If Writing Is Like Pulling Teeth, You’re Doing It Wrong

How changing your thinking will transform your writing

Eventually, I’m going to be mad at my wife. The other day, I mentioned I was having trouble coming up with something to write about. She thought about it for a minute, then she said to me, “You’re a writing procrastinator.” I didn’t like it. I could tell by her expression that she knew she'd got my goat. Instead of letting it go, she poked me again and said, “Let’s talk about why you procrastinate about writing.”

In classic procrastinator form, I said to her, “Not now. Let’s talk later.”

I feel the same as Dorothy Parker who said, “I hate writing, I love having written.”

Writing procrastination isn’t about having a lack of ideas to write about. They come to me all the time. They’re delivered from my subconscious as titles. So I don’t lose them, I enter them into one of my journals along with hundreds of other ideas. Once or twice a week, I look through my lists of article ideas and mentally discard one after the other. The ideas that seemed like good ideas when I entered them in my journal don’t seem as good. I don’t delete them, because I convince myself that I will write their story someday, just not today.

As I read each title, my mind feels mushy and unfocused. Instead of thinking about developing a title into a story, I feel panic or desperation because the story doesn’t immediately come full-fleshed to me. It’s like pulling teeth trying to get the story to materialize. I don’t want to write the story. I just want it done.

If you feel your writing is like pulling teeth, there is a better way.

How writing is a journey of discovery

When I begin a story, I don’t know where it’s going. There’s no map to lead me. I don’t outline because it’s too rigid for me. All I have to start with is an idea and a title, and they rarely survive intact. The idea morphs into something different as I write one sentence after the next. Often, new ideas appear in my mind, so I follow them. By the time I’m done writing, the working title doesn’t work, so I change it.

As an example, I was reading the news feeds and came across the story of a lion that died in captivity. In the story was a comment that captive lions remain in captivity all their lives. I didn’t know that was true, so I thought it would be an interesting article. As I researched how lions survive in the wild versus how they live in captivity, the story changed. I realized there was something in the story that was bigger. The captive lion became a metaphor for how people live in our society.

If I’d stayed with the original idea, it would have been an interesting and informative story about why captive lions can’t return to the wild. But it wouldn’t have affected people’s thinking. The story I ended up writing gave my readers something to think about.

Why your writing should help people

I want my writing to help people either understand something, learn something, or I want it to entertain them. Most of the time, what I write about starts with my curiosity about a topic or issue. As I research my idea, I know more about it. If I think it’s relevant and helpful, I want to share what I’ve learned with my readers.

Writing helps clarify an issue for me. Instead of feeling overwhelmed with what I’m going to write, clarity makes me excited. Instead of procrastinating, I want to write.

Procrastination is a good sign that I don’t understand an issue well enough. Writing is how I work out the issue in my mind. Sentence by sentence, I figure out the questions that I want to answer. It’s like working on a puzzle. As I put together pieces, an image appears.

What your writing reveals about you

I’m amazed at how superficially I think about issues. I was talking to a Park Ranger the other day, and she mentioned how she likes to figure out why someone did something. Was a person criminally malicious? Or is there a different answer? I like to do the same thing when writing. I want to know why people think the way they do. I want to figure out what compels people to act a certain way or what is holding them back.

Writing forces me to dig deeper into my thinking. When I’m working on an article, I challenge my beliefs. I ask myself why I believe a certain way. I question my biases, and I look at the issue from the other side.

Writing has made me more introspective. There was a time when I vomited all over people what I thought was the “right” position. Writing has developed my thinking. It makes me slow down and look inside myself before writing or speaking. Sometimes I’ll write a sentence or a paragraph, then stop and think about it. I’ll question why I wrote it the way I did. This isn’t about grammar or punctuation. It’s questioning my fundamental beliefs on a topic.

Final thoughts about writing procrastination

Procrastination, writer’s block, being stuck are terms we use when we don’t write. Thinking about sitting down and writing can feel like pulling teeth. It’s awful knowing you have something to say if only you would write, but you can’t do it. It isn’t laziness. It's like having mental constipation. You discard good ideas because you think they aren’t good enough. I know all about it because I’ve been there.

I’m growing as a writer. I’ve learned that I write as much to help others as I write to help myself. And I accept I don’t have all the answers going into an article.

If you are a writing procrastinator, you can change your view and unlock your writing. Realize you are not telling people what to do or how to live. You are sharing with them your discoveries from your writing journey.

Accept that you are on a journey of self-discovery. As you learn about yourself and answer your questions, you can help others with their journey.

What tips do you have to manage writing procrastination?