Thank you for this beautiful entry! The tricky thing is that since writing is usually hard (every so often it’s easy, tricking us so that we’re like the narrator of Denis Johnson’s “Car Crash While Hitchhiking” — “I’ve gone looking for that feeling everywhere”), it’s difficult to tell when it’s justifiably hard and needs to be hard and when we’re making it hard because we’re on some wrong track and the inner mechanism is locking up accordingly.

Sometimes a critique helps us figure out where the lockup (or lockdown?) is coming from, and we’re excited to get moving again. But then sometimes the critique just reinforces the self-doubt, at least until we find our own way to incorporate it. (Again, are we just being stubborn or is the critique — though undoubtedly right — off-track for what we’re trying to do?) I’m always aware of this as a teacher, and keep reminding people that I’m often wrong and that they’re the world’s expert on their own work. Though sometimes it doesn’t feel that way to them (or to me when I’m writing).

thanks,
Sarah

As you say, daydreaming and looking away are vital elements, and it’s so important that we recognize and honor them. I had to step away from a critique of my current novel entirely–really remove myself from the work for a couple of months. I’ll admit to having more than a few moments of doubt. Was this valid daydreaming? Trusting my subconscious to do its work? Or was it work avoidance? But then, after weeks and weeks of not actively thinking about or working on the novel, I sat up in bed one 3am with a string of ideas to scribble into my journal, and here I am, revising away. Gah, it’s hard work–I wouldn’t mind a little of that short-cut efficiency right about now!

I’m going to take the final section of Elizabeth’s comments to heart and not judge whether it’s working or not until I’m through and have let it steep for a bit. Then I’m going to think about the first bit – about the power of YES!