Quantum Storytelling

Slow and steady wins the race.

Or something like that. Frustrated writers everywhere are often admonished with phrases like the above. I find them annoying. No, scratch that. Sometimes I find them infuriating. Why? Because I’ve tried it and I swear, it’s not that easy and sometimes it just plain doesn’t work.

The longest I’ve written every single day was for a month, and that’s when I’ve participated in NaNo. Outside of NaNo, the longest I can manage to write every single day is two weeks.

Why, you might ask, would I admit to such a personal weakness? Because as writers creative people we often punish ourselves. “I’m just terrible at self discipline,” We might say. We feel guilty. We then attempt to commit ourselves to vague and counterproductive goals like “…being better and more self-disciplined.”

I’m going to be blunt here. It’s all a crock of poo. Not because I think self discipline is a poor virtue. In fact I think it’s a great virtue… for those that can regularly pull it off.

God knows I’ve tried. Again and again, I re-commit myself to discipline and at some point eventually fail. Then I commit again. And again. I keep telling myself things like, “It’s all about small drops in the bucket. Ya know, little bits at a time. Baby steps. You can’t write an entire book in a day anyway.”

I’ve given much reflection to the question of just why it is I seem to fail at strict regimens. It has nothing to do with laziness or lack of discipline. Actually, such a belief is part of the problem. What it really boils down to is a counterproductive mindset, and excessive negativity. Negativity that starts with comments like, “You’re lazy.” or “You just lack discipline.” When you hear other people tell you this enough times, or you tell yourself this enough times, you start to believe it. It starts to influence everything you do.

A friend and I have coined a term for this. We call this the inner nazi. It’s a tough little inner voice that comes out every time we fail, or every time we feel that we’re being too soft or lazy. The voice says, “Get your butt off the couch and do some work!” Except, that voice inside me is often much more negative than that. If I delay in moving my butt, the voice screams even louder, “You’re a failure. Do you WANT to be a loser? You must really like being a slacker because you drag your feet so much.”

And here’s where, after years of doing this to myself, the secret insight kicks in; This inner nazi screaming at me is doing nothing to motivate me. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Actually, it’s even worse than that. The inner nazi is making me dread every time I sit down to write. It makes me dread doing chores or getting things done around the house. It makes me dread organizing my life. Sometimes it even makes me dread waking up in the morning.

If you need the voice of a drill sargeant screaming in your head, insulting you, calling you a pathetic loser… somewhere you’ve gone horribly wrong. Because these things don’t make you want to do something.

Ah yes… want. Desire. Basic human motivation. And yet, the idea of wanting something conjures up the strict voice of one’s parents. Stop me when this starts to sound familiar:

“Well, we can’t always get what we want.”
“Nobody said life was fair.”
“That’s life.”
“Too bad.”
“Tough.”

All those dreaded words your parents sling at you when you’re a child. They’re even worse when you’re a teenager, trying to figure out who you really are and making rebellious little stands in an attempt to stake some identity and independence.

The problem is, we haul these crusty old lines out of the closet and abuse ourselves with them when we feel we’re not being disciplined enough.

I’m going to say it again, louder this time in a language that maybe the inner nazi would understand; NONE OF THESE NEGATIVE ATTITUDES OR EXPRESSIONS DO ANYTHING TO MOTIVATE YOU TOWARDS SUCCESS.

If you think that they do, why don’t you go punch yourself in the face, or slam your head into a wall? Why not just physically abuse yourself? Throw yourself down a flight of stairs? Maybe that will motivate you? I doubt it.

The inner nazi is fired. I hope he has fun in the unemployment line. If anyone is checking up on references and calls me to ask about him, I’ll give them the full story. Blacklisted!

So if we know the nazi doesn’t work, what does? The real problem here is incentive, and motivation. What makes you want to do something? I’ll share some insights about that in the next post.