I’ve read a few books about the process of writing that I have found helpful. The first one was The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I initially read the book because I wanted to get back into drawing, and this book came highly recommended. She focuses mostly on writing, and as I read the book I thought to myself, I’m not a writer. She explains in the book that the exercises are helpful for any kind of creative endeavor, so I pressed on. I started doing my Morning Pages, which is a habit of writing three pages of stream of consciousness longhand. Yes that’s a lot of writing. I did them for over 400 days in a row, and then I stopped. But that’s a story for a different day.
In that 400 day period, I learned that I had always wanted to be a writer. I ended up writing a book called The Laid Back Guide to Intermittent Fasting. I learned during that process that self-sabotage and impostor syndrome can keep you from ever publishing anything, if you let it. After I finished my manuscript, my husband and I both read it multiple times to edit it. I was on my final read through and suddenly had the thought, This is horrible. Who are you to write a book about weight loss? I almost deleted the manuscript, but caught myself before I did, thanks to Julia’s preparation.
After that, I read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. He talks about The Resistance. This is similar to Julia Cameron’s Censor. In either case, there’s apparently always going to be a voice inside a creative’s head that will criticize, and that will do its best to prevent any creative work from ever being released. Whatever you want to call it, it’s real. That voice can not only discourage you from writing, it can also distract you with all the other tasks you could be doing instead of writing. Whenever I’m creating, I keep this in mind. The sink being dirty never bothers me, unless I’m working on a book. The sink is an incarnation of Resistance.
The latest book I read was Stephen King’s On Writing. He, too, talks about the insecurities he still has a writer. He has sold over 350 million copies of his books. He describes how needy he feels after he’s given his manuscript to his wife to read. If he feels needy, I suppose no writer on earth ever really feels sure about their book.
I recently wrote a book called Overcoming Weight Loss Obstacles: How To Keep Going When Things Get Difficult. These aforementioned books mentally prepared me for all the self-doubt and self-sabotage I was likely to face. The Resistance was stronger this go round, and I suppose that means it will only get stronger with each subsequent book I write. If you’re a creator of some sort, and you have a hard time putting yourself out there, I highly recommend those three books. They’ve helped me enormously.