Category: Writing

Last time Alan Fadling shared his thoughts on an unexpected form of writer’s block. Having written one book, authors often find major hurdles in finishing a second, especially if the first was successful. In working on Write Better (due out October 2019), I also asked Jen Pollock Michel about her experience with what I call Second-Book Syndrome. Here, with her permission, is what she told me.

The writing of my second book, Keeping Place, was pretty tortuous. I think partly it was the onerous sense of expectation, especially in that my first book, Teach Us to Want, won the CT award. I shed many surprising tears about that award, wishing I hadn’t won it. That sounds incredibly ungrateful, and I don’t feel that way now. But at the time, it felt like the surefire way to be a disappointment to people.

Here’s what eventually helped me:

1. The recognition that every book is different, requiring different things from you as an author and delivering different things to your readers. (The “books” are “babies” analogy here can certainly be extended: your second child is going to be different than your first, and it would be silly to expect every subsequent child to act and look like the first!) When you can allow your books their distinctiveness, rather than forcing every book to imitate the previous book you’ve written, that can help. Teach Us to Want required a lot of vulnerable self-disclosure. It seemed necessary to the topic of desire. There were a lot of people who resonated with that approach, and truthfully, it was “easy” to do in a first book in the sense that I didn’t have a readership or any certain expectation that people would read.

Writing Keeping Place was totally different, however. First, I wanted the book to reach a broader audience of women and men, so it’s more systematic in approach and probably a little less personal (although there are still personal stories in every chapter). Also, it’s just a different book. I’ve heard some people say they like it better than Teach Us to Want. And I’ve also heard the opposite! So maybe that leads to a second conclusion:

2. You can’t write books to secure approval from readers. That’s the surest way NOT to say what you’ve been called to say. Of course I want to say helpful things, and I write with readers in mind in the sense of their questions, their fears, their anxieties, their hopes, their longings. But I try to avoid questions like, “Will they like me? Approve of my spirituality? Admire me?” Reading is such a personal thing: if you get hung up on maintaining the approval of readers you already have, your writing is not going to risk and grow. In the “books” are “babies” analogy, I think we have to say that some readers will find some books cuter than others. And that’s ok.

3. Get yourself a contract! Force yourself to write! Put yourself under a deadline! I don’t know of a better way of overcoming writers’ block. When I signed for a second contract with IVP for KP (and a third), I didn’t necessarily feel “ready.” You’re not going to feel “ready.” Your first book comes from such a deep place on conviction. I think it asks and attempts answering some of your most pressing questions as a human being. Your second book, without the lifetime of germination your first book might have had, won’t feel as cured. And that’s ok.

Jen

In working on Write Better (due out October 2019), I asked some other authors about their experiences with writer’s block, especially one unexpected form. Having written one book, authors often find major hurdles in finishing a second, especially if the first was successful. I call this Second-Book Syndrome. I couldn’t fit all of Alan Fadling’s helpful comments in the book, so here, with his permission, is more of what he told me.

I really did wrestle with my second book, An Unhurried Leader. Some of the dynamics were probably unique to me, and some are, I’m sure, common to many, such as a major vocational transition.

I also had to deal with the unexpected success of the first book, An Unhurried Life. Where I could have simply been grateful and encouraged by a CT book award (which I was, actually), I also let it become a point of fear and anxiety: “How in the world do I top my first effort? How can my second book be anything but a disappointment to readers of the first?”

I overcame this by deciding that my goal was not to top my first effort, but simply to share some important insights that had meant a lot to me. It helped me to think that writing this second book was something I wanted, and maybe even needed to do. Instead of focusing on the imagined response of future readers, I focused on sharing my stories, my insights, my experiences, trusting that they would be helpful to those future readers.

I also dealt some of the resistances I felt writing book one and feel now writing book three with my wife. I shared the paragraph below with a friend who is an aspiring writer.

“My reasons for not writing are legion. I don’t feel like it. I don’t have anything to say right now. What I have to say won’t help anyone. I don’t have a good focus for my writing. I’m in too busy a season to write. I’m in too noisy a place to write. There is too much to write, so I don’t know where to start writing. No one will want to read what I’m writing. No one will want to publish what I’m writing. Ad infinitum.”

Fear. Anxiety. Self-doubt. Insecurity. Perfectionism. All of these are resistances I often have to press through to write.

The last thing I’ll say is that I find a lot of help in Dallas Willard’s encouragement to release outcomes to God. It is my attachment to outcomes, imagined as amazing or imagined as dire, that gets in my way a lot. Usually, getting unstuck ends up being a matter of being in the present moment, being in the Presence, and being focused on the present task of actually writing.

Alan Fadling

When we think about writing or being creative in some way, we often suffer from negative messages echoing in our heads.

“No one will think this is good.”

“What makes you think you can paint?”

“Who will want to read this.”

“You don’t have what it takes.”

“Your brother is the talented one.”

“You can’t make a living from art.”

“It’s too late in life for you.”

When we do think about starting a project, these voices can halt progress before the first word is written or the first photograph is taken. As a result many who long to be creative stuff our impulses, appreciating the work of others from a distance.

How can we can get out of this wearisome cycle? Julia Cameron, in her classic book The Artist’s Way, offers a simple solution. Simple but not necessarily easy.

She calls it morning pages. Each morning for twelve weeks we commit to filling three pages with text. We can recount what we did the previous day or describe what’s in the room or why we like our dog (or hate our neighbor’s dog) or the fact that we have nothing to write about. Stream of consciousness is fine. Our pages don’t have to make sense. And most important, we promise ourselves to show them to no one.

What’s remarkable is that whether we want to sculpt, make movies, paint, or do interior design, writing our morning pages each day helps get us unstuck. The negative voices will carry on even as we write. But after a week or two they typically begin to fade. We drown them out with output, quieting our inner censor, and getting in the habit of actually producing.

Eventually something that finds its way into our morning pages may trigger and idea or project we want to pursue. That’s fine. We can work on it outside of our time set aside for morning pages, and that we can show to others for input if desired. But we never show others our morning pages themselves. A friend of mine, Bill, who didn’t think he was very creative undertook Cameron’s disciplines and started producing some remarkable poetry.

Writer’s block can be one of the most challenging obstacles to face. We need every tool and tactic at our disposal to overcome it. Morning pages is a powerful option.

Photo credit: Andy Le Peau