Unkillbilly's Blog

What happens when a writer doesn’t feel like writing?
In my experience, when a writer feels like that, nothing gets done. The words don’t come, the page stays blank and there’s a vague feeling of guilt that lingers in the writer’s consciousness. That guilt feeling is not dependent on the need for money, on the quest to stay alive. It’s more a sense of responsibility … to tell the story. And the subsequent mental wrangling over the failure to do so.
When the words don’t come, writers generally refer to that as writer’s block. There’s an emptiness in the brain that screams ineptitude. The internal critic has reams of critiques and hammers your futility, but there are ways to defeat the lack of inspiration.
One of the best ways to relieve writers block is, ironically, to do nothing, in other words, to become bored. Research validates that boredom is the crucible for creativity. That if you really want to be productive, even prolific, you must make time to kill time. You want to be flat out bored to prime the productivity pump. And you know what?
That’s not easy to do. It’s not easy to be unoccupied, not for most people, and not in the world we live in. There’s always something that needs to be done! People feel irresponsible if they’re idle, which is an unfortunate artifact of our modern life, with expectations drilled into us from the cradle, that we will be a productive member of society and that we will WORK.
Forgive me, but whenever I think of the word ‘work’, I think of the scene from the movie “Blazing Saddles”, where Mel Brooks is saying, “work, work, work”.
https://youtu.be/rgGccYPHfXI?si=AP4vG...
The idea that we must be doing something, to be working, is programmed into us by parents and teachers. It is so deeply engrained that people feel compelled to work, not just by the need for revenue, but to satisfy this age-old directive that if you’re not working, you’re a failure.
Unfortunately, the evidence suggests that doing nothing is the actual requirement! That in so doing (of nothing) you allow the mind to open and explore and seek out novel ideas and solutions. While effective in stirring up creativity, the practice of being idle is unlikely to be embraced by a pre-programmed populous.
So what other methods are there for unblocking the writer’s mind?
Some authors depend on prompts to help them get out of a writing funk. There are many individuals and organizations, most of them on the web, that offer a variety of prompt driven exercises designed to break up the barriers to productivity. You can sign up for groups that work on prompts together, or you can fly solo and take your prompts into your practice in the solitude of your own environment.
Whenever I find myself facing a block, I like to turn to the book “The War Of Art” by Steven Pressfield. In it, Pressfield sets up the metaphor of writing blockage as the monster Resistance, and how one goes about systematically overcoming that resistance. It’s a very small tome, with very short chapters that are easily consumed. Introducing a regular review of Pressfield’s work can help keep the blocking away as well as give you some perspective on your creative effort.
Along the same lines, there is the book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear, which outlines ways to bring success into your life by modifying your habits. The focus is not strictly on writers, but as most everything we do in life is habitual, addressing your habits may lead to change that reduces the opportunity for blocking incidents to occur in the first place.
Finally, I’ll say that preparation often has an impact on productivity. If you’re not thinking about your story, if you’re not living your story in your mind, it’s catastrophically easy to run into a block. From my experience, getting to know my characters is the key to facilitating block-free writing. And I do that by imagining myself interacting with my characters. For example, when I got out on a bicycle workout, I often take my characters with me. I ask myself questions about how they would respond, what kind of physical shape they are in, does cycling offer them the joy that it offers me. Or I’ll take them to lunch and learn about what they eat and how the comport themselves in private and in public. I know, sounds odd, but give it a try. You might be surprised by the results.
I sat down this morning, and I couldn’t get started on my latest manuscript … so I wrote this blog instead. Now that the pump is primed, I’m feeling much more like attacking the writing. It’s Wednesday, which makes it only two days away from Fridays, and I have changed my habits and dedicated Fridays to doing NOTHING! I fail a lot at doing nothing … but I wont quit trying. Because I believe that being idle builds my creative muscles….

The environment. I suppose that’s a big deal. I suppose I take my writing environment for granted. I can fix that. Because the environment is important.
Jennifer Probst opens her “Write Naked” story with a lengthy address of the environment. Yeah, yeah, I get it. Having a place to compose, one in which you can eliminate distractions. Where you can focus the energy that it takes to write fiction. That is a big deal.
And I’m lucky. I live by myself, so I can easily control most of my distractions. And I’m on this ridiculous sleep schedule. (I wake up every day around two am, and after an hour of doomscrolling, I get up and go to my workstation and sit down and begin.) I’ve discovered that the early hours are my most creative, my most energetic. The hours I keep further isolates me from distraction. Not sure what it means for my health, sleep-wise. But I’m willing to go with the flow, and I do practice a regular siesta. Cumulatively, I’m getting the sleep.
So my environment is fairly secure.
As far as comfort goes, I try to be as ergonomic as I can be. I spent a bundle on my office chair, because I spend so much time in it. It’s a Chinese knockoff of a more reputable brand but at a fifth the cost, I could not pass on it. It has ergonomic features like lower lumbar support and a head rest and arm rests that fold up. But the key for me is posture. If I’m going to be composing at volume, I have to be alert to how I’m sitting in the chair.
My favorite posture is submarine mode. That is, I have all the lights turned out and just my giant monitor illuminating the room—much like conditions you’d find in the command center of an advanced submarine. (No, I’ve never been on an advanced submarine. But I’ve seen videos and I have a good imagination.) And I’m more lying in the chair than sitting in it, with my feet and legs sticking out in front of me and my back at a 30-degree angle to the seat. Arms extended and fingers resting on the keys, ready to relay the composition commands—the words, flowing from my brain onto the screen. I’m pretty sure this posture is not recommended. But it looks cool, like some stoned hacker who can’t afford the light bill.
Add a little music to the environment, and now we’re talking all the comforts of home. Oh yeah, can’t forget the beverages. I have a two-cup cup of coffee, a 12-ounce cup of iced lemon-water, and a beer. When I was working SAP consulting, I was notorious for the volume and variety of my drinks. Of course, I couldn’t have the beer at work. Although I did work on the Anheuser-Busch project, which had a corporate policy of allowing drinking at work for a very long time; they didn’t allow it while I was there, but every day all the AB employees would go to a nearby bar for lunch and drink heavily.
Now that I’m retired, I can drink at work if I feel like it. And the early morning beer is instant gratification reward for getting up and doing the hard thing—which is writing.
So the environment is set. The conditions have been met. And it’s time to get busy doing that writing.
I suppose my point is that the most important aspect of environment is managing distractions. The more of those you can eliminate, the more productive you will be. There’s a time for brainstorming and this isn’t it. Now is bending the will to the word. So you’ll excuse me if I go off and work on my novel….

Because I'm a nudist, you'd think I'd be totally down with the premise of "Write Naked" by Jennifer Probst. I'm not. In fact, I rarely write naked. There's just something ... uncivilized. About writing naked. Clothes are programmed in from the earliest of ages. Nudity is, in general, discouraged, at least public nudity is mostly outlawed. The ultimate freedom of being unclothed has been denied for centuries. So there's a social driver to put some damn clothes on when your writing.

At the very least ... put some shoes on!

Seriously, once you make the decision to become shod, much of the rest of the clothing decisions line up right behind it. I mean, kind of ridiculous to sit there only in shoes. Especially if you've gone to the trouble to put on socks. In most cases, your socks should match your outfit, so if you're putting on socks, you're putting on SOMETHING else. Right?

Might as well, I mean, per my grandmother's admonitions against the unclothed state: "What happens if there's a fire? Are you gonna run out of the house naked?" Only she pronounced the last word like necked. But seriously, what if there was some calamity, while you were writing naked, some earth shattering apocalypse, some perfect storm? And you're naked. I don't know about you, but I don't want to face the apocalypse in my birthday suit. I'm gonna be wearing a full length duster, leather, maybe with some football pads underneath the coat. And a helmet. And goggles. You just have to have a nice set of goggles at the end of the world.

Yeah, to be honest, i used to write naked all the time. I did not seem to matter to my characters, and since I routinely do my writing at 3:00 in the morning, I'm not disturbing anyone. But. After reading Write Naked, I, I--I had to respond. I had to stand up for civilization, as f-ed up as it is. And despite the hard bank towards fashion. Damn, you know it takes six gallons of water to make one pair of men's underwear. Six gallons! Look up the stuff about how much water it takes to make stuff. Then look up how much fresh water there is on the planet, not counting the stuff that's locked up deep underground. You do the math. It doesn't favor the human species.

But what, me worry?

I'm old. I won't have to worry for long. But I feel bad, for the Generations that have followed. Just to make it official, I'm with ya, Gen Z! And you, too, millennials. And Generation X. What the heck, let's bring the Alpha Gen in as well. All you gals and guys. Be alert. The world needs more lerts.