It might sound weird but sometimes, if you are finding writing difficult, it can be helpful to remind yourself that you don’t HAVE to do it.
Because writing takes a lot of self discipline, it is sometimes easy to get stuck on a track of “I have to.” I have to write this chapter, I have to finish my novel this year, or, when you’ve got a book deal, I have to deliver X, Y, Z to whoever might be expecting it.
Discipline is good. Deadlines are good. Having other people holding you accountable is also good. But, as with anything to do with creativity, it’s not black and white. Often when we are creating, we can get to a point where we are working so hard on our goals and our dreams that we forget that we have a choice. We forget this is all our free will.
And that can take the joy – and so the motivation – right out of a writing project.
When I was writing The Gods of Love, and I found myself inwardly (and, full disclosure, outwardly) complaining about how hard it was to write a book, paradoxically the thing that kept me going was not me telling myself, “Nicola, the world is waiting for this novel! You must finish it!” It was when I reminded myself, “Nicola, nobody gives a shit if you write this novel or not, so what are you complaining about? You have chosen this. Stop acting like there’s some boss over your head making you do something you don’t want to do!”
The reason this helped, I think, is twofold. One, it reminded me that expressing my creativity was a choice (and indeed a privilege) and that I didn’t need to bring a load of suffering to it. Writing is graft, for sure. But it is joyful graft. Not suffering.
Two, it reminded me I had another option, which was not to do it at all.
If you are a writer, most of the time doing the writing is the thing you will choose over not doing the writing. Writers don’t feel like themselves when they are not writing. I’m reminded of something Seinfeld said in “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.”
Norm MacDonald asked him, “Is there anything you still want to accomplish?”
Seinfeld said, “My entire adult life is just making comedy stuff. For some reason, it’s important to me to make as much of it as I can. I imagine a woodchuck has a similar mindset: ‘I’ve got to chuck wood, as much as I can, because that’s my thing.’”
Writers, in my experience write because it feels better than not writing. Because it’s what we feel we were put here to do.
But still – you are not actually a Woodchuck. Which is to say, you don’t HAVE to.
There are times when writing is NOT the right thing to do, and reminding ourselves that we have a choice opens up that door where as, if we continue to act as though we HAVE to write, then that door remains wedged shut. I believe this remains true, even if there’s an editor breathing down your neck, waiting for your draft. The stakes are higher, yes. You’ll piss a whole host of people off if you don’t deliver. And anyway, you’re probably gonna do the thing you said you’d do BUT the fact remains – you don’t HAVE to. You have agency in this. It is still a choice.
Remembering this can make all the difference.
When I first wrote a novel, more than ten years ago now, and got my first agent, it wasn’t the right time. I didn’t have a clear enough idea of what I was trying to do and so, although my ambition and my discipline wanted me to carry on redrafting this novel that was increasingly getting worse and worse, further and further away from what I intended, my creativity was telling me (begging me!) to stop writing. And after a mentally torturous time a little chink of light got in and reminded me that, despite my agent’s hopes and expectations, despite the eager gazes of my friends and family who were excited for me, despite my own huge ambitions and dreams, I didn’t actually HAVE TO write this novel. I had a choice. I could stop.
So that’s what I did.
And when the time was right, a few years later, I wrote The Gods of Love, got my brilliant agent, got a two book deal with Piatkus, was nominated for a Writers’ Guild award, and wrote my follow up, The Love Delusion, creating the duology I had always dreamed of. I only got there because I remembered I had a choice
In writing and in life, the most powerful changes for me have happened when I realised that I have a choice. When we take responsibility for our actions, it adds more magic to them, more energy, more purpose.
I HAVE TO is passive and puts you in a victim mode. I WANT TO is active and powerful and reminds you that you are creating.
So. You don’t HAVE to write that novel.
But maybe you want to?