Rebooting, the Results

Many of you were asking me how my week long “reboot” experiment went.  In short, it was wonderful.   Hard and a bit scary at times?  Definitely.   Worth it?  Absolutely. This coincided with the first week of The Shed Project, which was perfect timing. I regretted not being able to dive right into the forums and post, but it was more beneficial to me to be starting the project during a week where I was mostly detached from technology. I was writing a lot during that week, so I’m going to share a little breakdown for you with bits of my stream-of-consciousness writing from each day.

When I got to work on the first day, my very first step was to go into my Google Reader and click “Mark All As Read.” It was such a simple thing, but I actually found my heart rate speeding up and my hand shaking a little bit! Why was this such a big deal? Instead of running away from my emotions about it, I wanted to really dwell in them and observe what was happening. Since my moratorium was on reading and not on writing, I immediately grabbed my journal and started writing it down:

I can’t believe that actually made me feel nervous. What do I think is going to happen if I miss out on some blog posts? Will the world stop turning if I’m not observing it? Will I be out of the loop, no longer one of the “cool internet kids” ? Why do I care? I don’t think I consciously realized before how important it has become for me to feel like I know what’s going on everywhere. Now it’s just me and my immediate surroundings. News from beyond my little circle will be delayed in getting to me. I wonder how it will feel to be back in “analog” … where important things reach me by word of mouth.

Day 1 felt shaky all around, and sort of like I was wandering in a haze. I didn’t really know what to do with myself. When I found myself accidentally reading a blog entry someone linked, I had to close out the browser quickly (and it WAS accidentally — I did it out of habit, without even thinking.) That made me step back and consider how often I am taking in information unconsciously, just reading whatever is in front of me, clicking whatever friends share, mindlessly absorbing it all. No wonder, as my friend John said in the comments, my “inputs were clogging up the outputs” !

That night I cooked a pretty good dinner, ate face to face with my partner-in-crime, and started working on a project around the house a little bit. It was so quiet. And nice, actually. I went to bed early, leaving the stack of books on my nightstand untouched.

More after the jump!

Get Unblocked.

In an earlier post, my friend Rhett asked, “I often sit down to write, and I get this feeling like there’s nothing much to say. I’m sure everyone gets this, even if I am a more chronic case. Do you? If so, how do you work with that?”

This seems to be one of the many faces of “writer’s block” which, if you’ve ever spoken to someone who writes or read about writing, you’ve probably heard a lot about.

The most common form of writer’s block that I’ve experienced is ultimately based in fear and concern about what others will think. Fear that you’re not good enough, or that nothing you could possibly say is important or will be published, etc. etc.   You are comparing your (as yet nonexistent) work to everything else you’ve read and feel that you’re coming up short.

This is usually the fault of an overly aggressive internal editor (mine’s named Steve) and cripples any bit of creative impulse you had going.   People suffering under this type of writer’s block are worried about the end result of their project before anything is even set down on the page. If, when you sit down to write, you are thinking that it has to be the best, or a completely original concept, or something that will launch you into instant fame…you’ve got a guaranteed way to ensure you continue writing nothing for a good long while.

A related problem is feeling like you have to have something specific to say every time you write.  Again, you’re worried about the ending before you have a beginning.   Rhett is right — this does happen to everyone at some point, and it actually happens to me a lot.   The best way I’ve found to combat this is to take a different approach.  This might mean switching the music I’m listening to, going for a walk with the dogs and observing the outdoors closely, re-reading a poem I love, look over a magazine or recent newspaper, or talking to a good friend for a few minutes.

Most often, I just freewrite.  I write whatever pops into my head, no matter how silly or strange or mundane it might be.  Sometimes these sessions start with, “I have no idea what to write.”   That’s ok.  Eventually, something else comes up.   If, out of three pages of freewriting, I have only one line I can actually use…well, that’s one more line than I had when I started.

I asked some of my creative friends on twitter how they overcome a block and got some great answers:

@vixalicious: I do craft projects – it’s creative, but it uses a different part of the brain or something, and it refreshes me.

@jennyscottmusic: I know it’s nothing new, but I just take my guitar & play spur-of-the-moment, or search for a topic I could write about…

@feachador pointed out a great TedTalks video by Elizabeth Gilbert here: http://bit.ly/7awct

@adampknave:  Keep working.

Christine Kane also has a fantastic list of ways to jumpstart creativity on her blog here.

Keep working…this too shall pass.  You just have to get through it and find an approach you may not have tried yet.  I think we’re all inherently creative beings, and that our creativity *wants* to be expressed.  Our job is to find an outlet and keep the lines open.

quit yer bitchin’.

Last week, I started an experiment on myself.  I wanted to see what would happen if I went for six weeks without publicly complaining.

It’s really easy, when we see something that irks us, riles us up, or that we otherwise disagree with, to jump on Twitter or Facebook or your blog and post something about it. It’s also really easy to create a cycle of negativity wherein a good chunk of your friends list and twitter follower feeds spend the whole day complaining about things.  Now, I’m not talking about outrage over social & environmental issues or treatment of our fellow men & women.   I’m talking about the endless posts about the guy who cut someone off in traffic, the fact that the coffee was cold, and laments over not having won the lottery yet…stuff that is not actually critical to our success as human beings on this planet.

I had noticed that on days when lots of my online friends were posting annoyances and arguments, that my energy and mood was dragged down considerably, and along with it, my creativity.  The ball of stress I was carrying around seemed to be blocking the flow of my thoughts and daydreams like a big, disgusting tub clog.  I needed some metaphysical Drano, stat.

It seemed logical to conclude that if I was affected so easily by that stuff, the people who are reading my updates could be affected as well.   Here’s where the contract comes in.

For six weeks (starting July 7th) I will do my absolute best to not only refrain from posting complaints on Twitter, Facebook, my blog, etc.  but to also go out of my way to share positive things through those forums. When I am about to post something snarky, or sarcastic, or otherwise negative, I will take a moment to think about whether that sentence needs to be out in the public sphere, or whether I can just keep it to myself.

As I write this, it’s Day 10 of my contract and I am already seeing results beyond TweetDeck.

I was raised Italian, so passion is part of my everyday life.  It’s pretty easy for me to get excited about something, and also pretty easy for me to be frustrated.  The upshot is that I can let those things go once I’ve yelled or gestured about it for a minute and not have it bother me anymore…  but this past week, I haven’t even really gotten to the point of being angry.

This isn’t to say that everything has been sunshine and roses all week.  It’s just that, when I feel the impulse to say something snarky, I take a moment to check it.  Having to check my impulse before posting something online has directly translated into doing the same thing in person.  And you know what?   My stress level has gone down a whole lot, and I feel that little well of creativity starting to burble back up.

I decided to extend the contract by a few days so that it ends on my birthday, August 21st, though I don’t think that I’ll ever go back to the level of complaining I used to allow myself.  I figure there’s no better way to celebrate a new year than to mark it with a new surge of positivity.

What small change could you make today that would lower your stress level and allow your creativity?