Writing Tip: When You Feel Stuck, Go for the Applause

So, did you try, really, really try to write and fail miserably? Or, did you find a way to do everything else you wanted and needed to do except for your writing? If your heart is not in it, sometimes the best thing to do is to step away and shift your focus 100% onto the other thing you would prefer to do. Then, wherever you are, you are really there.

Remember the title of Ram Dass' first book, Be Here Now? In my opinion, we're often stuck because we're neither here nor there. We lack commitment and focus.

Check in privately and see if that's true for you? No one is watching you from a ceiling camera (at least not at home). No one is bugging the inside of your skull. We don't know what's true for you. We have to take your word for it. So be honest by, to, and for yourself.

The brain is in service to whatever it believes is important. You can tell it what that is. It may not believe you (based on your past actions), but if you persist in expressing your certainty about the important of this activity--this writing, this project, this blog, this book--your noodle will come around to your P.O.V. It's not rocket science (but brain science): you just have to show up.

What about resistence and those other persnickety feelings you don't like to feel? Stuckness sucks. Certain feelings suck. But here's the truth... like it or not... no matter what a feeling is, trying to avoid it is a sure sign that it is the very thing standing between you and what you want.

This is a powerful trick of the mind to keep you in lack and limitation. It's like a magician's sleight of hand. "Watch my lovely assistant over here" (he says as he confuses you).

I went to the Metropolitan Opera last night with my Dad. We saw "Rigoletto." At the end of every act, the singers came out through a curtain and took a bow.

I thought, "Holy shit! If I got to take a bow and have applause for every paragraph I wrote, I'd probably write better!" This amused me. As I watched them receive their individual applause at the end of the evening, I marvelled at their gestures.

Most put a hand to their hearts. Some put a hand in the air and waved to the upper mezzanine. There was timing. Two seconds with the hands on the left knee, head down to the earth (very humble), then upwards like Caesar conquering Rome (bold, triumphant). It was mutual and lovely and graceful and inclusive....

Here's my new idea about handling stuckness: practice your bow.

Bow to yourself.

Bow to your reader.

Bow to your brain.

Bow in pure celebration for showing up.

Bow like a stinking divo or a diva.