by Rosanne Bane
Thanks to Rolph Blythe for showing me and the other students in your Loft class how to transform the raw passion, research and insight in our rough drafts into polished and targeted book proposals that make acquisitions editors take notice. And thanks Rolph for introducing me to my agent Michelle Brower.
Thank you Michelle for shepherding me through the process, protecting my interests, and answering all my questions, even the naive ones, with respect, just the right touch of humor and professionalism. Every writer should have someone like you on her side!
Thank you to the Loft Literary Center, a shining beacon for literature and writing right smack dab in the Midwest, for all you do for writers. You are the wellspring of more great books, stories, poems, essays, screenplays and performance art than most people will ever realize. Thank you for the privilege and opportunity to be a Loft Teaching Artist for over twenty years, for giving me the freedom and encouragement to explore the ideas and practices that became this book.
Thank you to everyone who makes the Loft work: staff, board, my fellow teaching artists and Loft members. A special thanks to Brian Malloy, Jennifer Dodgson, Kurtis Scaletta, Edward McPherson, Mandy Leung, Vanessa Fuentes, Dara Syrkin, Kelly Ceynowa, Mary Lanham, Andrea Worth, Paulette Warren, Linda Greve and Jules Nyquist. A special thank-you to Mary Cummings who gave me my start as a Loft instructor and collaborated with me to create “Creative Process” as a legit class genre.
Thank you to all my Loft students for sharing your hopes and dreams, your challenges and triumphs with me. Thank you for being willing to pay attention to and talk about your writing process, your struggles with resistance, and what some of you thought was lack of discipline and some of you feared might be fatal flaws. Thank you for trying my weird ideas and for helping me craft and refine what I learned about the brain, motivation, psychology and physiology into practical applications for writers. Most of all, thank you for every day you show up and put in your time to share your insight, inspiration and perspective with others through your written words.
I owe a similar, but much deeper, debt of gratitude to my coaching clients who did everything my students did on a deeper, more personal and artistically/emotionally intimate level. I hope you learned from me some fraction of what I learned from you, and that our coaching gives you as much as you give me.
Specifically, I want to thank those students and coaching clients who were willing to share their struggles and success stories so honestly, courageously and articulately in this book: Lisa Bullard, Spike Carlson, Annette D., John Drozdal, Elizabeth Fletcher, Jacque Fletcher, Sheri Hildebrandt, Betsy Hodges, Katie Hoody, Kate Larkin, Ann Lonstein, Mary Maloney, Pam McAlister, Laska Nygaard, Gordy Paquette, Peter Pearson, Eileen Peterson, Pauline Peterson, Miriam Queensen, Laura Sommers, Julie Theobald, Sarah Tieck, Stephanie Watson and Jackie Werket. Special thanks to Jean Cook for writing “Synaptic Jazz” in celebration of the book contract finally arriving and for permission to include it here.
“Thank you” doesn’t begin to say what I want to say to my family and friends. “I love you guys!” is too informal, but it comes closer. Thanks for being excited with and for me, thanks for understanding when I was unavailable because I was working on the book, thanks for being who you are and sharing life with me.
Big, big thanks with cherries on top to my mom Lois Walker and my sister Glendeen Bane for being delighted with me (instead of annoyed) when the emails for the book deal came through during our first annual Door County vacation. You made it so much fun to brainstorm book titles and cover art and to fantasize how great the book will be. Thank you for believing in me.
An introvert’s inner circle is small, but mighty. Mighty thanks to Cathy Williams, Julie Theobald, Bob Paetznick, Jane Hensen, Dawn Cvengros and Melissa Brown. You always asked “What’s going on with the book?” in the best way possible. You helped me see that “author” is a cool part of who I am, not something I just hope to be, and that it is just a part of who I am. “Friend” is too small a word for what you are to me.
Thanks to my “Writing Agents” writer’s group: Jackie Werket, Jaime Benshoff, Jean Cook and Sheri Hildebrandt. You’ve seen the book through all its incarnations and permutations and despite all the shape-shifting, you always saw to the heart of it and reassured me it was worth incubating.
And finally, and most important, thank you to you who are reading these words. Writing is only half the communication cycle—thank you for completing this cycle and starting a new one with your own writing. If you are given the urge, inclination, desire, or even a passing, but recurring, thought that maybe you’d like to write, you are also given the right and the responsibility to write. Brenda Ueland wrote that every one of us is “talented, original and has something important to say.” I believe that with all my heart.
A student once told me that she wondered if there was something wrong with her. “I must really not want to be a writer since I’m not writing,” she confessed. I said that it seemed to me that if she really didn’t want to be a writer, she wouldn’t be taking the class. I promised her that the resistance she struggled with was not a sign that she should give up; on the contrary, the fact that she had even the smallest inclination to write in the face of that resistance was the sign that she should continue. Her resistance was a measure of how committed she was, how important writing is to her and how valuable it is to her and others that she find her way through the resistance. I’m happy to report that she found it.
I suspect you have similar feelings, which is why I heartily thank you for your willingness to share yourself through writing. I know how scary and confusing it is to want to write and at the same time not want to write or not be able to write. Thank you for your courage to explore how and why you both desire and resist writing. Thank you for your hope and faith that this book will help you figure how to get past the resistance. Please let me know how your journey unfolds (at www.Facebook.com/AroundtheWritersBlock).
NOTES
Chapter 1. Introduction
1.Daniel Coyle, The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown. Here’s How. (New York: Bantam Books, 2009), 30–53.
Chapter 2. Why Is It So Hard to Write?
1.Joseph LeDoux, The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life (New York: Touchstone, 1996), 105.
2.John Medina, Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home and School (Seattle: Pear Press, 2008), 40–43.
3.Pierce J. Howard, The Owner’s Manual for the Brain: Everyday Applications from Mind-Brain Research (Austin, TX: Bard Press, 2006), 45–47.
4.LeDoux, The Emotional Brain, 161–67.
5.David Rapaport, Organization and Pathology of Thought: Selected Sources (New York: Columbia University Press, 1951), 68–71.
6.LeDoux, The Emotional Brain, 181.
7.Ibid.
8.David Rapaport, Organization and Pathology of Thought, 69.
9.Carl T. Hall, “Rethinking the Brain: Studies Show It’s Wired for Change,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 10, 2002, accessed August 23, 2011, from http://www.drugfreeadd.com/rethinkingbrain.pdf.
10.Jill Bolte Taylor, My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey (New York: Viking/Penguin, 2008) 111–12.
11.Sharon Begley, Train Your Brain, Change Your Mind (New York: Ballantine Books, 2007), 127–30.
12.Norman Doidge, The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Science (New York: Penguin Books, 2007).
13.Ibid., 162–63.
14.Ibid.
15.Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success (New York: Little Brown), 39–42.
Chapter 3. Habit One: Process
1.Dorothea Brande, Becoming a Writer (New York: J. P. Tarcher, 1981), 72.
2.Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence
and Spirit (St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 1987), 32.
3.“31 Ways to Get Smarter in 2012,” Newsweek, January 9, 2012, 33.
4.Gwendolyn Bounds, “How Handwriting Trains the Brain,” Wall Street Journal, October 5, 2010, accessed on January 25, 2012, from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704631504575531932754922518.html.
5.Alexander Alter, “How to Write a Great Novel,” Wall Street Journal, November 13, 2009, accessed on January 25, 2012, from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703740004574513463106012106.html.
6.Begley, “Buff Your Brain,” 30.
7.Sue Ramsden, Fiona M. Richardson, Goulven Josee, Michael S. C. Thomas, Caroline Ellis, Clare Shakeshaft, Mohamed L. Seghier, and Cathy J. Price, “Verbal and Non-Verbal Intelligence Changes in the Teenage Brain,” Nature 479, 113–16.
8.Taylor, My Stroke of Insight.
9.Ibid., 137–45.
10.Ibid., 140.
11.Ibid.
12.Anna Wise, The High-Performance Mind: Mastering Brainwaves for Insight, Healing and Creativity (New York: Tarcher/Putnam, 1995), 2–12.
13.Howard, The Owner’s Manual for the Brain, 58–59.
14.Wise, The High-Performance Mind, 158.
15.Howard, The Owner’s Manual for the Brain, 617.
Chapter 4. Habit Two: Product Time
1.Norman Mailer, The Spooky Art: Some Thoughts on Writing (New York: Random House, 2003), 142.
2.Betty Edwards, Drawing on the Artist Within (New York: Fireside, 1986), 2–47.
3.Rosanne Bane, Dancing in the Dragon’s Den: Rekindling the Creative Fire in Your Shadow (York Beach, ME: Nicolas Hays, 1999), 215–19.
4.Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (New York: Harper, 1990), 1–22.
5.Doidge, The Brain That Changes Itself, 63.
6.Coyle, The Talent Code, 30–53.
Chapter 5. Habit Three: Self-care
1.Matt Richtel, “Your Brain on Computers: Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime,” New York Times, August 24, 2010, accessed on August 30, 2010, from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/technology/25brain.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=your_brain_on_computers.
2.Medina, Brain Rules, 163.
3.Howard, The Owner’s Manual for the Brain, 193, 204–7.
4.Ibid., 190.
5.Ibid., 193.
6.Medina, Brain Rules, 152–53.
7.Howard, The Owner’s Manual for the Brain, 193.
8.John J. Ratey, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain (New York: Little, Brown, 2008), 3.
9.Ibid., 66.
10.Ibid., 40.
11.Ibid., 51–53.
12.Begley, Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain, 68–69.
13.Ratey, Spark, 58–61.
14.Medina, Brain Rules, 16–17.
15.Ratey, Spark, 121–22.
16.Howard, The Owner’s Manual for the Brain, 56.
17.Ratey, Spark, 102.
18.Ibid., 70.
19.Medina, Brain Rules, 15.
20.Ratey, Spark, 55–56, 138.
21.Ibid., 55–56.
22.Ibid., 53–54.
23.“Exercise Outdoors Brings Even More Benefits,” accessed August 24, 2010, from http://www.elements4health.com/excercise-outdoors-brings-even-more-benefits.html.
24.Robert Olen Butler, From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction (New York: Grove Press, 2005), 31.
25.Naomi Epel, Writers Dreaming (New York: Carol Southern Books, 1993), 44.
26.Brandon Keim, “Digital Overload Is Frying Our Brains,” Wired Science, February 6, 2009, accessed May 12, 2011, from http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/02/attentionlost/.
27.Maggie Jackson, Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age (New York: Prometheus Books, 2008), 93.
28.Medina, Brain Rules, 84–88.
29.Ibid., 87.
30.“Media Multitaskers Pay Mental Price, Stanford Study Shows,” accessed August 24, 2011, from http://news.stanford.edu/pr/2009/multitask-research-release-082409.html.
31.Ibid.
32.Matt Richtel, “Your Brain on Computers: Addicted to Technology and Paying a Price,” New York Times, June 6, 2010, accessed August 31, 2010, from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/technology/07brain.html?ref=your_brain_on_computers.
33.Ibid.
34.Ibid.
35.Begley, Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain, 212–42.
36.Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), 112–13.
37.Begley, Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain, 234.
38.Ibid., 213, 235.
39.Judith Horstman, The Scientific American Brave New Brain (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010), 31.
40.Ibid., 34.
41.Begley, Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain, 234–35.
42.Ibid., 242.
43.Richard J. Davidson, John Kabat-Zinn, Jessica Schumacher, Melissa Rosenkranz, Daniel Muller, Saki F. Santorelli, Ferris Urbanowski, Anne Harrington, Katherine Bonus, and John F. Sheridan, “Alterations in Brain and Immune Function Produced by Mindfulness Meditation,” Psychosomatic Medicine, 65 (2003): 564–70.
44.Thérèse Jacobs-Stewart, Paths Are Made By Walking: Practical Steps for Attaining Serenity (New York: Warner Books, 2003), 18.
45.Begley, Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain, 225.
46.Hortsman, The Scientific American Brave New Brain, 32–33.
47.Davidson, et al., “Alterations in Brain and Immune Function Produced by Mindfulness Meditation,” 564–70.
48.Stuart Brown, Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul (New York: Avery/Penguin Books, 2009), 17.
49.Horstman, The Scientific American Brave New Brain, 66.
50.Doidge, The Brain That Changes Itself, 256.
51.Brown, Play, 33–34.
52.Ibid., 41.
53.Ibid., 33.
54.Ibid., 43.
55.Ibid., 58–59, 71.
56.Ibid., 44.
57.Ibid., 61–62.
58.Horstman, The Scientific American Brave New Brain, 66–67.
Chapter 6. Rituals and Routines
1.Ralph Keyes, The Courage to Write: How Writers Transcend Fear (New York: Holt, 1995), 136–37.
2.Ibid., 140.
3.Ibid.
4.Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit: Learn It and Live It for Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003), 15.
5.Butler, From Where You Dream, 22.
6.Medina, Brain Rules, 213.
7.Ibid., 213, 215–16.
8.Coyle, The Talent Code, 44–45.
Chapter 7. Record and Reward
1.Jeffrey M. Schwartz and Sharon Begley, The Mind and The Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force (New York: Harper, 2002), 209–12.
2.Ibid., 338.
3.“Want to Lose Weight? Keep a Food Diary,” accessed October 6, 2010, from http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/114298.php.
4.Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity, 115–16.
5.Jonah Lehrer, How We Decide (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009), 30–34, 55–56.
6.Doidge, The Brain That Changes Itself, 71, 107, 113.
7.Lehrer, How We Decide, 36–38.
8.Daniel H. Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us (New York: Riverhead/Penguin, 2009), 34–69.
9.Ibid., 39, quoting Edward L. Deci, Richard M. Ryan, and Richard Koestner, “A Meta-Analytic Review of Experiments Examin
ing the Effects of Extrinsic Rewards on Intrinsic Motivation”, Psychological Bulletin 125, no. 6 (1999), 659.
10.Pink, Drive, 44–45.
11.Howard, The Owner’s Manual for the Brain, 613.
12.Pink, Drive, 46.
13.Ibid., 62.
14.Lehrer, How We Decide, 52–53.
15.Doidge, The Brain That Changes Itself, 147.
16.Ibid., 143.
17.Lehrer, How We Decide, 60.
18.Ibid., 184.
Chapter 8. Why Is It So Hard to Write, Revisited
1.Caroline Myss, Sacred Contracts: Awakening Your Divine Potential (New York: Harmony Books, 2001), 122.
2.John Darling, “The Ironic Gifts of the Predator Archetype,” New Connexion, July/August 2006, accessed November 22, 2010, from http://newconnexion.net/articles/index.cfm/2006/07/Predator_Archetype.html.
3.Taylor, My Stroke of Insight, 152.
4.Ibid.
5.Ibid.
6.Ibid., 153–54.
7.Jacquelyn B. Fletcher, “Squelch Your Inner Censor,” Writer’s Digest, November 2005, 36–37.
8.Doidge, The Brain That Changes Itself, 168.
9.Schwartz and Begley, The Mind and the Brain, 55.
10.Ibid., 55.
11.Ibid., 60–68.
12.Doidge, The Brain That Changes Itself, 165.
13.Schwartz and Begley, The Mind and the Brain, 78–82.
14.Ibid., 82.
Chapter 9. Four Steps to Resolving Resistance
1.LeDoux, The Emotional Brain, 284.
2.Ibid., 290.
3.Ibid., 265.
4.Ibid., 289.