Repost of The Stone Backpack of Perfectionism

Many of us carry around a stone backpack when we write: we unwittingly lug around a heavy load of our own preconceptions about our writing ability. This backpack isn't filled with stones per se but is actually made entirely of mind-generated rock: zippers, pockets, and straps.

That is, we approach a new writing moment with pre-formed ideas as to how the writing will turn out and what the experience will be like because we--and not some external critic, editor, or teacher--have already graded our performance. We assume we know our own writing capabilities--that we can predict what will happen in the next moment.

We are loading down the moment.

Even if what we're doing is presumably private writing or even disposable writing, chances are good that our intrapersonal talk involves a constant pressure to improve, a restlessness with our writing. A deep-rooted dissatisfaction.

(Not all this predetermined thought, of course, is necessarily "negative": we might be carrying around what seem like highly positive, generous views of our ability. But I'll save for this a later post since the brunt of our predetermined thought, I'm wagering, tends toward the critical for most of us.)

What follows is an activity I use with my undergraduate and graduate students to call a temporary halt to that need to "improve" as a writer.

Get yourself a blank screen or sheet of paper.

What would it be like—what would happen in your thoughts right now—if what you are as a writer is already wonderful, already Buddha?  If your writing was “perfect as it is” now? 

Jot down anything which arises in your mind in response to this notion of already-perfect. (Keep returning to the questions and keep seeing what arises in terms of:

* What sorts of images pass over your mind? Breathe into these images.  Follow them.  What do you notice?

* What sorts of emotion are you feeling?

* What color is one of those emotions?

* Breathe into this emotion.  Follow it. What do you notice?

See if you can gain a sense--even for a few seconds--of what it would feel like to stop wanting to change who you are as a writer. See if you feel the load lighten. See what it might be like to have a more expansive sense of the Present moment of writing. And when you return to the need-to-be-better thinking, notice yourself slipping back on the straps of the stone backpack.

The Stone Backpack of Perfectionism

Many of us carry around a stone backpack when we write: we unwittingly lug around a heavy load of our own preconceptions about our writing ability. This backpack isn't filled with stones per se but is actually made entirely of mind-generated rock: zippers, pockets, and straps.

That is, we approach a new writing moment with pre-formed ideas as to how the writing will turn out and what the experience will be like because we--and not some external critic, editor, or teacher--have already graded our performance. We assume we know our own writing capabilities--that we can predict what will happen in the next moment.
 
We are loading down the moment.
 
Even if what we're doing is presumably private writing or even disposable writing, chances are good that our intrapersonal talk involves a constant pressure to improve, a restlessness with our writing. A deep-rooted dissatisfaction.
 
(Not all this predetermined thought, of course, is necessarily "negative": we might be carrying around what seem like highly positive, generous views of our ability. But I'll save for this a later post since the brunt of our predetermined thought, I'm wagering, tends toward the critical for most of us.)
 
What follows is an activity I use with my undergraduate and graduate students to call a temporary halt to that need to "improve" as a writer.
 
Get yourself a blank screen or sheet of paper.
 
What would it be like—what would happen in your thoughts right now—if what you are as a writer is already wonderful, already Buddha?  If your writing was “perfect as it is” now? 
 
Jot down anything which arises in your mind in response to this notion of already-perfect. (Keep returning to the questions and keep seeing what arises in terms of:

* What sorts of images pass over your mind? Breathe into these images.  Follow them.  What do you notice?

* What sorts of emotion are you feeling?

* What color is one of those emotions?

* Breathe into this emotion.  Follow it. What do you notice?

See if you can gain a sense--even for a few seconds--of what it would feel like to stop wanting to change who you are as a writer. See if you feel the load lighten. See what it might be like to have a more expansive sense of the Present moment of writing. And when you return to the need-to-be-better thinking, notice yourself slipping back on the straps of the stone backpack.

Like Asking a Mountain to Sit in a Fish Tank

One of the ultimate high-stakes tasks: naming a book manuscript. It becomes a name rather than a title because you feel like you are naming an actual being, flattening his hair, turning her about-face, presenting him to the world.

It's fragmentary (a phrase or even one word or in the case of academic writing a shadow of a sub-title after a colon) but at the same time highly symbolic. 

The title is a metonym. It is representative of the content listed immediately behind in a fish skeleton of individual titles. It is also representative of yourself. It stands for you when you are not near your own words (bound to happen after publication).

It's a small portion of writing—no room for error.

Titles don't feel like they can occupy a Present moment. It would be like asking a mountain to sit in a fish tank.

I am trying to pin something down. Make it permanent. Make it resonate longer than a single moment.

You turn the strongest contender over in your mind and also let it rest on your tongue. You catch yourself off-guard, hoping for fresh perspective. You tape it onto walls and surfaces in your home hoping the household context will provide a new angle. You try to ambush the different title possibilities, say, the top two or three, during the days leading up to sending out the manuscript.

There's a great deal more superstition around making a title than writing the poems or chapters.You don't share working titles with the wrong people, and with the right people (author-friends you admire) you weigh each response. 

* When we named our second child, a family member stayed silent over the phone for several seconds. *

* Then said that the first child's name, now that one was lovely. *

It's more feeling than logic. It's like getting a Tarot card reading because you are trying to anticipate the future.

* Hospital staff push parents to name a child as fast as possible or at least before leaving the hospital grounds. Then the name is permanent. It has to be legally changed. *

Like a child, the book has siblings, one's previous publications. You imagine them lining up for a family portrait, you hear them summoned in italics on your CV or before a reading.

* We had to go to court and spend $60 to legally change the second child's name. Despite the unpleasant experience of having our initial choice critiqued, we feel we "got it right" with the new name. *

The amount of ego involved in drafting a book title is amusing.

No matter how fluid I've left the writing process—the year or two of generating new pieces—finding a title remains a high-stakes task: one in which imaginary future audiences are highly present.

At this point in my exploration of mindful writing, it is nearly impossible for me to treat titling as private writing.