For years my storytelling was broken. I wrote and wrote but barely produced a useful word. My second novel, Dark Fire, remained trapped in limbo.
I searched desperately for a solution. I read books on writing, and listened to talks on writing. I learned lessons about planning and structure and story craft.
None of it worked. In fact, my creative tangles only grew worse.
Until finally I realized I had been looking in the wrong place entirely.
The epiphany came when I was listening to a sports podcast. A football coach was describing his old methods – how he used to deal with a player who was out of form. The coach would pore over match data, obsessing over how many passes the player completed, and how far he had run. He would then work tirelessly with the player to improve these metrics and iron out any deficiencies.
But then, out of the blue, the coach realized something. He had been focusing so intently on the performance that he had neglected to take care of the performer. He had forgotten there was a human being in the equation.
When faced with an underperforming player, he should simply have asked: “How are you?”
Hearing this was a wakeup call for me. All along, I should have been asking myself the same thing.
Everything that was ‘going wrong’ at my desk – the stalled sentences, the binned pages, the discarded drafts – these were not the problem. They were the symptoms.
All my attempted technical fixes were mere sticking plasters. They could never effect a true cure – because they were ignoring the root cause.
The fact is, the writing wasn’t working because the writer wasn’t well.
I was stressed and fatigued, self-medicating with caffeine and alcohol. The more overdue my novel became, the more I prioritized sitting at my desk above exercising, spending time with my family, or socializing. I became withdrawn and distracted and suffered low self-esteem.
These things grow on you by degrees, so you don’t easily see what a state you’re in. But finally I stopped, and I did see, and I knew I could not go on as I was. I set about making wholesale changes.
First, I rededicated myself to a meditation practice, which slowly reduced my stress and gave me some breathing space. Then I started running again. I stopped drinking alcohol and cut down on caffeine. I began saying yes to seeing friends. I found a job outside of writing that meant something to me and connected me to others. I improved my diet and prioritized my sleep.
I took it all pretty seriously. Once I was back to good health, and my writing unblocked, I didn’t stop. I read up on performance psychology, looking for so-called marginal gains to further increase my energy, resilience and focus. I adopted the kind of visualization techniques used by professional tennis players.
In short, I began to approach writing as if I was an elite athlete preparing for a tournament. And why not? Should we writers bring less dedication to our craft than the sports stars bring to theirs? Is our undertaking any less demanding?
“If you have the strength to lift a coffee cup, [most people] figure, you can write a novel. But once you try your hand at it, you soon find that it isn’t as peaceful a job as it seems. The whole process—sitting at your desk, focusing your mind like a laser beam, imagining something out of a blank horizon, creating a story, selecting the right words, one by one, keeping the whole flow of the story on track—requires far more energy, over a long period, than most people ever imagine. You might not move your body around, but there’s grueling, dynamic labor going on inside you.” [Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running]
Of course there are more important things than our work. Primarily, I needed to get well again for me and my family.
But all these things are connected. As I came back to life, so did my writing, and my writing became a meditative practice that fed back into my wellbeing.
I finished my difficult second novel, Dark Fire, then wrote a third book, Wildwood Rising. I’m looking forward to my next project with confidence and optimism.
I don’t pretend to have it all together, not by a long shot. But from where I was, to where I am today, the transformation is remarkable.
I recognize, also, that I’ve been very fortunate. I have supportive family and friends. I’m able bodied, and live in an environment where I can easily get out and exercise. Not everybody can draw on the same resources. But I believe there’s always something we can do to move towards better health and happiness.
And it starts with an attitude shift: asking ourselves: “How are you?” “What would help right now?” Getting outside for a walk? Taking a lunch break? Switching off our phones for an hour?
It starts with small steps. Over time, those small steps can take you in a whole new direction. One of the reasons I started this newsletter was to share the steps that worked for me. Over the coming weeks and months I’ll be sharing lots of practical tips and habit changes that helped me get unstuck, and which I hope can be a real boost for anyone.
Thanks for being here – and happy reading!
Tim
Related listening: Feel Better, Live More, with Dr Rangan Chatterjee. This is one of the podcasts that helped me reclaim my health and my craft
If you enjoyed reading this, there’s a growing library of similar stuff on my Substack website, including this article about the joys of writing freehand:
And don’t forget to check out the start of the Blind Bowman trilogy, Shadow of the Wolf, which SFX Magazine called “wild, weird and wonderful,” and bestselling author Sally Green pronounced her “favourite book of the year.”