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Writer's Block · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You're listening to Why We Do What We Do. Welcome
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: to Why We Do What We Do. I am your,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: I can't think of it, host, Abraham.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: And I'm your blanking host, Shane. I guess you could
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: put anything in there when I say blanking, so that's
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: a different problem. But yeah, blanking on a name, host Shane. See,
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: I'm terrible. I can't be creative today. I'm having a
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: hard time.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: We are a psychology podcast. We talk about the things
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: that humans and non-human animals do. And sometimes we talk
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: about the things they try to do, but they get stuck.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: That's what we're doing. We're a psychology podcast. So if
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  Speaker 1: listening to this on the day that it publishes or
• 1:12
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• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Anne Bradstreet Day this September the 16th.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, yes. It's also National Guacamole Day. What
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: a lovely day to celebrate.
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  Speaker 1: That one takes it. That one wins. Of all the holidays,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: that's the one. Agreed. Although, importantly, it is Trail of
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  Speaker 1: Tears Commemoration Day.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, it is. Yes, it is.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Important history to remember there. Yeah.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: It is National GED Day.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Important, yes. Education, good. National Day for the Preservation of
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: the Ozone Layer. Yes.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: It is National Cinnamon Raisin Bread Day. Yum.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Speaking of which, it's National Collect Rocks Day. Yum!
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: It is the National Day of Prayer and Remembrance for
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: the Victims of Hurricane Katrina.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, yes. The event that has maybe been a little
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  Speaker 1: bit more lost to history than it should have been,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: because that was quite the disaster.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: It is National Play-Doh Day. Yeah. Or is it Play-Doh?
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Play-Doh! Yeah, it can be either or. However you like
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: to celebrate, I guess, is what it comes down to.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: It is National... I almost said National Play-Doh Day again.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: It's National Rehabilitation Day.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: For some reason, it's National Stay Away from Seattle Day.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: I'm sure some people would agree with that. Maybe others
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: less so. Yeah. I like Seattle.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: I like Seattle. Seattle's nice. It is National Step Family Day.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: That's good. It's National Tattoo Story Day. Tattoo a whole
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: story on your body.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: I think I've got a few of those. It is
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Teenager Workout Day. Okay.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: It is Working Parents Day.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, it is. It's also Wrinkled Raincoat Day.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: And it is World Barber Day. The barber who gives
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: the world a haircut has a big job ahead of them, so... Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: They're going to be busy for a while.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: They're going to be busy. Thank you for all that
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: you do. Anyway, we don't just talk about the holidays.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: That's just fun and silliness, and it's all good. Instead,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: we are tackling— well, we'll get to that in just a moment,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: but I want to bring some stuff at you. This
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: one does feel like it's maybe on the shorter side,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: but that's the kiss of death for us. When we
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: say that about an episode, it ends up running very
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: long and sometimes multiple parts long. We're like, we only
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: have enough for 30 minutes of discussion, and then an
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  Speaker 1: hour and a half later, we're still going.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: Then we get a suite.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Exactly. We get a whole thing out of it. But anyway,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: thank you for joining us. Let's kick it off. Yeah.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: We are talking about writer's block, but today, in this episode,
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: we are going to discover what Sigmund Freud, capitalism, quest love,
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: and a clockwork orange all have in common.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: They all have the letter T. Nope. I don't know.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: They're all about writer's block. Yeah.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Maybe hair is related, but who knows?
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Real horror show. Okay. Yeah. Very good. Ready to get
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: into it?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do it. Okay.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: So writer's block, it's always important to define our terms.
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  Speaker 1: So we're going to start with that. So writer's block
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  Speaker 1: is a non-diagnosable condition.
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  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Important to start with that. You cannot have writer's block
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: as a disease, as a diagnosis, as a mental health disorder.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: It's just a thing that sucks. But it is often
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: associated specifically with writing and creativity. And usually what this
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: looks like is that it is characterized by either a
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: stop or significant slowdown of creative activity. Output. So someone
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: who is generally creating things, they're making stuff and they
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: just they can't come up with anything. They're like, I
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know what to do. I don't
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: know where to go next. And that's what writer's block is,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: is you're in the creative process and you get stuck
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: and you struggle to produce anything more in that process.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. The term output is going to be
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: really important as we go forward, too. Now, for the
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: purposes of this episode, we are not going to focus
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: on the physical inability to write, like agraphia or muscle dystonia.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: And just so you have this term, agraphia is usually
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: the result of a brain injury or a disease where
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: a person loses their ability to spell or physically write.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: So we are not talking about the physical inability to
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: do this. We are talking about somebody who is fully
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: capable of doing this, but has lost the, you They
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: haven't been able to put some new creative pursuit out.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: All right. So that's what we're talking about here is
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: this thing that is someone could be doing creative output
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: of some sort, but they're struggling to come up with
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: creative things. to put out. And the term was originally
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: coined in 1947, which is surprisingly recent for something like this.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: People have been writing for many centuries. So them identifying
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: a name for this, maybe there were names before, but
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: the name writer's block that we're familiar with, at least,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: is coined in 1947 by an Austrian psychiatrist named Edmund Bergler,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: And so let's do a brief history on Edmund Burglar.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: So Edmund Burglar was known as a thief, and he
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: would often steal things everywhere he would go, but he
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: would burgle all the apartments in his vicinity.
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  Speaker 1: Aptly named.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: Aptly named. Yeah, well, his name was Edmund... I don't know.
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  Speaker 2: I'm terrible at this. I was going to say his
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: name was something different before he changed it based on
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: his trade.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see.
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  Speaker 2: None of that was true, by the way. I don't
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  Speaker 2: think that he robbed anybody, but he was a follower
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: of Sigmund Freud, so he was robbed of Intellectual pursuits,
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: I guess?
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: But he was known for work around childhood development, midlife crises,
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: loveless marriages, gambling, self-defeating behavior, and homosexuality. So he has
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: a lot of specialties in the area of psychiatry, and
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: he's actually most known for his work in the latter.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Even though we are more probably familiar with writer's block,
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: it's his work around homosexuality that actually made him very famous,
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: and we'll see why.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, he was a public critic of Alfred Kinsey, a
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  Speaker 1: pioneer in the work of sexology. I believe that we
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: have discussed Kinsey at some other point. Kinsey came up
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  Speaker 1: with the Kinsey scale, which sort of was like a
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  Speaker 1: spectrum of sexuality. And anyway, Burglar's argument was that Kinsey
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  Speaker 1: failed to account for the unconscious part of the influence
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  Speaker 1: on homosexuality.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course.
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  Speaker 1: That was a problem for him, I guess. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was such a problem for him that he
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  Speaker 2: went on to write a book called Homosexuality, Disease or
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  Speaker 2: a Way of Life in 1956, where the prime argument
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: of this book is that homosexuality is a, quote, curable illness. So, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: Bergler's not known for being very forward or progressive, I
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: should say, in his thoughts around homosexuality. As a matter
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: of fact, this book is quite problematic, as you would imagine.
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  Speaker 1: Being a belligerent bigot is a curable illness, but.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: But homosexuality is not. We've discussed this so many times.
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  Speaker 2: I do think it's important to point out that Edmund
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  Speaker 2: Bergler was working, you know, he coined the phrase writer's
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  Speaker 2: block in 1947, and he's an Austrian writer. psychiatrist. So
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  Speaker 2: there may be some, maybe world events going on during
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  Speaker 2: his career that maybe had some influence on his work,
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  Speaker 2: but he was, uh, he worked in America. So there's
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  Speaker 2: also that, you know, so there's, that's, and I think
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  Speaker 2: that's kind of, that's actually important as well. He was
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  Speaker 2: primarily working in America when this was going on.
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  Speaker 1: All right. So long and short of that is we
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: don't like burglar, despite being coined and studied by an
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Austrian psychiatrist writer's block. which is actually what we're talking
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  Speaker 1: about today, is a uniquely American phenomenon. Uh-oh, surprise.
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  Speaker 2: Weird, yeah.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: So why would that be the case? It is said
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  Speaker 1: to be rooted in the idea that all writers are
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  Speaker 1: created equal and should produce similar levels of work. And
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  Speaker 1: writing output disparities are seen as a deficit rather than
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  Speaker 1: an individual productivity level. And you got people like Stephen
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: King making other writers like George R.R. Martin feel like
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: they never produce anything. Yeah. If the benchmark is like
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: three books a year versus someone who can barely put
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: out five books in their entire lifetime, that would feel
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: like a hard goal to meet. Yeah.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think that that's the core premise of
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: the problem with writer's block is that writer's block is
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  Speaker 2: not simply a lack of creative output or writing. It's
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: that at the end of the day, the writer who
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: is known as that as their trade is not producing anything,
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: which is ultimately the core problem with capitalism, right? Capitalism
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: is a productivity model. And so without productivity, you have
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: no utility. So that's kind of what is happening here
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: in the space. There's this underlying current of, oh, if
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: you're a writer and you're not writing, then what good
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: are you? And that's kind of where the problem of
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: writer's block comes in.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a good point that it would make sense
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: that if the worthiness of you and your trade is
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: dependent on how much you can produce, that the extent
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: to which you would be feel like you needed a
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: term to describe someone's lack of productivity would be tied
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: to cultures where that productivity was, in fact, the metric
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: against we evaluated their worthiness.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: And the United States is a place where that is
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: very much how people treat one another is like how
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: productive you are is the measure by which we determine
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: how valuable you are as a person. Right. Which I
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: think underscores many of the points that we've made on
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: this show before. And I think hopefully highlights to some
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: people why the system has flaws that we all see
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: that we think it would be beneficial if we tried
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: to address them in a way that did not have
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: people's lives seem like they did not matter anymore.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think that there's definitely a problem
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: when productivity produces a syndrome or a condition or a
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: lack of productivity, right? It's like, oh, you're not doing anything,
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: so you must be ill or experiencing some deviancy away
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  Speaker 2: from what is the typical experience of said writer or
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: member of society. But speaking of capitalism, here's an ad.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: All right, we're back. We've been describing the history of
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: writer's block, the stupid people who are linked to it,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: and the culture that makes productivity the determining metric for
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: the value of your life. But let's talk about why
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: writer's block happens, assuming that we feel like we need
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: a term for this and a way to describe it,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: which we are making that assumption because we're recording a
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: podcast about it.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're doing a whole day about it.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: We're doing a whole thing. So anyway, why do we
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: experience writer's block?
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so Burglar originally blamed writer's block on a combination
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: of oral masochism and milk-denying mothers. He also used phallic
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: and anal explanations for writer's block. So, you know, if
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: you weren't breastfed, I guess it's your mom's fault that
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: you don't write anymore.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, could there be any other reason, really, if
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: all things in the world we know are driven by phallic, anal,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: and milk-denying? providing reasons.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: Dude, I wrote that sentence out and I was like,
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: I'm the, I think I might be the first person
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: to write this sentence. And this is upsetting. Like, like
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: this was the, the term milk denying mothers. That's the
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: first time I heard that term as I was working
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: on this. And I was like, that sucks. Like, what
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: do you think they're like having our lexicon? But I
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: was like, dude, I went, I was, I wrote that sentence.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: I went, Oh yeah. Yeah. Writing about history can feel
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: like that sometimes.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: All right. A prevailing theory about why writer's block happens
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: is that it is stress-related, which triggers a variety of
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: nervous system responses. Functions of the brainstem will shift functions
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: related to writing under times of stress. Or that multiple
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: systems and structures might be interrelated, where the limbic system
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: is responsible for creative writing and the frontal cortex is
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: responsible for technical writing. And disruptions in these systems would
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: effectively shut down writing. So you can go that route
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: if you want to go. I mean, it's not super
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: different than the like, you want to speculate about mothers
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: and fixations and penises and anuses and things.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: To say like, oh, a magical thing in our brain
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: made us do it. I guess it's at least more
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: linked to something tangible. Sure. But the ability to discern
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: this in any meaningful way is about the same.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: Right. Now, according to Berrios and Singer in 1981, there
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: are four primary reasons why writer's block occurs. And I
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: think it's worth probably discussing a little bit these like
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: a little bit just to kind of like unpack these.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: So the writer might feel constrained by the rules of writing.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: So like I could see that being the case where,
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: you know, somebody is trying to write, maybe they've created
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: rules in their universe and they are, they've written themselves
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: into kind of like a dead end and they don't
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: know how to write themselves out of it without breaking
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: the rules of that universe or that just like the
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: general rules of writing, technical writing or like grammar or
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: syntax and all of those things might produce some kind
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: of unique structural problems. You know, somebody that I think
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: does a really good job of like kind of breaking
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: that mold is Cormac McCarthy. If you ever get to
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: read Blood Meridian, like he really just kind of goes like, oh,
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: I'm going to defy every rule of writing. And then
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: it just kind of shows an example of how you
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: can really kind of disrupt that. But I think if
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: you are somebody who likes to follow the rules of
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: writing or the rules of your universe, that could be
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: a struggle that can create some blocks for you.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. When you first said that, I definitely had
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: grammar only as the thought that occurred to me. It
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: didn't occur to me that like writing within the constraints
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: of the story you've created could form another sort of
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: barrier where like, wait, I don't know how I get
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: out of this situation I've created. Yeah. Another one is
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: a writer seeking eternal validation and attention through writing. So
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: you're thinking about the fact that like, I would guess,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: and there's probably data on this from like surveys and stuff,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: but I would guess that the majority of writers are
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: hoping for a fairly large audience.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: I think they're looking for people like you pour so
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: much time and effort and commitment and thought into writing
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: that when you've produced something, the point is you've produced
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: something for other people. So when you have a lot
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: of other people, then you're looking for them to write
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: and then tell you you've done a good job. Like,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine how much of a struggle it would
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: be to write something and have people actually read it
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: and then be like, better luck next time. Yeah. It'd
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: be a real bummer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's hard. And
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: I do, you know, for people who maybe write a lot,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: who maybe are going to have a greater volume of
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: misses because they'll also have a greater volume of hits,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: they maybe get used to that sort of thing. But
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: as far as the reasons, the hypotheses we're looking at
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: here is for one of the things that might show
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: up is people who are really worried about the validation
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: and they maybe get really stuck about like, is this
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: good enough? Do I need to redo this? Am I
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: stuck not being able to produce because of this need
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: and desire for external validation? It's like, There might even
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: be like, if I finish, then I have to like
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: get this out. And if I don't finish, it can
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: live in my mind as like, maybe this is good,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: but it might get out there and then people hate it.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Right, right. Another thing too, is that the writer doesn't
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: feel that they're good enough or paralyzed by self-criticism. So like,
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: I could see that being the case for a lot
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: of folks that they are hypercritical of their own work
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: and then they can go back and they rework and
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: they rework and they rework. And then at a certain
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: point in time, they just never release anything. Like maybe
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: George R.R. Martin, where it's like, You know, at this
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: point in time, he's like, maybe, I don't know, maybe
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: concerned that he's not going to be able to finish
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: the series in a way that is satisfactory to everybody or,
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: you know, that's the attention and the validation piece or
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: that it's just not good enough and that he's kind
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: of like put his own constraints on it. Like, you know,
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: writers have all kinds of things going on, but I
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: can see the self-criticism piece. Personally, I relate to that
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: one a lot where if I write something, I'm like, yeah,
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: I don't like that. And then I'm not willing to
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: like release that into the world. So it's less about
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: the lack of output and more about like the quality
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: of the output.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: I got you. Yeah. And then the last one here
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: is the writer is afraid of having their writing compared
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: to someone else's work. I think, again, when you're in
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: a competitive sort of space, it makes more sense that
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: that would be a concern that shows up. If you're
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: in a less competitive space, then maybe that's not as
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: much of a concern that shows up for some people.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: I'd be curious to know if people have a direct
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: experience with this and they're maybe in a culture where
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: that does not emphasize competition as strongly as like the
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: American culture sort of does.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: If they have a different experience with that aspect of it.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: But either way, I could see it being the case
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: that people sort of say, well, that's just like that
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: other person's writing. And then that feeling kind of like, well,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: but I made it to be my own thing. And
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: I didn't mean it to sound like someone else's writing
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: or something. I don't know what might be going on there,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: but that could be an experience someone's having is this
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: concern of like how you stack up against like someone else.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: You're like, You're trying to write horror and someone's like, yeah,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: but I mean, I don't know if it was as
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: good as Richard Matheson. I wasn't trying to be as
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: good as Richard Matheson.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I could see that.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, Joe Hill is an example of that. I mean,
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: and he's kind of broken through. Like, if you're not
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: familiar with Joe Hill's work, Joe Hill is Stephen King's son.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: and writes and then often gets compared to his dad.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: But I think he leans into that a little bit.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: He's kind of like, yeah, it's different, but like, also
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: I'm going to make references to my dad's dark tower
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: world and kind of tie those together. So like, I
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: think he's somebody who embraces that as part of the
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: experience of writing. Cause he's like, it's inevitable. If my
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: dad is Stephen King, like people are going to do that.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: So I'm just going to do what I want. So
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: I think, I wonder if like some acceptance and commitment
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: therapy would be really good in that space to go like,
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: I'm going to be compared to my dad, but that's okay.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: So. Didn't Frank Herbert's son also pick up the mantle
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: for the Dune series and write a bunch of those?
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He wrote more Dune books than his
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: dad did.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Whoa.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but nobody likes his stuff as much as his
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: dad's stuff.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: We'll leave Frank Herbert and Brian Herbert alone for a
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: little bit. Related to the above reasons that we just
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: talked about, it's most likely the author is going to
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: have some type of anxiety or distress related to writing
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: in relation to one of those things. That they're being
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: compared to somebody, that they are working within rules, whatever
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: that might be. And that can lead to things like
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: second-guessing your work, second-guessing what's been written, avoiding writing for
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: fear of disapproval, avoiding the feelings of anxiety related to writing.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: And really, I think it's important to point out that
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: like writer's block is less about the writing per se,
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: but the feelings around or the experiences around writing, feeling judged,
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: feeling rejected, feeling self-critical and so on and so on.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: And that was actually like a specific quote from one
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: of the articles that we talked about is that they
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: were just kind of looking at like, it really wasn't
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: about the writing. It was about the psychological and emotional
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: experiences around it.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: I can really imagine there being the situation of just
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: feeling like, I just don't even know what to say
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: next as a part of it. And the reasons for
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: that are the ones I think that we sort of
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: have enumerated. But despite that fairly reasonable explanation, there's actually
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: not actually like a real cause of writer's block. Like
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: the causes of writer's block depend on many factors. There
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: isn't a thing that is the thing. You've got psychological stress, motivation,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: competing activities, cognitive overload, poor behavioral habits, or at least
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: ones that don't facilitate this writing experience, fluency in writing.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: You could list a whole bunch of things that are
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: going on that have someone just feel like they run
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: out of juice, if you will. They're not doing the
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: thing anymore. And all of those or any combination of
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: those things or any one of those things will potentially
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: play a role in ongoing writing engagement or lack thereof.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. As a musician, I've had the experience of.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: Like coming up with an idea in my head where
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: I'm like, this is how this riff should go. This
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: is how this, this, like this, like arrangement should go.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: And I'll play around with that. And then when I
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: go to play it, I really struggle with that. And
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: so like, I am sure that there's also part of
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: the experience of like having the skill to translate from
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: like imagination to paper in a successful or meaningful way.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: Like, I mean, Tolkien spent decades writing Lord of the
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: Rings and, and the greater lore of it. And you
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: could tell that he spent time and effort doing that.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: But I mean, how difficult must that have been to
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: really capture that world and the feeling and all that
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: stuff in that writing in a way that was satisfactory, right?
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: And so there's that part too, just like kind of
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: like that ability to translate from like idea to paper,
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: idea to product is really, really quite difficult.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: For sure, yeah. Now, Famous authors also experience writer's block
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: and cite different possible causes, maybe ones that are more personal, relatable,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: or in their direct experience. So we are going to
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: list a few examples for some really well-known authors and
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: things that they have said about their experiences around writer's block.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: And the first one is a podcast block called an ad.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: All right, we're back. I teed up a whole bunch
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: of things and then didn't deliver at all. We're going
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: to talk about some authors and what they've said about
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: writer's block. Yeah.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: So let's start with Anthony Burgess. So Anthony Burgess of
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: Clockwork Orange.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Clockwork Orange. Yeah.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Incredible work, incredible book. And he said this about writer's block. Quote,
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: I don't get writing blocks except from the stationer, but
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: I do feel so sickened by what I write that
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: I don't want to go on. End quote. So you've
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: got somebody who has written these incredible works, and he's like,
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: I don't want to keep doing this. I hate what
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: I did. Self-criticism, right?
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: There were parts of A Clockwork Orange that were kind
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: of hard to read.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I get it.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: And having written a little bit of fiction myself, you
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: do find yourself in a position where you have to
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: write gross stuff because you are... To create the experience
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: of a character to show what that character is, you
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: would just have to paint them with that brush. Yeah.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: At least that was the experience I had. And I
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: imagine that's the experience a lot of them have, that
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: it's just like, I need you to understand how... What
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: this character is all about. And that just means they
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: do bad stuff. And here's bad stuff that they do. Right.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Judy Blume famously wrote so many things. I think this
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: is author of Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: and Freckle Juice and a variety of things. Also, very
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: cool biography. Very complicated person. Just really interesting all around. Yeah.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Worth looking into. There's a podcast I listened to that
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: did a whole profile on her. recommend checking that out.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: It was from Stuff You Should Know. So anyway, Judy
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Blume said, quote, I don't believe in writer's block. For me,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: there's no such thing as writer's block. Don't even say
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: writer's block, end quote. I think it's trying to sort
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: of manifest lack. Yeah. It's not real.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: La, la, la, la, la.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: You can't tell me it's real.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Plug in her ears. La, la, la. Yeah. Now,
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: Truman Capote... in his biography, they said, quote, Capote spent
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: the last 10 years of his life pretending to write
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: a novel that was never there. This author was kind
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: of saying, you know, he continued to discuss that he
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: was writing, but left some of his works incomplete. And
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: it was believed that because Capote saw the public outcry
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: related to one of his works, he'd had like a
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: nervous breakdown and was able to continue writing consistently. So,
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: you know, Capote famously wrote In Cold Blood and Breakfast
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: at Tiffany's, and had some really great, I mean, just
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: historic novels. But some of his later works were completely
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: unfinished because he had had this experience with some of
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: the criticisms.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Wow. Harper Lee of To Kill a Mockingbird fame wrote, quote,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: I've found I can't write. I have about 300 personal
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: friends who keep dropping in for a cup of coffee.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: I've tried getting up at six, but then all the
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: six o'clock risers congregate.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: I love that quote. When I was reading that, I
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: was like, that's so great. That's a funny way to
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: say that.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I relate to this way of thinking about things. Yeah.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Lee famously published her second novel, Ghosts at a Watchman,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: 55 years after her debut, To Kill a Mockingbird. I
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: remember when Ghosts at a Watchman came out. Yeah. Yeah.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: So cool.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: First of all, could you imagine like your debut novel
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: being To Kill a Mockingbird and then going, I think
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: I'm done. And then like doing that. And then later,
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: like later she was like, oh, you know what? Maybe
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: I've got something. And then 55 years later, her second book. Like,
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: that is a writing schedule that is unbelievable.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: And also, too, like, she wasn't working on Ghosts at
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: a Watchman during that time. Like, she was kind of like,
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: she took a break. She wasn't really writing.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: She was having coffee with friends.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: She was having coffee with 300 friends that would drop by,
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: including the Six O'Clock Risers.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: Now, Stephen King said this. And so Stephen King, who
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: is a prolific writer, has written over 80 novels, you know,
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: which is an insane number, by the way.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: That's so many. That's an insane number.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: That's, yeah, you can't compare yourself to Stephen King. That's unrealistic. Like,
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: if you're a writer, do not compare yourself to his output.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: His output is insane. We're going to talk more about
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: him later. But he said, quote, there may be a
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: stretch of weeks or months when it doesn't come at all.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: This is called writer's block. Some writers in the throes
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: of writer's block think that their muses have died, but
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: I don't think that happens often. I think what happens
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: is that the writers themselves sew the edges of their
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: clearing with poison bait to keep their muses away, often
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: without knowing they are doing it. End quote. Nice. So
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: basically he's just saying like they're kind of like self-sabotaging,
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: but also what a creative way to describe like it's
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: your own fault that you've got writer's block.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Sure, yeah. Yeah, that was written like a writer would
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: write it.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: That was written like Stephen King would write about writer's block.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: He even made writer's block sound interesting.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: George R.R. Martin famously said about writer's block... All right.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about, there might be some strategies for fixing.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: Nice.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: I didn't actually look up anything he said. I just,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: and I know that we've thrown him under the bus
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: already this episode, but.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: Easy target. Current target right now.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. It's contemporary. We're just poking fun. I actually
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: think he's a really good writer. He just, he got
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: really stuck. And it's fine. I made peace with it.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: At this point, I almost might be disappointed if he
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: did finish the series because I'm like, I'm going to
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: start placing bets on the fact that this is never
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: coming out. So don't make me lose those bets. Or
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: it'll come out posthumously.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I'm giving an understanding he's outlined how the
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: rest of the story is supposed to finish. And that's
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: part of what they used for informing how they ended
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: the show. Yeah. Anyway, there's nothing he could write that would,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: I think... Upset fans as much as the end of
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: the show did. So sure, sure. Go do whatever. Let's
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: get into some strategies for how to potentially overcome this
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: issue of writer's block. Yeah.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: So just like there are factors and many factors that
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: contribute to writer's block, there are a variety of solutions
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: or possible solutions to address it. And here are a
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: few that were mentioned in the research as we were
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: kind of going forward. One of them was take a break.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: And basically just the recommendation was stop what you're doing, rest, eat,
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: do all the things you're supposed to, like refill your cup.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: And a lot of writers would actually cite that continuing
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: to write would drain their motivation. So like they would
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: feel like they, as they were continuing to work on
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: this thing and work on this project, they were getting
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: less and less motivated the longer they worked on it.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: So taking a break and kind of walking away from
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: it was really helpful.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: I could see that. Another one that's sort of maybe related,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: because you can do these at the same time, is
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: to engage with other media. Sometimes a spark of inspiration
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: can come from somewhere else. Rather than try to just
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: drill and focus on the work that you're in progress,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: if you feel like you're stuck, you can take time
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: to consume something else and might get like a, oh,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: that makes me think about this. And sometimes it's not
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: even related to the thing you're consuming. It's just all
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, because you sort of stepped away from
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: it and you're allowing yourself to just be enmeshed in
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: like something else.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: You'll have that epiphany moment of like, oh, I have
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: an idea for what I could do with this. And
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: then write it that way. Yeah. Yeah.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: Another thing that you could, you could get a writing prompt.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: So a writing prompt provides an opportunity to think about
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: the subject or the idea that you might not have
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: come up with on your own. So it might be
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: just a question that you bring yourself, or it might
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: be like even a different prompt that's unrelated to the
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: work that you're working on. And I think that's actually
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: kind of nice. Like the idea behind like kind of
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: looking at a writing prompt or like answering a question
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: it kind of helps grease the wheels around writing a
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: little bit. Like you just kind of mentioned, it kind
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: of gives you those ideas of it. Oh, I didn't
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: think of it like this, or I didn't think of
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: it from this angle, or, you know, it kind of
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: gives you an opportunity to kind of like break out
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: of that, that stuck spot you're in.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: So can you say a little bit more about like,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: what do you mean get a writing prompt? Like you
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: like look up, like look one up or something? Yeah.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: Look up writing prompts or like, you know, it could
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: be something like, let's say, okay, let's talk about Game
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: of Thrones. Cause we're in the, in the middle of that.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: And you go, okay, so if Jon Snow is the
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: commander of the Night's Watch, what conflict would he experience? Or,
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: you know, like, what were to happen if blank character
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: were to sit on the Iron Throne? And then, like,
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: kind of, like, do something like that. And then that
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: would lead to a series of questions to answer. And
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: then connectivity, like, you know, connective tissue and whatnot in
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: the story.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, I guess I could see that making a lot
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: of sense, actually. It's sort of like engage in a
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: hypothetical what if, and even if that you don't pursue that,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: that has you think about other... aspects of what you're
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: trying to write that might then guide you toward, even
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: though this, I don't want to do that thing that
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: makes me think about this other thing. And now I
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: need to find a way to get there, which gives
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: me something to write about, which is like, now I,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: I sort of see the bridge between this part and
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: this part to help build the story out. Yeah.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: And I think in a story where you have so
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: many characters, like, and it depends, right? Like, so like,
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: is it like, there are stories where there are so
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: many characters like game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: And like, you kind of have these, these moments where
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: you go, okay, So this person is experiencing this conflict.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: How do we get this person connected to this person?
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: You know, or if it's like a story that's a
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: little bit more isolated, you know, things like Perks of
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Being a Wallflower or I think of like, like there's
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: a book that I read many years ago called Kiss
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: Me Judas, which was really great. And it was about
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: a guy who woke up in a bathtub without his kidney.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: And so like, but it was a singular focus or
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: like Neuromancer, right? Like, like singular character, central conflict focused
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: on kind of like how they interact with the world
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: around them. And like, now you put them in different
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: situations because it is ultimately the world you've created. But like,
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: it's like you ask questions about like, what happens when
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: this character is in this situation? Like, you know, and
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: you kind of like throw those, those out there too.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: So it kind of feels like that's how comic books work.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: Like that sort of line of inquiry. Yeah.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like, what happens if Captain America is a secret
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: HYDRA agent?
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Like, let's figure out that story and how we get there,
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: you know?
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. That's interesting. All right. Another thing you can
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: do is write. Yeah. So you're... You're not writing, instead
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: do writing. Questlove talks about this in his book, Creative Quest,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: one that you've recommended before and I strongly recommend again.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: One that's on my list because I do want to
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: check this out. I like Questlove a lot. I'm looking
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: forward to checking out what he's... What he's put down,
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: but simply put what he says is just, just right.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: Even if it's trash, like just generate stuff, something might
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: shake out in the wash. And this is definitely something
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: I have taken on as a strategy when I've tried
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: to write is like, if I feel like I'm at
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: a point where I'm like, I'm not really sure where
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: to go next or how to make these things work.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: I just start like writing things. And like, I'll end
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: up deleting a lot of it, but sometimes it gives
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: me the like, oh, you know what I just realized
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: is like this part needs to actually happen after this part,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: which means I now need to segue between those two parts.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: And that'll help me build out this first part so
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: that I can then transition after this part. And it
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: just helps me get going. It's like, I use almost
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: nothing that I wrote, but it does get me thinking
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: about it. It's sort of like the writing prompt thing
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: in a way, because it just gets me thinking about things.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: And so if you're not writing, then the solution is
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: start writing potentially. That's a recommendation at least.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, for sure. And he talks about that a
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: lot in his book, which is great. Another one is
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: engaging in writing routines. Sometimes advertisers do this where they
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: just sit down and they just write and write and
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: write ads. And then just instead of throwing stuff out
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: in the trash, they spend their entire morning writing ads.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: They send those ads out and then they end up
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: on podcasts like this. All right. So advertisers don't have
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: any sort of like process for writing. They just do it.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: And it's mean to everybody that hears it. So let's
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: talk about what a real writer does for their routine.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: And writing routines can be really helpful. Sometimes people just
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: really like good structure and that can be really valuable.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: And Stephen King famously adheres to a very strict writing routine.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: And I would say he's had a moderately successful career.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think some people have heard of him.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, he's not like, you know,
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: just literally living off of his writing and all the
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: movie rights forever. So here's what he does. And this
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: is exactly what he says. He says he wakes up,
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: he eats breakfast, he takes a long walk, and then
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: he sits down around 830 every morning, 830 in the morning,
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: to write and write and write and write with the
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: goal of writing anywhere between 1,000 to 2,000 words per
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: day minimum. That's it. That's his only goal, is to
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: write 1,000 to 2,000 words minimum. That is not a
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: lot compared to the amount of novels that he puts out.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: Because his books are 1,000 to 2,000 pages.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He's fitting like 1,000 words on a page.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: But I mean, if you do that every single day,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: you're writing hundreds of pages a year. Right. Right.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And now his workspace also has no phone, no TV,
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: no internet access.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: And he listens to rock or metal when he writes.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: He is a famously punk rock dude, loves the Ramones,
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: and that's what he does. And so that's his routine.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: And he does that, I think he said he does
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: that till about 11.30 every day, anywhere between, so like
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: three hours, four hours is about what he spends writing
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: and then he's done for the day. Sometimes he returns
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: to it if the idea or the music struck him,
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: but that's his routine. He does that every single day. Wow.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: A three-hour day feels like a very nice work day.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: I would be okay with this.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: Good for him, you know? Good for him.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: And actually, there's a book that I read in grad
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: school that was strongly recommended to other grad students to
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: help them write their theses and dissertations called How to
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: Write a Lot. It's actually very short, ironically. maybe ironically, coincidentally,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: written by Paul J. Sylvia. I believe there's maybe a follow-up,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but it's actually also not, you might
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: not expect that this is one of the funniest books
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: I've ever read. It's very short, but he strongly recommends
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: the routine. He was like, have a dedicated writing time,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: treat it like it's your job, sit down and do
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: the thing. There are many things he says in that book,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: but one of the biggest key takeaways is like, just
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: stick to it. I'm like, if you write 10 minutes
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: a day, every day, you will do so much more
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: writing than if you try and binge out all of
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: your writing all at once. It's like, no matter what
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: you're writing, do a schedule, sit down and do it.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: And so that I think there are multiple people who
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: have as their sort of consensus and goal for this
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: of like, just do it every single day, at least
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: a little bit.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: A little bit every single day. I mean, it really
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: makes a difference.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: At least have a schedule. Like maybe it might just
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: be like a Monday through Friday thing or whatever, but
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: like whatever your schedule is, stick to the schedule. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: That was my, the best advice I got when I
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: was doing my dissertation was like, just chip away at it.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: Like you're not going to write it all in a day.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: It's a huge document. It's a huge bit of work.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: It's a huge project. So just chip away at it.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: And every little bit is closer to it's the metaphor, right?
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: The elephant metaphor. Like how do you eat an elephant
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: one bite at a time?
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: Which PETA does not like that one, by the way. But,
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: Understandable.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, understandable. Now, another recommendation is that you want to
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: eliminate distractions. Now, you might find yourself easily pulled in
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: a lot of different directions. I mean, we kind of
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: talked about how Stephen King does this, where he has
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: no internet, no phone, no TV access, nothing in his office,
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: which makes sense. So you should set up your environment
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: to avoid those distractions. You put your phone on do
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: not disturb. You listen to music. For me, I have
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: to listen to music without lyrics. If I start listening
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: to lyrics, I start singing the songs and I get
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: caught up in that. And I think just as a
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: general rule follows Stephen King's advice. Read his book on writing.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: He wrote a book about writing and it's one of
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: the best books about writing that you could possibly read.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Makes sense. Yeah. I like to listen to very heavy
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: metal when I'm writing because I don't necessarily get pulled
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: into the lyrics as much because I'm not necessarily paying
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: attention to them. This is actually a time that I
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: also tend to put on a lot of new music
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: that I've not listened to before because I'm not familiar
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: with it. It's not going to steal my attention away
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: as readily as other things. And so I'm like, oh,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: I've never really checked out this band before. I'm going
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: to give them a listen and just throw on sort
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: of like, what are their top songs and let it
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: play through that for a while. And sometimes I find
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: great music that way, but a lot of times it's
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: just a way for me to keep my focus maintained
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: while I get to listen to music I really enjoy
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: that doesn't necessarily suck my attention away from it.
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: Right. Exactly. That makes sense. All right.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about sort of the behavior science view of
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: this thing. Yeah.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: So this term was coined in 1947. It started to
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: kind of pick up steam in like the 60s and 70s.
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: And so it makes sense that Behavior Analysis would write
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: an article about this. And so Upper, in 1974, wrote
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: an incredible article. Super easy read, by the way.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: Definitely.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: It was famously about the unsuccessful behavior analytic treatment of
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: writer's block. If you've never read this and you don't
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: know the joke, it's worth looking it up before I
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: say anything. So pause here and look it up. Go
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: to the show notes. But it's a blank piece of paper. Yeah.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: Just the title.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: It's one of the best jokes I've ever seen. And
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: it's been cited many, many times. I think we talked
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: about it on the show, where it's been cited like...
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: Something like almost 100 times across different disciplines. And there
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: are multiple replications of it that are also blank pages
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: in different disciplines.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: That tracks.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's such a great joke. I love it.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: Yes. It is a very good joke. Unsuccessful treatment of
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: writer's block. Blank page.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. All right.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: Huston in 1998. treats writer's block as pathological, as a
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: diagnosable condition, and provides treatment, early detection, revising expectations, conducting
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: task analyses, and giving oneself positive feedback are all recommendations
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: in this article. And they also recommend creative exercises such
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: as brainstorming, role playing, and even therapy. As a thing
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: that you could potentially do. So, sure, I guess. Yeah.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: So, 1998, Huston shows up and says, hey, this is
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: a problem. Do everything. Here's a wide net.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. That's basically it. Shotgun approach.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: Shotgun approach. Absolutely. Like, any of these things could work.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: I also made a note, too, that Huston and Moore
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: had no friends because they had written the articles by themselves.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: Because we usually say, you know, like, author and friends.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: But I decided to remove that. but then I brought
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: it back. So here it is. So these guys don't
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: have any friends. Now more in 2013, they go further
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: to evaluate the quote unquote myth of writer's block, positing
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: that the phenomenon is a uniquely American thing. Again, I
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: think that's valuable to understand. And it's brought on by
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: a culture of productivity. Like we mentioned earlier, they go
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: on to cite examples like Henry Roth and Ralph Ellison,
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: also famous authors who had famously experienced writer's block. And
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: they produced many works and still reported having it regularly,
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: experiencing the stressors or the problems related to writer's block
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: pretty regularly. Ralph Ellison, if I remember correctly, he wrote
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: The Invisible Man. Oh, okay. I mean, incredible work. And
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: so again, famous authors who had the same experience. All right.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: We do have some friends now, Bastug, Ertem, and Keskin
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: in 2017. They cite causes related to grades, fear of
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: being criticized. I assume grades is in like school.
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: Letter grades here.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. negative or coercive classroom settings, lack of information
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: about writing, and illiteracy, that definitely feels relevant to being
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: able to write, as all being interrelated factors that would
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: contribute to writer's block when it occurs. Yeah.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: I love an article that just backs up common sense sometimes.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: It's like, illiteracy would for sure... be related to writer's block.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: If I can't read or write, then I'm not going
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: to write.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: Now, Ahmed and Gus in 2022, because we're still doing
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: studies on writer's block, they suggest writer's block can occur
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: at any time due to a variety of factors. Shocking.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: And they recommended four solutions. Taking a break, working on
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: a different project, forcing oneself to continue writing, and discussing
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: ideas with others.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: So, I mean.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: There's no tried and true. I think what it comes
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: down to, there's no tried and true method for like
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: addressing writer's block. There's no cause of writer's block that
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: we know of other than like, it seems like multiple
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: factors that play a role. And we're doing a lot
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: of studies on this, but we're finding that it's kind
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: of the same thing. It's like, Hey, if you're stuck,
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: do something different. And that usually is the recommendation. I
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: don't know if it's a solution, but it seems like
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: the recommendation at least.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: Very fair.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: I think if we just break down what is happening
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: when we're writing and What is happening when we're creating
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: and what is happening when we're stuck? And think about
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: that just, again, very sort of objectively zoomed out. Let's
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: not try and superimpose any specific meaning or implications or
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: inferences upon it. Just what is happening? And when you're writing,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: you are producing writing specifically, like there's other forms of
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: writing with music. You're doing something else potentially. But for
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: the ease of discussion, let's talk about writing as in
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: producing text. you're just producing words, right? So if you're
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: not producing words, then the solution is to produce words.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: But you could also be in the position where if
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: you've done it too much, then like you might, that
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: whole taking a break thing of like, just take a
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: step away from this for a minute. You're a little
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: too immersed in it. It's like, if you're exercising, there
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: is a point at which you need to stop. Like
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: if you exercise nonstop, you will hurt yourself. You will
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: have counterproductive outcomes. Like there is a point at which
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: you have done as much as it makes sense for
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: you to do. So like if you're writing, write until
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: you need to take a break, which maybe is a
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: few hours or something, and then take that break and
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: then do something else. And then you can come back
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: to it later. But also the like, again, if you're
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: just looking at what happens when you're doing writing things
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: is like, If you're not doing writing, then the solution
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: is do writing. Right. And that makes a lot of
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: sense to me. And the other thing I would add to, again,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: from my personal experience, is I found tremendous, tremendous value
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: in outlines. And sometimes what I've done is I've written
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: an outline for how I wanted us, and this is
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: both technical and creative writing, but let's say creative writing,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: outline for how I want a story to go. And
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: then I'm writing and I'm filling it in. And I
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: personally do not write linearly. I jump around to different
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: parts of the story, whatever sort of speaks to me
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: at the moment. I just look at my outline, see
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: what I'm I'm like, I'm really feeling this part of
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: the story right now. I want to flesh that part out.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: And then I go and I write on that for
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: a little bit and that'll go back. And sometimes I
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: revise my outline. I was like, you know what? I
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: actually don't want the story to go quite like this.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: I actually want to change it this way. And like,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: that's still writing. So, you know, I think as long
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: as you're spending time in the process of it, engaging
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: with it, then you're doing the writing thing. And like,
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: You don't want to necessarily tinker endlessly, probably. Although there's
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: maybe something to be said about there being value in
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: writing for the sake of writing. And just like, you
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: write because you like getting your words out on a
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: page and engaging with it in that way could potentially
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: be helpful to you, therapeutic even in some cases. But anyway,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: so that's a thought I've had is like, make an
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: outline and then go back and revisit your outline. And
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: that might help get you going if you're feeling like
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: you're a little bit stuck. Yeah.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: I think an outline is... such a great recommendation. Like
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: it has helped me map out, especially cause like I'm
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: somebody who thinks very like in a linear way. Like
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: I think having that map is so helpful and so
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: useful to kind of like, Oh, I need to make
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: sure I hit these points and lead up to these
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: points and all that. Like it's one of the most
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: helpful things I've ever experienced. Like an outline, a good
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: outline rules. Stephen King does not use an outline though.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: So there's also that. Yeah. Okay. He lets the story
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: take him, take it where it's going to go. So,
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: cause he does, he just kind of like writes to
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: write and then it just, it leads to these different places.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: It's very strange.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: Well, then that works for him. That's great. I like
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: to be thinking about like.
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: He's a freak.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: You can't, you can't write like nobody can write like him.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: So don't try.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: Don't try to be Stephen King is the lesson. The
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: lesson here. Yeah. Yeah. No, I like the outline because
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: I want to be building up to like, I want
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: to make sure this thing corresponds to this thing later on.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, you know, I'm thinking about foreshadowing. I'm
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: thinking about setting the groundwork for something to pay off later.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about when I write for the podcast, like,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: you know, I generally have an outline of how I
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: like things to go. And every once in a while,
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: I do put in ads. Okay, we're back. We've actually,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: I think we've said all the things we want to say.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: We're just sort of wrapping up sort of our main,
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: our what to do about writer's block. And the problem
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: is like, there's not a cause. There's not a solution.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: It's not even directly a thing. But there are some
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: things that you can do to try and mitigate the
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: extent to which people do experience the writer's block. And we've,
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: I think, outlined a pretty decent amount of those. But,
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: you know, sort of take home point here being, I
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: think that writer's block is ultimately caused by unique individual factors.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: I think you can make the case that this is
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: uniquely framed within an American capitalistic view of productivity and
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: the value of people's work as it relates to their
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: productivity and therefore the value of those people as it
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: relates to their productivity and have criticisms about that potentially.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: But even still, like there are going to be people
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: who are not American who maybe find themselves in positions
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: where they're trying to do something creatively. and still feeling
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: like they get stuck. That could be an experience that
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: you have. And we've talked through again, the various sort
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: of circumstances under which that arises and things you might
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: do about it. Yeah.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: I think that there's no singular solution for this. And
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: I think it's just worth kind of like figuring out
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: what works for you. But I do recommend if you
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: are somebody who's a writer or creative and you're getting
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: really stuck, I do think it's worth checking out creative quest,
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: you know, as an example, like this happened to me recently.
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: So I had recently put out a record for the,
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: you know, solo project I've been working on. And I
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: really love the way it came out. I love the
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: way the songs came up, but like when I was
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: done writing it, I was like, I don't, I can't write,
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: like this right now. Like I can't write the next song.
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: I can't like, I was already thinking about that. And
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: I was like, but I have these other songs and
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: these other ideas I'm going to play around with that.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: So now I have a second solo project that's coming out.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: That's going to be more in line with that because
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: it's like, Oh, this, but that's kind of what it is.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: It's like, it's jarred. It's like knocked loose some of
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: the stuff that I was like thinking about in the
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: other project too. So like, they're going to be kind
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: of related in that they're going to solve, I think
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: one another's problems.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: Knocked loose fun band.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: Oh, great band. So fun.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. All right. Yeah, very good. I think that that's
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: probably what we have to say about writer's block. Then
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: we thought this would be a shorter episode and true
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: to form. We made it full length.
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: We are a special breed.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: It's our superpower. It really is being long winded.
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: We figure it out every time.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: That's right. Well, if you're joining us for the first time,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: you may not know this, but at the end of
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: our full-length discussions, we recommend some things that are usually
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: not directly related to the thing at hand, although we are, interestingly,
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: or maybe more on topic than usual with our recommendations
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: this week. Maybe not by design. It's more of a coincidence,
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: but it happens. Anyway, before I do that, though, I
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: want to get through the credits, thank all the relevant people,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: and tell you things that you can do to support us.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: Because you might have found yourself here and been thinking, well,
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: that was great. I sure wish I could have more
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: of that happen. And we would appreciate your support in
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: doing so. Simple things you can do. Leaving us a rating.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: Just give us however many stars or thumbs ups or
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: whatever that it'll allow you to give. That helps the
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: algorithm find more people, and we do appreciate your help there.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: You can leave us a review if you're feeling so
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: kind and generous. And we read those sometimes, even on
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: at the end of a podcast, if you say really
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: nice things like compare us to John Oliver. And so
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: those things you can do. You can also like the episode,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: subscribe so that you never miss a download. You can
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: find a friend and have them subscribe for us. Or
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: if you're really feeling generous and you'd like to take
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: the leap, you can head over to Patreon. And when
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: you do that, so for people who don't know, Patreon
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: is like a subscription membership service that you can go
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: sign up and you just, it's a donation. I think
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: it's on a monthly schedule. to various creators. And when
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: you do that, then you help those people be a thing.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: They get to continue to be a whatever. There's different types.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: There's all sorts of different endeavors that exist on Patreon.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: And doing that, you just help us be a show.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: And it's really generous and really kind. And we do
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: not take that kind of commitment lightly. So at the
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: end of our full length, we'd like to say thank
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: you to the people who have done that. So if
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: you'd like us to say thank you to you, you
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: can join them over there. So a giant shout out
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: and thank you To Mike M., Megan, Mike T., Justin, Kim, Brad, Stephanie, Brian, Kiara, Charlie,
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: and Michael for being so generous in your support of
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: us and all of the time you've been doing this.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: Just thank you, thank you, thank you.
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, you are the absolute best and we appreciate
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: you so much.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: I need a team of people to help me make
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: this podcast. Writing and fact checking from Shane and myself.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for recording with me today, Shane,
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: and for your excellent work on these notes. Thank you
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: for having me.
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: And this was a lot of fun to write. I
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: did not have writer's block as I was writing this.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: I was going to ask our social media coordinator is
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: Emma Wilson and our person who edits all of the
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: things to make them sound like podcast, because otherwise they
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: would be just garbled mess. is our emperor producer extraordinaire, Justin,
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: who is the best.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: Ah, just a treat.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: And of course, thank you all for listening to us today,
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: for taking time out of your day to check us
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: out and listen to what we have to say. If
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: you'd like to tell us your thoughts on writer's block
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: or anything else that we have said in here today,
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: you can reach us directly via email, info at WWD,
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: WWD podcast.com, or you can reach us on the social
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: media platforms, however you want to do that. We're happy
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: to hear from you. So feel free to do those things.
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: Is there anything that I missed or that you'd like
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: to add before we do our recommendations?
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: No, I think that covers it.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: All right. Let's recommend some things. Yay. Recommendations.
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: I'm recommending a book. It is actually a short story,
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: a novella, if you will. Aptly titled, it is called
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: A Short Stay in Hell by author Steven Peck. This
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: is a very, very thought-provoking book. It's also very short. It's,
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: I think, around 100 pages, maybe a little less, maybe
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: a little more, maybe depending on the format in which
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: you get it. But it's a really quick read. It
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: only took me a few days to get through. And
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: that's me reading at a pretty slow pace. I think
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: avid readers will have this done in an afternoon, no problem.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: I don't want to give away too much about this.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: But it's, like I said, it's a very thought-provoking story,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: at least for me it was. For the people who
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: recommended it to me, it was, and that was how
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: they sold it to me. I'm simply going to say
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: it is about someone who is in hell. Okay. And
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: what that was like for them. And... It does not
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: go the way that you think it's going to go
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: from the way that I've just described it. But it's
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: too much fun to experience the world building that this
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: author does for me to spoil anything more than that.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: So I strongly recommend A Short Stay in Hell. This
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: is not a particularly religiously oriented book. It is, if anything,
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: a sort of philosophical mess with your minds in a
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: good way type of book.
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: I will also say, now, I do strongly recommend this book,
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: but important caveat, for those of you who are very
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: unsatisfied with like, Happy endings where everything's wrapped up neatly
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: with a bow. This might not be for you. This
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: is not one of those type of stories. This is
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: it is going to I think for people who are
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: used to that style of narrative where everything sort of everything,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: everyone's happy at the end and everything worked out well
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: in the end. and that's what you need to feel satisfied,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: you probably won't like this very much. I thought it
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: was great, but it is, again, that type of story
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: is not for everyone. So that's the one caveat I'll
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: throw in there. And I would otherwise give it five stars,
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: but I think four stars for the fact that the
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: way the story concludes is not going to work for
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: a lot of people who are used to a happy
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: ending type narrative.
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: Sure, sure. That makes sense. I just read a book
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: that was like that. It was Paradise, and it was
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: the same thing.
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: Was it about two dice?
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a couple of dice. A couple of
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: dice hanging out in a casino was a real wild time.
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: You know, it was from their perspective, you know, life
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: was crap. You know, it was, but it was the
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: same thing. It was like, it, there was not a
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: happy ending. It was dark. It was dour.
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: It was intense.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: And, uh, but it was great. It was such a
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: great read. And it's like, you know, there's just some
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: books that are read that, that call for that. You
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: need that like dark ending or that like subverted ending
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: a little bit, you know?
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And I thought this worked well.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: I could think of a way how I would have
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: maybe asked the author to end this slightly differently. And honestly,
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: it was more for me just wanting to experience the
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: universe a little bit, like do a little bit more
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: world building.
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: Not that I care that it ended in a particular
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: satisfactory way. I just felt like I just wanted more
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: from the story, which that's also a good story. A
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: good story often, I think, leaves you wanting more of
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: that story. Yeah. It's like a really good album is like, man,
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: I wish there were 10 more songs on this album
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: because every song on here is just so good. If
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: you could have just kept going, I would have loved that.
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: Right, right.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: So yeah, A Short Stay in Hell by Steven Peck.
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: I love it. I love it. Funny enough, I'm recommending
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: a book. I'm recommending a book from somebody who is
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: also a prolific writer, similar to Stephen King. In his lifetime,
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: he has over 60 collected works and six novels.
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: And this is Charles Bukowski. So I'd recommended him before,
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: and I want to recommend him again because I'm reading
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: a current collection of poems that span his entire writing
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: career from the 50s all the way to the 90s.
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: And it's called The Pleasures of the Damned. And I
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: think that this is I think this is definitive, definitive work.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: It does a good job of kind of highlighting why
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: he was such a skilled writer beyond what his reputation is,
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: which is often that he is a dirty old man
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: who's just drink like drunk and like womanizing. And that's
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: just not that's like some of some of his works,
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: his early works portray that. But some of his later
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: works kind of portray him being more introspective and thinking
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: about life and thinking about family and marriage and all
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: those things. And, you know, I think that this does
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: a good job of kind of showing and highlighting all
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: of that all the way down. So I think if
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: you are somebody who has never read Charles Bukowski, some
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: of his stuff can be very jarring, very intense, very dark.
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, he talks about living in the seediest parts
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: of L.A. and like just kind of going job to
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: job just so he can get a bottle of wine
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: for the night. But I think it's pretty powerful stuff.
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: And so this is, I think, a good example of
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: his work if you've never read any of his stuff.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: Okay. All right.
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: Very good.
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: So A Short Stay in Hell by Stephen Peck was
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: my recommendation. The Pleasures of the Damned by Charles Bukowski
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: is Shane's. And I think that's what we have to
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: say for you about writer's block. Funny that we both
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: recommended books.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: A discussion about writer's block. Funny how that works. Funny
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: how that works. But all right. I think that's it.
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: Thank you all for listening. Anything you'd like to add
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: before we wrap this up?
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: No, not today.
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: This is Abraham. This is Shane.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: We're out.
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: See ya.
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: You've been listening to Why We Do What We Do.
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: going to www.wwdpodcast.com.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and we hope you have an awesome day.