What if you know exactly what you want to be doing. (In my case, making my art like an ant colony on speed. Your mileage may vary.)

What if you also know what specific project you want to be working on. And you don’t have any problem identifying your next step. And you even have the time – or the ability to make time – to do the work.

What if everything is in place … but you’re not. Bloody. DOING IT?

You, my dear, are experiencing resistance. And you may take it from me (…in common with, let’s face it, pretty much everyone else who writes about creativity): you’re not alone. If you make art, you will at one point or another have to figure out how to get past your own personal flavours of resistance.

You might have signed up for – possibly even completed – my free ecourse Reboot Your Creative Drive, which is all about getting your creative life back on track. The techniques I take you through in that course are flexible enough to adapt to a pretty wide range of circumstances. But what if you haven’t been able to bring yourself to try any?

Or worse – what if you’ve tried a few and you’re still stuck?

Action and mindset

Most of the techniques in Reboot Your Creative Drive are based on the principle that if you decide on a useful action and take it consistently, the mindset you’re looking for will develop naturally over time.

There’s some solid scientific evidence that this approach works, by the way. But there’s no particular reason why it should work for you, in your situation, today. People vary, and the headweasels don’t always read the scientific studies all the way through. (Sometimes – and I have this on good authority – they barely skim the abstracts.)

Taking action to produce a desired mindset is a tried and tested approach. That doesn’t mean it always works.

So try it in reverse

The sixth technique in Reboot Your Creative Drive is called “Learn to Make Art in a Filthy Kitchen”, and it’s all about MINDSET. Here’s an excerpt where I describe the exercise I ask readers to do for this technique:

Only you know exactly how you have been sidelining your creative work, and only you will be able to feel when you’re making a choice that shifts the pattern.

So here’s what you’re going to do: You’re going to find something tangible to hang the mindset shift on.

Using whatever method suits you best — journalling, going for a long walk, talking it over with a trusted listener — identify some everyday obligation that tends to serve as an internal argument against making your art.

Now, consider the proposition that it’s OK to do your creative work even though you also need to fulfil that obligation.

We often bury this whole internal debate so deep that it’s over before we’re even aware it’s begun. So start by simply noticing when it’s happening. Then, if you can manage it, consciously do some creative work either before or after fulfilling the obligation. Whatever you manage to do, celebrate. The shift has begun.

At time of writing, I’m still not dead, so I don’t actually know for certain if resistance is a lifelong thing. I’d like to think it will eventually fade (…at which point, I’ll start making my art, right? NO. WRONG WRONG WRONGITTY WRONG; do you even LISTEN to yourself?), but in the meantime, there are ways to engage with it, to draw its sting a little.

I hope you too engage with your resistance – and if the above technique appeals to you, give it a try.

Oh – one more thing…

There is another possibility that’s worth considering.

Could it be that you don’t want to do this project that you’re resisting? If I gave you permission … actually, let’s add some scare quotes to the “gave you” part there – because obviously, there’s no need for that to happen. You have permission. Always.

Anyway. Let’s say I (nominally) “gave you” permission to put this piece of work down and walk away, never go near it again … how would that feel? Get quiet and ask yourself this question – and try to be open to a surprising answer.

If you discover that the time has come to release this particular project, for now or forever, then do it. Do it now. Set it free. Walk away towards the next adventure with a full heart and a song on your lips.

If, on the other hand, you find that your project still accosts you with its necessity and vitality, still whispers at the edge of hearing, still itches just beyond reach, still calls to you from the dark inchoate space of pre-existence, then go to it.

Cleave to it.

Dance it all the way to the end of its journey, with love, with commitment, and with as much determination in the face of resistance as you can muster.

And look, let me know if I can help, yes?

For most of my adult life I was looking at the question of “creative needs” in entirely the wrong way.

On the one hand, it seems perfectly clear to me that I need to do my creative work. If I don’t, I become very miserable very quickly.

On the other hand, the idea that I “must” make my art in order to be happy and healthy tends to make me clench up with shame and anxiety. It seems over-dramatic, self-indulgent, and frankly a bit weird.

(“Am I being too weird here?” is basically my kryptonite question. I can stop myself in my tracks for weeks by asking it.)

Back on the first hand, though, my experience shows me that not doing my work incurs a physical burden: tears, itchy gums, flashes of rage, a horrible restless sensation in the stomach. It’s physically painful, as well as emotionally unbearable.

But then on the other hand sit the headweasels, who say, “Nonsense! Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t need to create. You need food, water, sleep, and (if you’re a bit wussy) shelter. That’s it.”

Incidentally, dear reader, the same headweasels would like me to make it absolutely clear that this doesn’t apply to you. You most definitely need to do your creative work. No question. It’s just me who would want to cop on and stop being such a cry-baby.

They’re harsh, those headweasels, and they’ve caused me considerable pain over the years – because of course what they’re saying (hyperbole aside) feels true.

Billions of people live out their entire lives without ever getting to tend their unique creative blaze. In fact, the stupefying majority of humankind throughout history has been thwarted in this respect.

So, do I think I’m better than them?

No, I don’t.

And still I feel a need for creative expression.

Finally, I worked out where my thinking was arseways.

The headweasels, bless them, are trying to help. The risk, you see, in believing that I need to make my art is clear: what happens if I’m prevented by circumstance from doing so?

Do I shrivel and die?

Oh, no, that would be terrible! Far safer not to need it in the first place, right?

The problem lies in the assumption that when I say “need”, I’m talking about bare survival.

I’m not. Or at least, I don’t want to be.

I want to be talking about thriving

Very different proposition. In order to thrive (and I’m kind of appalled at how hard it’s been to own this as my aim) I need to make my art.

No art, no thrive. Sad all round.

Therefore, dear weasels, I get to arrange my life so that it includes regular time with my creative work.

Case closed

And lookit, if civilisation crumbles before I die, and instead of free-motion-quilting my next collection of haiku I must now spend my afternoons coming up with clever ways to make the less fortunate members of my community more palatable to the survivors, I’ll be more than delighted at that point to put thriving on hold.

Deal?

Deal.

My first novel came out in 2014. I reread it last year, around its fifth birthday, and it’s not bad. (I’m willing to whisper that here, when the headweasels aren’t listening.)

Some people really, really liked it. (Every now and then, I hear from one of these readers, and it makes my day. Just saying.) Some people really, really didn’t like it. Plenty of people probably read it and thought, “Yeah … that wasn’t bad.”

But no book – possibly no piece of art – is ever quite as good as its platonic ideal in the artist’s mind.

I use the word “platonic” advisedly, by the way: we’re talking shadows on the cave wall here. A finished piece of work necessarily involves discarded possibilities, diminished dimensions of potential. This is why artists keep working, chasing that receding horizon, trying to bring as much as possible through into the real world intact.

Thus, my book falls short of what it could be. And as it happens, I know many of the reasons why.

Here are four things I’d do differently if I had a time machine:

1. I’d trust my characters more

It feels as though a lot of what I was trying to do as I wrote this book was to clothe my characters in enough plot that the reader wouldn’t get bored. I’m convinced, now, that this wasn’t necessary. If I’d believed more strongly in these characters and their relationships, if I’d let them grow and breathe and speak in their own voices, I suspect I’d have ended up with a better book.

2. I’d plan

I’m more of a plotter than a pantser, really, deep down, and I wrote this novel without a plan. The result was that I slogged through about half a dozen drafts before I had any clue what I was really writing about – the broader themes, I mean. Then I had to go back and rework large sections of the book so that they reflected what I wanted to say. That was surprisingly difficult to do, and I’m pretty sure some of the seams and neck-bolts and so on are still kind of visible. (I have no idea to what extent this is the case, because as it turns out, it’s also surprisingly difficult – if not impossible – to evaluate your own novel as if you were not its author.)

3. I’d figure out sooner what makes a scene

I mean a proper scene, as opposed to a bunch of paragraphs that look plausible and read beautifully but do nothing to advance the story. I am living proof that it’s possible to spend hours, days, weeks, years of your life writing chunks and lumps and gobbets of perfectly nice fiction that simply do not work as scenes – and all without having an inkling that this is what you’re doing. Scene-writing is a crucial aspect of the craft, and one that many rookie novelists get wrong. I wish I’d tumbled to this issue much, much earlier in the process, because it would have saved me a lot of time and effort.

4. Also earlier in the process, I’d do more research

My concern with this novel was to get my story out of my head and onto the page without worrying too much about the real-world details. I didn’t want to get so sidetracked by research that I stopped making progress on the draft – and I must confess I knew myself well: this was a real risk. So I reckoned I’d go back and fill in later. I ended up with a draft full of obviously thin bits, and it wasn’t as easy to patch these up as I’d predicted.

So, what have I learned?

For my second novel, currently in zeroth draft (being the draft before the draft that purports to make sense to anyone outside my head), I’ve solved these four problems (…she said, tempting fate).

• From the outset, the characters have been much clearer than my first lot were until I’d been through numerous rewrites. They feel solid, and it’s often as though they’re making their own decisions about how to behave.
• I did a lot of planning this time before I ever strung two words of actual fiction together. I started from a framework conceived by Randy Ingermanson called the Snowflake Method, which I’ve found extremely useful.
• I have a good grasp now on whether what I’m writing constitutes a scene – and if it doesn’t, I’m quick to change things so that I don’t waste time writing material that will never work.
• Finally, this novel is getting tonnes more research than the first. I’m finding that everything I learn stirs up a new batch of ideas in my mind. The story becomes richer, as if by magic.

Presumably, I’ll be back here in a few years to talk about all the fundamental errors I’m making with this novel even as we speak, but for the moment I’m content to bask in my illusion of competence. I will say, my rewriting muscles are comparatively buff after the nine billion drafts I did of novel no. 1, so I’m actually looking forward to reaching the end of this draft so I can get to the editing part. (I love editing.)

If you’d like help with a novel you’re writing, by the way, you can hire me as a mentor through the Irish Writers’ Centre (I’m up there under Léan Cullinan). And if you work in a different creative discipline, you can also hire me as a coach.

I’ve kept a promise to myself for eight years.

Since 31 December 2011, when I made the promise, I have had a daily creative practice.

Let me say that again:

A Daily. Creative. Practice.

Not, to invent an example out of whole cloth, “Make a big plan! Leap in on Day 1 like a creative WARRIOR, slay ALL the dragons! Coast on this incredible success until…

…well, until you notice you haven’t done any work in a month, and your brain’s gone all floppy and sad…”

No – daily, in fact.

For 2,922 days.

And counting.

This is good, right, because if there’s one thing the Official Creativity Wonks agree about, it’s the importance of a daily practice.

(We may safely assume they teach them this at Wonk School.)

The benefits of a daily practice are fairly obvious – they include steady progress, increased skill, and plenty of that sweet, crunchy brain-fodder that can only be got by doing your creative work.

The principle that helped me to establish my daily practice is counterintuitive to the point of absurdity, and I want to share it today in case it helps you too.

It all started far, far away from here…

Some time in 2011, I came across an interview with a Stanford professor specialising in behavioural change, BJ Fogg.

The interview was fascinating, but what really stuck with me was one tiny story that Fogg told, which managed, as such things sometimes startlingly do, to unlock one of the head-cages I’d been crouching in for most of my life.

It was a story about teeth – Fogg’s teeth, and specifically the flossing thereof.

Yes, flossing – bear with me…

In the story, Fogg wants to develop the habit of flossing his teeth regularly.

So he makes a commitment – or in other words, a promise to himself. He will floss, he declares, one tooth per day.

One tooth.

That’s all.

If he flosses one tooth, he succeeds in keeping his promise.

You can imagine what happens, of course: pretty much every day, he ends up going on to floss more than one tooth. Often even (gasp) the whole lot.

But every tooth beyond the first is a bonus.

You might be thinking this sounds familiar…

On the surface, it seems quite like “baby steps” – a phrase beloved of motivational types everywhere, from FlyLady to Lao-Tzu. Somewhat similar is Barbara Sher’s excellent notion of the Complete Willingness Unit – a chunk of work sufficiently small that it doesn’t trigger resistance.

But the One Tooth Doctrine (as BJ Fogg to my knowledge has never called it) feels different to me. There’s just … something about it. It’s stubborn. It’s defiant.

It’s ridiculous.

Declaring that flossing one tooth is good enough to be called “success” is … absurd. It’s outrageous.

So much so that it feels like a radical redrawing of boundaries. God, even thinking about it stirs my indignation. It’s like something an angry toddler would do to show just how much they are not doing whatever it is you want them to do.

How can you say one tooth is enough?

How can you?!

And yet, if you do, it seems that the neuroscience works in your favour: you floss that tooth, and because that’s the commitment you made, your brain goes, “Yay! We did it! We succeeded!”

(The brain is, in many ways, a simple animal.)

Good feelings ensue, which reinforce your motivation to continue, and to floss another tooth tomorrow.

And suddenly, it’s liberating!

So I took this and ran with it…

You’ll laugh.

Here is the promise I made to myself: each day, says I to me, I will write one word (novel, blog post, journal…) and make one stitch (sewing, knitting, crochet…).

And I’ve done it – 2,922  times in a row so far.

Yes, there have been a few days when I’ve done literally one word and one stitch. Migraine days. Joint pain days. Fever days. Travel days. The days (plural, dammit) when I ended up in Accident & Emergency with a kidney stone or a sick kid. That sort of thing.

But the point is that even on those days, I’ve still succeeded. I’m still feeding the happy chemicals to my brain.

I’ve kept my promise to myself.

And it’s working

The monumental, dazzling benefit of this initiative is that it has put my creative work – and the support practices that enable it to happen – firmly at the top of my priority list (a position that for the first thirty-several years of my life was exceedingly precarious).

To get my fix of Yay! I must find a way to to write and to stitch, each and every day.

2,922 days ago, I had been “writing a novel” for so long that the early drafts were pressed into clay tablets in cuneiform script.

Since that day, I’ve rewritten the novel (again), sold it to a publisher, worked with my editor on several more rounds of rewrites, and (this is my favourite bit) PUBLISHED it. Then started on the next one.

(Oh, all right, the next three. Parallel projects are my thing.)

2,922 days ago, I’d done a fair bit of stitching in my time, but it would come and go from my life depending on how busy I was – this despite having run a craft-related blog for a couple of years at that stage.

Since that day, I’ve quilted, embroidered, crocheted, and knit a growing heap of things, and I’ve completed a pair of City & Guilds certificates in textiles.

With this one seemingly risible technique, I completely changed my behaviour in relation to my creative work, with dramatic cumulative effects.

Would it work for you, do you think?

Try it and see.

You can just jump straight in – right now, today, because the whole point is that the individual action takes no time at all!

And if you want a bit more guidance, “Floss One Tooth” is also included in my free e-course, Reboot Your Creative Drive, which gives you seven techniques to reintegrate your creative work into your daily routine (if you take the course you’ll also get my newsletter, which is lovely). Click that link there for more details.

Whether you take the course or go it alone, I highly recommend this technique. It changed my life. Give it a go. What have you got to lose?