Writers
Block, Stage Fright and Performance Anxiety
Intro
So
I am currently in the throes
of a massive bout of writer's block. It's
been going on for about five months now, and no matter how often I get a good idea, how many times
I slap memos into my phone for things I need to write, no matter how
frequently I sit at my laptop with a bunch of jumbled notes by my
side, I can't seem to create a play.
It's gotten so bad that I've lost sleep, confidence, and any kind of will to work.
It's gotten so bad I've begun to hate anything to do with drama, writing, or anything even remotely involved in the theatrical process.
It's
gotten so bad that I've even
stopped using Facebook, because
I honestly can't think of anything to say.
That's no bad thing of course, Facebook is essentially a demon
disguised as a social outlet and
I essentially spend my time exploring the depths of negativity while
I'm visiting, but that's
beside the point.
I sit down at my laptop to write and actively hate what I'm doing. I can't get further than a few sentences before I feel the inevitable backlash inside my mind, followed by the shaking hands, the frustrated anger, the shattered teary sensation of uselessness.
I am living the writer's
nightmare, the writer's version of erectile dysfunction, fear and loathing resulting
in a complete lack of creativity; a
terrible lethargy that is dragging me away from the thing I love
doing above all else.
To
get me through this block then, I thought I'd attempt to confront it
logically – by studying it and writing about it from my own point of view. We
achieve by doing, so let's try a little doing for a change.
Below
I'm going to try and delve into where (my)
writer's block comes from, how it has affected me, and perhaps see if I can come up with some ways to get through it.
So
let's achieve by doing.
And
let's get dirty.
( Incidentally, if you're here
purely for possible ways to avoid or soothe your writer's block, skip
to the section entitled “Block block block block block blo...” and the sections beyond!)
Performance Anxiety
I have just completed four days of street performance as a variety of comedy characters at a festival. Working in a small, talented group of Wexfordian performers, alongside several other professional and international circus performers, jugglers, and street artists, when I wasn't performing as an Austrian muscle man, an overbearing in-heat monkey, or a screaming paparazzi in front of hundreds of people, I sat quietly in a corner in the backstage area and watched as everyone else seemed to get along in an almost telepathic way.
Loud, funny, and fun, constantly japing, messing around in costume and always “on,” this gang of extremely pleasant miscreants spent these backstage moments enjoying each others company while I sat to one side with my combat shorts and generically bland tee-shirts, covering my eyes with my prescription sunglasses and hoping that the earth would suck me down soon, feeling like a particularly well- practiced goth glowering at a flower-juggling convention.
For four days I felt horribly out of place. Generally speaking I feel out of place anywhere that doesn't involve me, hidden away in my apartment. And even then I can't escape the nagging voices in my gleefully self-destructive mind.
That's why, incidentally, if you see me in the street, I'll often feign ignorance of your presence, or to avoid annoying you by tripping hurriedly past you with a tiny wave, I'll jump into the nearest shop until I'm sure you've gone away.
So this weekend was particularly difficult for me, as I watched these naturally effervescent people quickly gel with each other while I stood loudly out as “the quiet one.” Why did I feel this way? They weren't doing it, they were warm and welcoming, if a little weirded out by my stand-offish manner.
Why was I unable to open my mouth and speak?
I'm going to suggest performance anxiety. In other words, ladies and gentlemen of the audience : stage fright.
Performance anxiety occurs everywhere, obviously not just in the arts. It can happen to a cashier, to a wholesale banana seller, to new love. It also affects one in five men in their penis areas. Obviously that's never happened to ME you understand. Not whenever I've been dozing on a bus at least, or watching a chaste love-scene in an otherwise bland rom-com starring Drew Barrymore.
Performance anxiety in this instance manifested itself in my inability to speak to perfectly reasonable, if overly-confident, human beings in between bouts of street-performance.
But Dominicispalmerandyourenot, I hear you cry in the manner of someone who is deeply, even passionately involved in me and my life or has caught their trouser hair in their fingernails; how can you get up in front of people on stage and act if this is how you are in real life? How can you dress as a rampaging albeit sweaty monkey in front of hundreds of people at a festival and suddenly have an outpouring of courage? Yet here you are, five foot nine, devastatingly average looking, quite fat, with a moustache, and claiming that you suffer from “stage fright?” That seems, you continue, possibly licking your lips, quite the bold and if I may say so, ironic claim you claim right there!
What? You don't think people suffer from stage fright in real life, just because it's name explicitly references the theatre? You're a giantly smelly spa and I hope your face boils off in lonely misery, aided by fire ants, you idiot. God I hate you.
Sorry.
I'm being defensive.
But it's only because you're being stupid, you moron. God I hate you.
Stage Fright
So a general definition of stage fright would be : focussing on your anxiety, on your fear, to the detriment of your performance. As a rule of course, the term is only really applied theatrically, or in cases where a person must deliver some kind of presentation in front of other people, at college, or some kind of lame-ass board meeting no one wants to be at but is afraid to say it for fear of being fisted.
Stage Fright occurs when a person becomes so aware that they are performing, or about to perform, that they become almost irrationally anxious. They are so aware of the things, people, and expectations around them, that they begin to instantaneously play out every single negative scenario in their heads and it paralyses them. They then start to believe those negative scenarios. At it's worst, it results in that terrible moment we've all experienced at least once in our lives : freezing up.
Heightened self-awareness to the point of paranoia, a complete focus on your anxiety, of a desire not to seem stupid whilst simultaneously projecting idiocy, to the point that one can barely move or speak; this has occurred to me on numerous occasions and these days I try to avoid it happening by only leaving my apartment when I have to and only talking to people when they're pre-recorded on the telly.
In fact, I have spent much of my life practicing the art of avoidance, with the beneficial side-effect of allowing me to develop the skill of observation, both interior and exterior.
Yet I don't suffer from stage fright when I'm performing professionally, not generally at least. Sure, I get nervous, what performer doesn't? And certainly if I fuck up, if I drop a line or say cunt in front of a group of small children ( or as I refer to them, “cunts” ) then of course, I'm self-critical. I want to do the best job I can, whatever I'm doing, and like everyone, I beat myself up when I fuck up, but I see it as a learning curve, a natural way of grading myself for the next round. Next time I won't call the little cunts “cunts,” for example.
On stage I do okay. Partly because I mask myself through character, and partly because I can reveal myself to people without ever having to justify it, other than to say “well I'm on stage now. It's not real...” This is particularly true in the improvisational style of the street theatre I have generally practiced, where I can speak my mind from the veiled mask of a cartoonesque character, but do so in-character, ie with preset limitations.
In what Paul Greengrass would call "real world situations" however, I am naked. I stammer, my mouth dries up, I can't hold eye-contact with people ( and if I do I assume they think I'm coming on to them, or alternatively that they fancy me, which is generally confusing and not true. ) I shuffle, I wear a slap-happy grin that gives me the strangely plastic sheen of a slightly guilty stoner.
Over the years I've learned how to hide these traits with a sequence of practiced personality tics so that only those who know me, or are tuned into such psychological attributes can spot them. Often it involves nakedly and honestly portraying myself as a self-aware loser so that you both take pity on me, and understand that I am relatively intelligent.
Effectively, I have created a character for myself, a confident yet self-deprecating, self indulgent extension of who I am that I can hide behind in those awkward real world moments I mostly try to avoid.
In-character
Generally
speaking, I think whether we admit it or not, we spend much of our
life in performance, in-character. Whether we're trying to impress a
potential mate ( as I've begun referring to most people these days on
the off-chance my partner finally comes to her senses and dumps my
lardy hole for someone a little more prodigious, ) a workmate, a pal, someone in authority, or our
parents, whether we're trying to talk our way out of a situation, or
lie our way into one, it's all performance. We're trying to project
something about ourselves and are doing so by acting to a preconceived type,
trying to cover who we are with who we want to be.
The
alpha male. The in-control supervisor. The regretful child. The stud.
Tazer McFictionzap. Etc etc etc.
I find it very easy, if nerve-wracking, to get up on stage and perform, yet I find it inordinately difficult to speak to friends and strangers unless I am working in-character, something which takes a great deal of preparation to achieve. I need to know where I'm going, who I'm seeing, and what I'm doing a day or so in advance in order to get myself into the mindset of that character I hide behind.
I've
often been told that I project great confidence when I'm talking to
people, to the point where I seem almost obnoxious. This is probably true. I
learned how to do it, to hide the bubbling insecurity as best I can by becoming something of a parody,
because I understand that to show any sign of weakness is to allow
people in. When they know you, they can hurt you. And in my
experience, most likely will.
Those
who know me know I am cripplingly shy, almost to the point of
obnoxiousness, as I avoid contact with even those who would consider
me a friend.
Bottom line : I am clearly obnoxious.
I wish I could tell you I'm not, but I am. I
suffer from a terrible self-loathing, yet I'm self-aware enough to
tell you this so that you can sympathise with me. In fact, did you
notice I already started leaning towards a needy desperation for your
sympathy a few paragraphs back?
Even
when writing what seems like a nakedly honest portrayal of myself, I
am in-character, omitting things I don't want you to know in favour
of representing myself in a cathartically self-deprecating manner. Something I
learned a long time ago when dealing with real world situations is to be the first to put myself down;
that way someone else has to work a lot harder to get to me.
I would suggest I am not alone in doing this. And I would suggest that the reason I suffered so painfully during this weekend was because I was beset by performance anxiety whenever I was not performing; when I simply had to interact with other people. The character was not working for me.
So
this is all very good and self-obsessed kids, but how does this
pertain to writer's block? This has just
been a weird deconstruction of yourself by way of justifying how you
act around people. What's the point you
tool? You pointy pointy tool?
Fuck
off, mister and missus instant gratification, this is my blog,
not a quick blowjob in the back of a grimy Dallas-themed bi-sexual
dungeon-bar.
Though
that sounds like the best blowjob you could ever wish for.
Writing
and Performance Anxiety
Though I have tried to create this obnoxiously confident character for myself in normal situations, I
am not a natural performer. By nature, like many writers, I am introspective, insular. I have not the
ability to stand up in front of a group of friends and recite
Shakespeare, sing a song from that bit in Bambi when Bambi's mum gets
her head blown off ( spoiler alert, ) nor can I twerk or dance in a bar no matter how much I like the song or how many Fischer's I have had to drink. I'm far too
self-conscious. I can barely tell a knock-knock joke without turning puce with terrible embarrassment and rushing through the punchline.
And
this is where writer's block begins to rear it's ugly head, certainly
for me. Performance anxiety often
occurs when I realise that
someone is
going to see what I'm doing, in this case read my play. Despite
my obvious bitterness towards those
idiots who think they know what they're talking about, I still want
to please them. Some of them do know
their stuff after all (
someone has to, right? )
As I do when confronted with a person or group of people I need to deal with on any kind of human level, I
begin to interact with them in my mind, these “readers” - whoever
they may be. I begin to hear them criticise me, I hear them
snickering at my attempts at humanising people on page, I hear them
whispering that my work is “just too
clever for it's own good” ( a common criticism of my work ) or that “all the characters sound the
same” ( a somewhat common and generally erroneous criticism of most new writer's works based on the reader's general inability to read something in anything other than THEIR own voice! )
Paranoia takes over.
That's
where it often starts for me. The thought of someone reading it
paralyses me and instead of simply writing what I want to write, I
begin to try and mould it in a direction that feels un-natural. If
I'm writing a comedy ( which I usually am ) I start to lose faith in
the humour. If I'm writing a drama ( which I do, from time to time )
I second guess myself, tie myself in knots, make
assumptions about these – at this point, entirely theoretical –
readers and the way they'll take my piece. In turn, I start to
disbelieve what I am writing. That, too, paralyses me.
In a very real sense, it's that
same insecurity I feel in real world situations that creates my own
writer's block and which then feeds back into my real world circumstances. I start to question my abilities, I compare myself to
other, better, or at least more well-known playwrights. I use it as an
excuse not to write. I shut down. The more I worry about these
things, the more I start to present myself with these things.
It's a self-perpetuated loop.
Which creates another set of
frustrations, another reason to beat myself up and play to my
insecurities. Like many an artist I am hugely self-destructive. I
will go to great lengths to sabotage myself, to hurt myself and even
those around me, often just to prove what a fuck up I am and justify
my feelings of inadequacy.
I don't think this is only
inherent in artists, by the way, I think it's a very human trait.
Think of the person whose husband or wife or partner has cheated on
them, desperately drilling them on every detail of the infidelity to
hurt themselves.
And just as muscle memory often
leads to actors learning their lines alongside their movements, I
learn to tie my insecurities to my block. So each time I sit down to
write, damned if they don't come swimming back like over-eager sperm
from a hastily removed condom you're squeezing to make sure it hasn't
split.
Block
block block block block blo...
There are, of course, many other reasons we encounter the dreaded block, though almost all of them are
psychological, and link back in some way to self-doubt.
We may not fully believe we are
capable of creating a piece despite the incredible idea it is growing
from. We believe that we're not good enough. This leads to great frustrations in trying to realise something
to the high standards we are desperate to obtain, with each step
forward somehow feeling like a thousand steps back. We look at our
epic and we think – why did I EVER think I could do this? It
resembles a mountain and you're at the bottom, naked except for
knee-pads.
We
might run out of inspiration halfway through, lose interest yet
still feel we need to finish our piece. It's
a horrible sensation, akin I imagine to realising
you're drunkenly shagging the wrong person just as they start the
deed. Of shagging. You. Wrongly.
Deadlines often create a sense of
tension and anxiety for writers. Though it's true that Douglas Adams
wittily described himself as never failing to meet a deadline as he
loved the sound of it whizzing past, he did in fact suffer from
crippling self doubt. Most of his books have the feel of a terribly
rushed work, never quite finished satisfyingly, and it's often
because he was beset with stress by an impending deadline. The closer
they get, the less work you appear to have done. The closer they get,
the more you realise you want to write. The closer they get, the more
you doubt your abilities. The closer they get, the less polished your
work seems.
The closer it gets, the more you
realise someone is going to read your piece.
Sometimes you're just overwhelmed
by it all. Too much going on in the real world, too little going on,
too much to think about or not enough. Our brains are constantly
firing off, left, right, right, left, and sometimes there's just no
room left amongst the shooty neurons for sitting down and creating a silly little play from your overworked brain-mind.
Our fear of exiting the world we've created is another reason we can suffer block. Strange as it might seem to outsiders, we do become attached to our characters, to the stories they are telling. It's not unreasonable then, to want to stay in their world and not say goodbye. This can result in a terrible, almost schizophrenic block – the desire to finish a piece of work clashing with the desire to continue writing it.
If you have a writing routine you adhere
to and find yourself unable to do so, that can affect your ability to
concentrate. You begin to become aware of the changes around you, the
noises, the little things that suddenly become hugely abnormal. And
conversely, there are those occasions where you have become so bored
by the everyday routine that you need the stimulus of a massive
change.
Sometimes block occurs because
you suddenly realise you're re-inventing the wheel. You become
terrified that what you're doing is not original, and often seek out
confirmation of this very thing.
For me, writer's block generally
comes about because of self-doubt and a crippling fear that someone
has to read it. My own insecurities scupper my sense of creativity
and replace them, ironically, with hugely imaginative reasons why
everyone hates me.
We all labour under the
illusion that people spend more time thinking about us than they
really do. Remember this though – most people spend most of their time in
a frozen moment of self-obsession. They are not thinking about you.
They are not talking about you. And in the rare occasions that they
are it is to make themselves look better, either by association, or
by creating negativity to make themselves appear less insecure. In either case, take the compliment for what it is, and move on. They already have.
Affected by effects
What happened to me last weekend was a result of how I have been feeling in the last few months, and is directly related to my writer's block.
When a person can't do the one thing they set out to do, which in some cases feels like the one thing they were put on this earth to do, it has catastrophic repercussions on their emotions and confidence.
I relate it in this instance only to writing but of course it stretches into every walk of life.
I write, therefore I am. I can't write, therefore what am I? This leads to a terrible lack of self-confidence, a draining of self that leaves one questioning one's own worth, and at it's worse – as has been occurring to me – leaves one downbeat, depressed, even despondent. It becomes the thing you can't stop thinking about, becomes the reason why you are a lesser being, it perpetuates itself in ever-grander variants of performance anxiety, and results in the assumption that you are worthless, and worse - everyone knows how worthless you are.
It can lead to self-destruction, a hovering feeling of rain-cloud darkness that simply won't leave, touching everything in your life and leaving you with a consistent, just out of earshot anxiety, something lurking over your shoulder whispering bad bad things you can never quite hear, but know instinctively are about you. It's exhausting and it takes its physical and emotional toll.
I was sitting with some of the most fun people I have ever encountered, performing with a welcoming, and tremendously talented group of people at one of the best gigs of the year, and instead of enjoying that, I drifted into the background and beat myself up for it. I simply didn't have the confidence to step forward, in-character, and dig in. Five months of writer's block have stripped me of my sense of self-worth and left me tearing mental strips from myself at every opportunity.
It doesn't help. Obvious? Ah, it's worth saying anyway.
So how do we break beyond this writer's block, this performance anxiety? What ways can we attempt, to hump us out of the slump?
Ha. That was humour. Self-deprecating humour.
Just as you can't just tell a cripplingly shy person to speak up, it's not so easy to tell a writer who is suffering from block to just sit down and write, or alternatively take a step back and do something else for a while. But sometimes that's what it takes; other times, of course, what's required is a protracted set of jigsaw molly-coddles.
Ideas
to help with your block
Look, we both know ( I'm assuming
it's just you and me who's reading this, right? ) that like curing
hiccups, there are plenty of old-wives tales out there about curing
writer's block
Nothing
cures it. It's not a
disease, or a virus, it's simply a form of anxiety that you
perpetuate. Knowing that may not
help, but knowing that it's not about curing it but salving it,
balming it until the anxiety reduces, might.
Here is a truism for you –
you're your own worst enemy. You are putting blocks in your own path
and you don't even know it. It's not the outside world, dear child,
who is causing your block, but you. Unless you live next to fat,
loud, obnoxious neighbours whose idea of fun is listening to drill n'
bass while hammering their dog and talking loudly about mince.
Call the police and quietly
explain to them why your neighbours might be a danger to themselves and those around them.
Other than that possibly made-up
scenario, very often when it comes to anxiety ( no matter how
justified it might seem ) you are your own worst enemy, especially when it comes to writing and performance.
Let me elucidate by using a large
word people don't normally use, in this sentence, and then going on to
give you an example.
By
sitting in that backstage corner hiding from talking to people, I continued to
perpetuate the idea that no one wanted to speak to me. By essentially
assuming something about myself and other people, I was creating the
circumstance where it felt true even
though it wasn't. Guess what?
Bit by bit through observation I was able to pinpoint things in each
person I could appeal to in conversation. I got chatting. It
felt stupid not to.
Did
I ever feel comfortable in my own
skin? Nah. I
died a little inside every time I had to make the leap of
faith and open my mouth. But
that's not the point here, is it? I was able to project a certain
level of humanity and got beyond the blocks I was putting in my own
way. I got a few new Facebook friends to ignore, and I enjoyed their company
enough to help me feel a little more comfortable about my situation.
Did they think I was anything
special? Of course not. Why
should they? But we had a giggle.
Hooray for me. When I was ready, I presented myself.
A
couple of things, then, that you can try, to soothe the aching
blue-ball sweat
that is writer's block.
Don't
panic, don't beat yourself up, don't forget that until it's ready no
one has to see it. If you're
stuck in that awful loop of sitting down to write, struggling,
screaming and swearing ( cunt, fuck, shit, bugger-top, wank valve,
helmet slurper, anal ouch, etc ) and
then doing it over and over again and
again, stop. Stop doing it.
It's not helping.
It's driving you nuts. So stop.
You
are not performing life-saving surgery here. Leave that and the
stress it requires to the people who are. Trust
me, they're probably far more calm about saving someone's life than
you are about your writing. That should tell you something.
Calm
down, don't panic, don't
beat yourself up. As best as you
can, try not to turn your stress back on yourself. It'll only make it
worse. No one ever has to see what you've written if you're not
entirely happy with it. There's
nothing wrong with you – you're suffering from stress. That's
it. The best way to soothe stress is to recognise it, and understand
what's causing it. Get to the
root of the problem.
If
you're not happy with your
piece, change it. Mix it up. Cut and paste. Don't delete anything,
keep different copies, clearly marked, and learn to chop and change.
As an exercise alone, it's worth doing, and
as a way of taking your mind off the anxiety about a
piece, it's invaluable.
If
you have a deadline to complete your piece to, micro-manage it.
Break EVERYTHING down. Characters, motivations, structure,
everything. Keep breaking it down into smaller pieces. Not only is it
soothing to do this ( your brain naturally gravitates towards
patterns, repetition, and lists – it likes to
structure things so do it ) but it will help you keep yourself and
your piece defined.
It takes time to do this, but let it. The more you have it broken
down the easier it will be to put it back
together.
Incidentally,
if you do have a
deadline remember this – what you're handing in will require
changes, editing, restructuring and cosmetic work. You do not need to
submit perfection, you simply need to submit a finished piece. Yes,
you don't want to hand up shit-water; you want your piece to reach a
standard. Reach that
standard, and if you can, go beyond it. But remember it will
be changed so finish it and perfect it later.
When it comes to plays, I tend to
try and retain control over my pieces as much as possible ( and it
isn't always possible, something I have to learn to appreciate without throwing a wobbly in the nearest bystander's face; I've lost count of how often I've alienated myself by doing this ( eleven ) ) so that I can edit as I go. If I am in rehearsals, and something
isn't working, I can move towards bettering it. I try and work with
the director ( if I am not directing ) so that they understand what
I'm going for, and if there are edits to be done, I can do so
in such a way as it is not detrimental to the piece.
If you're the type of person who needs to work to a routine, work that routine out and adhere to it. If you prefer to mix that routine up - hey guess what? Go for it. Whatever works. Try both.
Talk
to someone about your piece, even let them read it if
you're comfortable doing so.
Don't ask for opinions on style etc, just ask for ways in which the
reader might find the piece difficult to
understand. Ask them what
didn't work for them, but just as importantly what did.
Find positives for every negative. Talking
to someone about it will naturally allow you to air your
frustrations, and will give you the opportunity to sound things out
objectively. Most of the time
you'll find you already knew the answer, but didn't know how to
describe it. The rest of the time, the person you are talking to will give you the clues you're looking for.
Don't
go overboard, most people will indulge you only so far.
Don't do what I do - get frustrated and angry when someone gives you their opinion. It's defensive behaviour because you know they're right; they're right, so thank them and accept it.
And
try not to bother other writers, if they're not suffering writer's
block they're probably working. If they are they
don't want to hear your problems. (
That said, there's something disquietingly pleasant as a writer to
hear that other people are suffering block. )
If you have no one who is willing
to speak to you, understand that not everyone is as obsessed as you
about your writing, so go look online for forums. Air your
frustrations there. Just don't whine. No one likes a whiner. Not even
your ma. Look for constructive assistance.
If you don't like using forums (
which isn't possible, everyone likes using forums, it's a way of
expressing your most extreme opinions from behind a digital mask )
then ask yourself a couple of FAQs. What is my piece about? What am I
struggling with? Don't ask yourself why, you know why, be logical,
work it through. Wrestle with it for a while.
If
you're stuck writing one piece, try working on another. DJ mix
between the two ( or however
many you can muster ); you'll
find that ideas start coming to you that may even end up in the
troublesome piece ( which
will naturally, even subconsciously, be the guiding light in your
mind anyway. ) You might find
it easier to tackle two completely different types, or even genres,
so that you're naturally relaxing while writing.
Don't do what I've recently done, which is essentially attempt two pieces approaching the same
subject from different angles ( ironically, writer's block ). What
you want is a new piece that takes your mind off the difficult one.
Try writing just for the sake
of writing, you'll be surprised how many ideas will start flowing. If
you're struggling with comedy, write a drama. You might
find you create absurd situations that, in context, strike you as
funny, or you may end up creating something completely new.
I
once ended up writing a self-reflexive porno while creating notes for
a bank exam I was shortly sitting, and struggling against.
Watch films. Watch Youtube. Watch online critics. Read plays. Research. Study. Immerse yourself in the world in which you are involved. Seek out inspiration, you never know where and when it might come.
As to the originality factor –
blah blah blah, only seven stories, blah blah blah, everything's
already been done, blah blah blah simpsons did it.
Get over it. Seriously, get over
it. Unless you are wilfully plagiarising something, you'll find an
original spin on your subject. That's why you were writing it in the
first place, right?
Speaking
of which – understand why you
are writing this piece. You may have lost your way and that's why
you're feeling stressed. Go back to the original idea that started
it, and make a point of referencing it throughout your piece, even
in separated notes. How does each scene, or each moment, relate to
that idea. Get it back on
track and you'll find your
path again.
If
you're not feeling it, don't do it. If you don't need to shit, why
force it?
What you want is
that little spark of desire that drives you.
Remember, however, that like any
long-term relationship, you do have to do some of the hard work
yourself. You can't always expect the spark. But, just like
a good, loving long-term relationship you should still want
to spend time writing. If you
don't, then maybe it's time to move on for
now. Your piece will not cut your balls off and stick them up your bottom and then
bend you over and tell you to fart so that you propel your testicles across
the room, and then film it and upload it to Dino Tube as some weird
form of fetish porn.
Take a step back and try to find a different angle.
The main thing to remember is
this – relax. It's so easy to say and so hard to achieve sometimes.
All performance anxiety comes down to the thought that other people
are going to see what you're doing and judge it.
They are.
So? At least you'll have reached
the stage where you have completed you piece. At least then, you'll
have done it. And they don't have to see it until you are ready. ( When it comes to deadlines, accept the fact that someone else is going to have an opinion. Listen to this opinion and try not to take it personally, especially if you're not fully happy with the piece yourself. You don't have to agree with it, but maybe you will and maybe it will help to do so. )
Remember this, too – performance anxiety, stage fright, it happens
to everyone. They may tell you it doesn't, but it most certainly
does.
We live in a world of bravado, of
fake courage masking terror. Everyone does it. Recognise this.
Just as all of us experience a lack
of morning glory from time to time, especially in times of great
anxiety, and just as all of us stress out in these moments because it
means they can't “perform” for someone else, all writers
experience moments where they simply cannot write, no matter how hard
they try.
Rest. Relax. It happens to us all.
Oh, and always wear sunscreen. I
can't stress this enough.
