I AM SO LATE WITH THIS UPDATE!

Indeed, it has been just over a month since I last made a post about writing strategies. There is a pretty glaring reason for this – I felt that the advice I was giving was a little…flat? My previous posts were mostly going off experience with a little seasoning of wider research here and there. Looking back, this will not do! Free advice though it may be, this wasn’t as stimulating or as supportive as the veteran words!

After reading through Jeff Vandermeer’s wonderbook a fortnight ago (See my last book review), I came to notice that my writing wasn’t having the effect I wanted it to because I wasn’t pushing my boundaries. It was complacent, easy tripe. Thus, I’ve been drafting this advice piece for a little while now (since last thursday)…and it happens to be about thwarting the same complacency I’d grown aware of!

Making life hard for yourself – The glory of challenge.

You might notice that just about every writing tutor or wannabe (e.g. me) fanatically passes out prompts and challenges to their sometimes unwilling congregation. They impose ideas on their subscribers and force them to take their mind off their dream projects to write some finickety poem about Oxycontin addiction. This is hardly unique among creative education. You’ve got the recurrent complaint of the stubborn art student who resents their tutor for forcing them to capture the contour creases of a draped skirt rather than enabling them to draw anime OCs – That’s “original characters” to you plain-language campaigners – all day long. Why? Why do they make us play viola symphonies when I want to be a godforesaken throat singer?!

It’s more than just teaching people the basics of artistic construction or diversifying one’s cultural talent/interests. The other most beneficial thing about these difficult exercises IS the difficulty! “Ayo! That can’t be bloody right!” some Among us might pleep, “Hard work is stressful, an’ too much stress can kill creativity!” In a way, you might be right – hormones like cortisol can override productive facilities and induce unecessary fretting that might reduce contribution overall. But let’s reflect on something here – aren’t most creative processes forms of stress relief? Therefore, when we are stressed out by a difficult task, we are perhaps compelled to be MORE creative in order overcome it?

The above theory might not have any real concrete evidence, but studies point to an equilibrium situation. A Neuro-Salon essay by Quinn Klessal (2021) cites certain levels of stress hormones, notably glucocorticoids, as being beneficial for cognitive function (Lupien et al, 2007), while Serotonin and Dopamine are best for maintaining a pleasantly creative mood (Shiv, 2014). Let’s be frank – unless you are under a lot of external stress and not establishing a focused environment for allocated creative bursts, a tricky writing challenge probably isn’t going to push you past the optimum and into purgatory. If anything, it’s going to boost your cognitive capabilities slightly, producing some more expressive writing as a result.

In less technical terms, think of challenges are being whetstones for the intellectual knife – the vicious abrasive force of the challenge forces your mind to change, leaving you sharper (if a bit sore). A sharper mind is more capable at slicing through creative blocks – whatever element you felt was lacking in your writing can be supplimented by what you learned from the challenge. You get me? Mind you, too much force from a whetstone challenge might break your mind (ouch), but in that case you are pushing yourself way too hard! Build up your sharpening slowly,using finer and finer challenges each time, to get your mind into good shape.

Discomfort and satisfactory writing.

The best challenges make you rather uncomfortable – they put you into unfamiliar territory and require you to use your guile to right yourself again. If you are comfortable, you don’t really feel the need to change, even if what you’re doing is detrimental. Let’s use sleep as an example – you ultimately choose to go to sleep as a solution to make the discomfort of prolonged exhaustion go away. You also eventually wake up because of the discomfiture of dreams or hunger or a brewing turd.

All decisions, good or bad, are motivated by this awkwardness, be it physical or mental. The stronger this awkwardness, the more extreme and, in the creative arts, unique your solution…up to a point. Too much discomfort will absolutely ruin your perseverence as abandoning ship becomes a tempting solution! However, with writing, it’s not like you have to see it through in one go – you can allow yourself to retreat and recuperate when it becomes too difficult to go on. Thus, even the harder tasks can still be salvageable with strategic breaks. Remember that Narratives themselves, especially novels, are long-term, significant challenges – completing one will have a significant effect on improving your writing, even if the work itself is seen as shoddy by the critics. The bigger the task, the bigger the growth arising from the struggle.

Resilience to discomfort is, obviously, another factor that is affected by exposure to challenge, but keep in mind that you might not start out writing with a very high tolerance. Thus, it’s alright to start small: short fiction about basic prompts is probably the harbor for your writing career. Short stories are brief enough to not require too much writing or effort, but not too short to be constraining as flash fiction often is. From there, you can ramp up the challenge in many ways – write a slightly longer or shorter story than the last; base a similar length story around a different, unfamiliar prompt; change the mode of writing altogether. Bit by bit, you can inch out into new territory and become acclimatised to the local oddities of the writing process. There will be treasure along the way; increasing satisfaction with characters or scenes, fresh milestones and so on. Your effort will pay off…and even if it doesn’t, you can use the discomfort of failure to inspire simpler writing tasks. All is not lost.

In short, in order to overcome disatisfaction with your writing, you must join the diffi-cult: try and sniff out writing challenges to push your capabilities to new limits and stretch your patience with the matter. You’ll find that the more you train yourself, the more you come to enjoy even the nitty gritty of typing or scrawling!

An opportunity – NaNoWriMo speedrunning (100% plot, all side quests)

Now, how about a challenge suggestion? It’s all well and good saying you should challenge yourself without offering the means. Well, if you fancy something large scale, a significant event awaits you at the feast of all saints (or november 1 if you’re not religious or imaginitive like me)

National Novel writing month is Novemeber: it is an event that entails writing a 50,000 word Novella within 30 days. Sure, there is no real reward for achieving the end goal, aside from satisfaction and something to put on your CV. However, for the already ambitious writers, it offers the next level of challenge to enhance one’s creativity! Are you up to write 1666 (london aflame!) words per day? I myself am considering it – depending on my density of assignments/coursework. If you’ve got a lot of time on your hands this coming month, then I’d say try it. Even if you don’t finish it in time, you’ll have done a heck of a lot of work towards writing. It’s the experience that matters!

As for more bitesize challenges, check out my previous advice, check out some more professional writing blogs or join a writing group – look, and you will find! The biggest challenge is often finding something to test yourself…

What did you think of today’s advice? Has the dogma of the Diffi-cult inspired you or appalled you? Does what I say even brandish any merit for your literary situation? We may never know…

May the weekend bring you plentiful dainty sweetmeats.