Resistance

Procrastination is an occupational hazard of writers. Stephen Pressfield, in his book The War Of Art, explores the subject in a comprehensive and highly readable way, so rather than cover the same territory here, I’ll just offer some brief thoughts. Procrastination, or resistance, is a practise engaged in by those involved in creative endeavors. “Writer's block” is another term used. They all refer to an artist's inability to overcome his or her insecurities, and his or her fear of how the work will be received. Is my work good enough? Am I good enough? The artist is paid, or not paid, as the case may be, to overcome those fears and work. Put it out there. Let it make its own way in life. Let, the consequences be what they may.

A contributing factor to resistance is the lure of social media and other online distractions that are, generally speaking, more fun than pouring one’s heart and soul into work that may be ultimately rejected, either by the creator out of fear, or by an intermediary such as a book publisher or art dealer. In fact, resistance in one form or another has existed as long as there have been artists. There is always something to do that is more fun, and safer, than risking failure.

I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument while the song I came to sing remains unsung.
     - Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941).

A couple of thoughts. First, virtually everyone engaged in creative work experiences resistance to some degree. Those at the minimal end of the bell-shaped resistance curve produce a lot of failed and mediocre work. Picasso, depending on whether or not you count quick sketches, lithographs and other prints, produced somewhere between 20,000 and 150,000 works of art in his life. He painted or sketched or sculpted almost every day of his teen and adult life, often working from 5pm until 4am. Much of it isn’t very good, but his best work changed art forever. In other words, don’t think that you are alone in experiencing resistance. You are not. Successful artists, musicians, novelists etc. develop ways to deal with it.

Resistance is mostly a problem in the first minutes of an artist’s workday. After an hour or so, most creative people find that they’ve got momentum and are deeply engrossed in the work. One technique is to adopt the habit of leaving the work each day on a high note, at a place where you know and look forward with anticipation to what will come next. Ernest Hemingway adopted this approach.

I always worked until I had something done and I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day. . .
      — Ernest Hemingway On Writing

Another of his practices was, when struggling, and needed to find somewhere to start, to write the truest sentence he knew.

   ...sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, "Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say. 
      - Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

Perhaps the quote that most often comes to mind when I think of resistance is that of John Steinbeck. He wrote in his journal while he was working on Grapes of Wrath;

My many weaknesses are starting to show their heads. I simply must get this thing out of my system. I’m not a writer. I’ve been fooling myself and other people. I wish I were. This success will ruin me as sure as hell. It probably won’t last, and that will be all right. I’ll try to go on with work now. Just a stint every day does it. I keep forgetting.
Always I have been weak. Vacillating and miserable. I wish I wouldn’t. I wish I weren’t. I’m so lazy, so damned lazy. . .  
- Steinbeck’s journals were published in the book Working Days.

Steinbeck considered himself to be a failure as a writer, and lazy, so he forced himself to write. The results of that process, of trying to compensate for what he thought of as a lack of talent and discipline, were some truly great novels.

I’ll close with a poet’s thoughts on the subject.

In every heart there is a coward and a procrastinator.
In every heart there is a god of flowers, just waiting
to come out of its cloud and lift its wings.
       - Mary Oliver, The Kookaburras, New And Selected Poems