Why Writing Through Resistance is Essential

Photo credit: ~Minnea~ on Flickr

As a writer, you'll soon find there are good writing days and desperately bad writing days. We all love the good days—the moments when the words come easily and the new pages stack up quickly and you look at your fresh words with a smile and a dash of something else—pride.

When we think about writing, those are the days we like to remember.

But then there are those other days. Those awful periods when every time you look at the page you feel the powerful need to do something else—anything else. Check Twitter. Play with your Pandora settings. Scroll through your tumblr/Facebook feed. Check Twitter. Find a snack. Read that blog post. Check Twitter (someone could have @ mentioned you in the last thirty seconds, right? Right).

Then slowly, painfully, you drag yourself back to the page. Stare at it for a while. Write a few words and remember you haven't checked your e-mail in a whole hour. Check Twitter.

You get the idea.

Point is, writing isn't always easy or fun or even remotely enjoyable. Sometimes it's downright hard—so difficult, that even the most unpleasant of tasks sounds easier. All writers experience this at one point or another, and sometimes the best thing you can do is take a break. But sometimes even after your break, the words continue to fight you every step of the way.

And that's when you have to put the proverbial gloves on and get to work.

Because no, writing isn't always easy, but you knew that when you decided to do this writer-thing and you chose to pursue it anyway. Because the successful writers are the ones who don't give up, who write through the resistance, through the rejections, through the exhaustion and doubts and fears.

If you really want to do this writer-thing, you have to accept that that thing called writer's block isn't as much of a block as it is a ball-and-chain, a weight that makes every new word difficult to reach, that resists forward motion.

But it's not impossible to write through it. Difficult, yes, but not impossible. And there's a certain amount of gratitude you get from writing through the resistance because no, the words aren't perfect, but they're there. You put them there, even when you wanted to give up. They're yours.

So next time you're staring at a blank page and the resistance makes finding the words a battle, remember this little nugget of wisdom (via About.com):

"Don't get it right. Just get it written." —James Thurber

Then get back to work.

What do you do to help break through the resistance?