“There are too many ideas and things and people. Too many directions to go. I was starting to believe the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size.”
—CHARLIE KAUFMAN
On the other end of writer’s block, which is often caused by a feeling of lack or emptiness, is something I call the “funnel effect.” This occurs when too many ideas are trying to force their way down the chute of your mind, leading to overwhelm—and then, sometimes, to paralysis. How do you choose between the novel that is begging you to write it, the nonfiction book you think might make a mint, and the short stories you can submit for publication more quickly?
Your projects are your children, but they’re children that don’t always get along. You can’t give them all your attention at once; you have to set aside separate times to attend to each of them. Remember when I talked about the myth of multitasking in chapter four, “Tame Time”? Your ego, driven by the illusion of big, bold, flashy success, will try to convince you that not only can you work on all of your projects at once, you must in order to secure your day in the spotlight.
You can’t write everything all at once, just as you can’t please all the people all the time.
You have to choose.
My experience is that you have the mental capacity for a maximum of two writing projects at any given time, especially when those projects are different from one another. Ideally you would devote your attention to only one project at a time. If you think you’re going to simply carve out five little time slots in a day to work on five projects, I’ll tell you what the result is likely to be: five unfinished projects driving you crazy and creating more of the same frustration that drove you to read this chapter in the first place.
As I said in chapter nine, finishing something frees up mental space. And dividing up your projects over different times of the day is not going to fool your subconscious. Instead you will carry the sum total of all the projects you’re trying to work on in your mind at once, and doing so will add up to feeling overwhelmed. “Overwhelm” (it’s not really a noun, but for the purposes of simplicity, let’s use it) leads to paralysis. Paralysis leads to discouragement and negative self-talk focused on how you are not capable, talented, or productive (all lies).
Knowledge is really only a fraction of the battle when it comes to overwhelm; you still need to take action. So you have multiple projects vying for your attention, but you can’t choose them all. Where do you start?
Go where there’s electricity.
Let’s say you went on two different blind dates. Both dates went well, and you were left with a good impression of both. If you asked me, “Which one do I choose for a second date?” I’d say: Which one gave you the best, most alive feeling when you were together? Which one made you lose track of time, bypassed your self-consciousness, or made you laugh? These same qualities apply to your writing projects. Which one turns on the synapses, engages the mind and the heart, excites you when you begin to work on it? If you’re working at something purely out of a feeling of obligation, put it aside and come back to it later. You might begin a project for a hundred different reasons: It seems timely, it haunts you, you’re trying to finish something you started, it’s a “hot topic,” or the like. But those reasons are not as motivating as the white-hot feeling of commitment that comes with the right project—the one that simply calls to you with ferocity.
If all of your projects are calling to you with the same amount of intensity—no voice is shouting louder than the others—then pick the one that is (a) closest to being done or (b) most likely to get finished. You need to get the near-finished project off your plate and out of your head before the feeling of overwhelm can go away completely. Other times it may be best to pick the shortest project or the project you know will be easiest to execute and therefore will be done quickest.
This is my system for how to pick and choose when too many projects vie for my attention. Choose from one of the following.
The truth is, it almost doesn’t matter what project you work on as long as you work on something. The worst feeling is to find yourself paralyzed, at your computer, unable to start anything for fear of picking the wrong thing. This state of paralysis is sadly not uncommon to creative types, especially if you’re choosing between writing that will bring you pleasure and writing or doing other work that is due to an audience. This is why I return to my earlier advice: Do your favorite writing first, as soon as possible. That way, you’ve already gotten it done and can’t beat yourself up or waste energy feeling guilty that you didn’t get around to it. For me, this is always my fiction versus the freelance articles on my plate or the essays I write to explore personal subjects directly.
Just make sure you choose something. Do eeny-meenie-miney-mo if you must; there need not be a science to choosing.
I know how it goes: You’re hard at work on a big project when you hit a snag and find yourself deep in the tangles of something you can’t easily tease out. For many novelists, for instance, the middle of a book poses a very specific kind of threat: plots sag, characters lose their motivation, and writer’s block threatens to take over. (They don’t call it the “muddy middle” for nothing.) And while you’re busy railing at your unmotivated characters or your blocked muse, it happens: You see the glimmer of a very sexy new idea just off the horizon. Perhaps the new idea is shorter than what you’re working on or more “timely.” So you traipse off after the lure of its siren call, thoroughly seduced. For a while. Until, inevitably, you find yourself in exactly the same place as you were with the other project.
If you keep up this habit of abandoning one project in pursuit of another, you’ll eventually have many unfinished projects and a lingering feeling of dissatisfaction because you never finish anything. As I’ve said before, unfinished projects take up an awful lot of mental energy and prevent you from moving forward. A lack of completion can lead to negative voices that suggest you are a “fraud” and a “disappointment,” and create a cycle that’s very hard to break.
And all of this will add up to a new glut of half-finished projects that vie for your attention, pull on your guilt, and provoke that dead-end feeling.
You’ve probably heard of Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink and Outliers. He asserts that any great work of art requires “ten thousand hours” before you can call yourself an expert. At first glance that figure probably sounds daunting, but he’s talking about all the hours that go into your practice—the hours you spend learning, practicing, and getting back up after your mistakes. The “work” you do as a writer is not like the work you do performing data entry or stocking shelves—work that fills a need but doesn’t build upon itself. Writing is cumulative, aggregate: The more you do it, the better you get at doing it, the more you learn, and the deeper both the work and the practice become. Therefore, you’ll experience many moments in your writing practice where the work required of you feels difficult and is perhaps harder than what came before. You may not want to face it. Wouldn’t it be so much easier if someone just told you that your work was done, the story was perfect, and you could just press on? But what’s the point in that? If you could turn out perfect work all the time, how would that shape you or encourage you to grow?
This is a long way of saying: When the writing road gets rocky, when the project seems to mock you and defy your understanding, don’t just start something new. Instead, persist. Keep at it. Be one of those writers who gives your most concerted, passionate effort. You will not only produce better work, but you will feel proud and unencumbered of those many floating projects, and you will avoid the feelings of overwhelm brought on by the funnel effect.
I, too, live in the modern world of two-income households, in which the pace of life feels hectic, scattered, and urgent. How often have you had to schedule time to see your spouse, not to mention your friends, or were only able to let your shoulders relax on Saturday morning for the first time all week?
Stop for a moment. Take a big deep breath right now.
I know how busy life is. I know how many demands are upon you. I know how easy it is it put off the thing you love for a “later date” because you envision having time in the future—just not right now.
And I know that “later date” may never come if that’s where you put your dreams.
No writer for whom writing is even the least bit important ever regrets writing. It’s not something you would give back or trade for something else. Studies have shown that at the end of life, dying patients report regrets over not pursuing those dreams.
So, yes, your life may be hectic and overwhelming, but I promise you there are a few small fissures of relief inside that funnel that you can carve out for your writing. And once you begin to carve them out, they have a funny way of widening and multiplying.
If you’re not sure where to look for spare time, return to chapter four and read the section on how to carve out distractions.
Is your needle totally stuck on overwhelmed? Write the names of your many projects on slips of paper, and put them in a hat or basket. Pick one. Commit to whatever you choose, and go for it.
When you’re overwhelmed, even the everyday tasks seem difficult. Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage, describes what he calls the twenty-second rule. If it takes you twenty more seconds to do one thing over another, you’re likely to pick the activity that takes the lesser amount of effort and time, no matter what it is. If you want to learn the guitar, for example, and you keep it by your bed instead of in another room, you’re more likely to pick it up in the morning. I think this also applies to physical exercise. I’m more likely to get down on my floor and do some yoga stretches at home if I have my own mat than I am to make it to a class at the gym across town. So right now, for your overwhelm movement break, focus on micromovements. In other words, move your body in small but meaningful ways.