at work, takes physical ability. Pain of any kind, in any part of the body, may be enough to prevent a writer not only from sitting and typing for long periods but also from concentrating at all. Chronic conditions affecting a writer’s mental state, or mental disabilities themselves, can prevent a writer from being productive or from attempting rigorous writing at all. Depression, attention-deficit disorder, autism spectrum disorder, schizophrenia, dyslexia, and other mental conditions associated with learning disabilities can also interfere with writing. Pay attention to your mental and physical health. Exercise, maintain healthy weight and nutrition, get regular doctor checkups, and get the medical or counseling help you need if you suffer disability. Writing is mentally and physically demanding. Respect those demands.
Return
The lack of an adequate financial return from writing can be another obstacle to keeping at it. If you have a company for which you write, either for employment or as an independent contractor, then the income you earn from that work should usually supply sufficient encouragement. A paycheck is a paycheck. If your writing helps keep a roof over your head and food on the table, then you shouldn’t get too discouraged over it. Clients and employers, even those who pay you good money to write, can at times discourage you with various insensitivities and offenses, or even by simply overlooking the skill and dedication of your writing work. But again, don’t take it too hard. Instead, take your paycheck straight to the bank. If you’re not getting enough pay to keep you encouraged, then renegotiate with your employer or clients, or reconsider your household budget and the privilege that writing for any pay can be. Writing may be a better side gig, as it is for lots of writers, than your full-time work. Because writing itself doesn’t require formal credentials (although publication can) and can generally be done remotely with relatively little capital investment, average financial returns for writers can be lower than other vocations. Look at the bigger picture, and either reframe your view, renegotiate your writing compensation, rejigger your household budget, or supplement your income with other work.
Discouragement
Simple discouragement can be among the bigger obstacles to a sustained writing career, especially when writing without compensation. Writing without compensation requires encouragement from sources other than the missing income. And when you don’t get that encouragement, discouragement can follow. Writing many blogs, essays, articles, and books, only to see few plaudits, little interaction, and no significant financial return, can exhaust a writer’s well of confidence and vitality. Writers, even successful and famous ones, get discouraged, especially with big projects. In that case, reexamine your commitment. Start with the writing projects that you are doing. Are they as high in quality, insight, and value as you imagine, if not to others then at least to you? Are you growing and learning, maybe even on the cusp of a long-sought breakthrough? Don’t give up on a mammoth project of potentially great value, just as you approach the finish line. And don’t refuse to continue to hone your craft just as you approach the mastery level. If more writers had done so, the world would be without some of its greatest literary works.
Frustration
Some writers experience a more-direct form of discouragement that can look and be more like purposeful frustration. Not everyone appreciates, supports, and respects those who exhibit special skills, insight, and commitment. Some writers, for instance, find themselves in intimate relationships where their significant other is jealous of their writing talent or the time and effort that they spend exhibiting it. Some families and communities actively discourage their talented members from developing their gifts. The frustration may come in any number of physical, mental, emotional, reputational, or other forms. If you find that others close to you are actively discouraging you from pursuing your writing gift, explain your interest and concern. Try to negotiate a truce. Involve a sensitive and aware third party if you are unable to do so. You may need to change some habits and practices, and attend properly to other duties, in a compromise arrangement. Don’t let a long-simmering situation grow so bad as to entirely prevent you from pursuing your writing gift. You should find at least some room and support to write.
Oppression
Writers may also experience an oppression that they cannot attribute to any external circumstances or even to mental, emotional, physical, or other physiological conditions. Call it spiritual or psychological oppression, or just a dark night of the soul. But writers, of all people, would be especially remiss to overlook the battles that they may be fighting in the invisible realm. We see or otherwise directly sense only a fraction of what goes on around us and inside us. We cannot directly comprehend the powers, principalities, patterns, and purposes that pull with us and against us, especially when our thinking, sensing, and writing touches on that higher and more-powerful realm. When you wrestle with words and meaning, you encounter powerful constructs that have inhabited language to manipulate and control humans since ancient, even prehistoric times. Don’t wonder too much at suffering severe periodic inexplicable oppressions, especially when your writing exposes those ancient angels, demons, fairies, and other divine entities.
Reflection
Which of the above obstacles present the greatest challenge to you? Do you have other obstacles that you face that you can define sufficiently well to address them? Are you generally motivated to write? What increases or decreases your motivation? Do you procrastinate over starting writing projects? Does just getting started with the smallest steps seem like a good strategy to defeat procrastination? Do you obsess over your writing, seeking perfection, to the point that it delays and discourages your writing? Do you prefer to start writing projects than finish them? Do you have multiple incomplete projects at any one time? Can you develop the discipline not to start one project until you finish another project? Do you succumb to frequent distractions when writing? If so, which are your biggest distractions? Can you take steps to reduce them? Do you suffer any disabilities that affect your ability to write consistently? If so, can you seek medical or other evaluation and treatment to address your disabilities? Do you need to pay greater attention to your mental and physical health? Do you receive a reasonable financial return from your writing? Is a financial return necessary or helpful to keep you writing? Do you have other adequate rewards to continue writing, without financial return? Do others close to you frustrate your writing? If so, why? Can you address their actions and meet their own concerns, so that you can continue to write? Do you occasionally face psychological or spiritual oppression?
Key Points
Writers face common obstacles to starting and finishing projects.
Motivation can be difficult to discern, inspire, produce, and manage.
Procrastination can keep a writer from starting or continuing projects.
Perfectionism can keep a writer obsessing over an incomplete project.
Some writers love to start projects but not to finish and submit them.
Distractions are many for writers, who need solitude to concentrate.
Mental and physical disability can keep a writer from producing.
Lack of financial return can cause a writer to seek other income.
Writers can simply grow discouraged from absence of other rewards.
Others can frustrate a writer’s talents, out of jealousy or other duties.
Writers can feel psychological and spiritual oppression.