Buzz, Balls & Hype

THE DOCTOR IS OUT

...on vacation. Have a great 4th; see you July 18.

THE DOCTOR IS IN

ON NOT WRITING, SERIOUSLY

Recently a novelist friend asked me what I'm writing right now. "Not much, actually," I told her. "I've started two stories, but I haven't worked on either for months, and I keep researching that novel but I'm nowhere near even outlining it yet." She inquired sympathetically about possible blocks.

I'm not blocked, I told her. I just haven't had the time to immerse myself the way I need to do in the beginning stages of fiction.

She started a good-natured lecture on taking my own medicine, on making the time to write by setting "office hours" and page-per-week goals.

I think my response shocked her a bit. It would have shocked me a year ago.

I said, "I don't want to."

And I don't. I want to write, but at the moment I want more to just live.

Several months ago, I had another brush with serious illness--this one, seemingly, more ominous than the previous one, for a number of reasons. I'm doing very well, and there is every reason to believe I will continue to--but for a while, it looked like the story would have a distinctily unhappy ending. And during the time before I got my reprieve (temporary, as they all are), I did a lot of thinking about roads taken and not taken; about the shape, tone, and quality of my life--about my personal plot and themes.

When it turned out that I was going to live after all, I promised myself to live more fully than I'd been doing--to take my purgatorial ruminations seriously, and act in ways that would minimize regrets at the true end of the story.

I have posted here about my phobia therapy, sparked by my desire to share the exploits of my aspiring-aviator son. What I didn't say is that I had a pressing ambition to accomplish all this sooner rather than later.

Last week I went up in a helicopter.

I have been busy on other fronts. In addition to my bill-paying work, I have stepped up my volunteer work--because it is important to me. I have said "yes" to a number of challenging opportunities, and grown as a result of pursuing them. A dear friend is also coping with some scary issues, and we have become deeply involved in each other's care and support. My son is preparing to graduate from the eighth grade. All of this is time-consuming, and sometimes exhausting. And I wouldn't miss it for anything--not even a juicy book contract.

Things are settling down. I am almost ready to pick up those stories again. But I don't feel as though I've been blocked, or procrastinating, or wasting my time. I have been living my life, and becoming, I hope, more fully the person I was meant to be--not "a writer" or "a psychologist" or "a mother," though those are all important aspects of who I am--but a full, and realized, human being.

Another writer once observed of a poet whose output is impressive in quality, but sparse in quantity, "It's a shame--he could have made something of himself if he wasn't such a dilettante." I don't know this poet but I have to wonder whether his time spent not writing is when he does "make something of himself."

"Well," my novelist friend observed, "at least you're collecting material."

That may be so, but it's not the point. I'm not taking notes for future projects. I'm doing my best to engage with each new experience, in the moment, as it unfolds. For myself. That attitude may brand me as a dilettante--in writing. In life? I'm dead serious. Alive serious. Alive.

I will be on vacation for two weeks, returning July 18. Please continue to send questions, comments, and life experiences to dr.sue AT mindspring DOT com--I'll check in sporadically, and see you all in a few weeks.

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. Her book,  Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007) is now available in bookstores. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.    

THE DOCTOR IS IN

Dear Dr. Sue,

How can a writer learn to shut down the stream of language in her mind? I only know one way to process information, solve problems, plot novels, develop characters, describe complex dynamics, evoke scenes, conduct relationships, and try to understand the world around me, and that's through language. My brain is overstuffed with words and will not permit me more than brief periods of silence.

Lately, I've had a couple of experiences I'd like to reproduce. The most compelling was a stretch of time, perhaps half an hour, when I sat beside the ocean watching surf, gulls, sky, spume, and the moving light everywhere, and I didn't try to turn the scene to language. I didn't even think in words (or so it feels, looking back). Everything was pure pattern, color, and movement, all of it connected and constantly interweaving, and it felt as if I were seeing with the eyes of a newborn or an animal. I didn't look for meaning any more than I looked for words, and I know this vacation from my usual habits of mind nourished my creativity tremendously. I just want to find my way back to that place, which seems nearly impossible when I try to make it happen.

I know something about meditation and have attempted it more than a few times, but the perpetual-motion word machine in my brain always defeats me.

I don't really expect you to draw me a map back to the silent territory I found so unexpectedly. Maybe I just want to state the frustration I feel when I can't find the doorway to that place and when trying only pushes it further from my reach. All I really know is that after I've found myself there, unexpectedly and without effort, my imagination is freer, language is richer, and imagery just flows.

Well, Shut My Mouth

Dear Well,

Most thinking people have difficulty quieting what Buddhists call the “monkey mind”—the part of our consciousness that leaps from one superficial idea to another, never resting, always distracting us with its chatter. I have not seen any research to support this, but I believe that it is especially hard for writers to sustain concentration unmediated by language, because language constitutes such a vital part of our creative process.

Unfortunately, as you have discovered, nature abhors a vacuum—and so does the creative brain. Often, the harder we try to empty our minds, the more forcefully ideas push in. When we struggle against these intrusive thoughts, we create internal conflict—the obverse of the pure, flowing experiences you have been blessed with when you didn’t seek them.

Instead of trying to stop thinking in words—an exercise comparable to forbidding yourself to think of a red elephant—try flushing out the words with nonverbal activity that is so engaging it leaves little room for language.

If you paint, knit, or play a musical instrument, start there. If you enjoy athletic pursuits, try engaging in intense physical activity such as running, swimming, or a fast-paced competitive sport. Some people find that repetitive, goal-directed physical actions such as washing dishes, ironing, mowing the lawn, and chopping wood induce a nonverbal trance-like state.

Choose an activity that draws you and that you can become immersed in, and pursue it wholeheartedly. Don’t concern yourself with random thoughts that may whisper to you. Allow them to enter your consciousness and drift away, like clouds, as you pursue your work. Chances are, you will emerge some time later with the realization that you have again visited that “silent territory.” With practice, you may find that you can enter it at will.

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. Her book,  Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007) is now available in bookstores. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

THE DOCTOR IS IN

MAD

I periodically receive requests from readers to address the anecdotal link between creativity and insanity. I have tried a few times to tackle the issue in this column, but I always give up, for two reasons.

First, this is out of my area of expertise. I specialize in the cultural, emotional and relational issues creative artists face. I am not a neuroscientist.

As an interested layperson, I try to stay informed. I am intrigued by studies that suggest that people with mood disorders, especially bipolar disorder, are overrepresented in the creative professions, and that creative artists are more likely than the general population to have a first degree relative with a serious mental illness. I am not equipped to comment on the validity or wider meaning of these studies, though.

Second, this is an extremely fraught topic for artists. Those who have struggled with mental illness themselves or who have lived with a mentally ill parent, sibling, and/or child tend to be rightly offended by the romanticizing of mental illness as “creative madness,” and the implied disparagement of the pain and destruction such disorders can wreak. Those who consider themselves and their families sane are often offended or alarmed by the implication of “craziness.” 

When I was pursuing my first master’s degree, in drama therapy, I took a class on psychopathology with other students of creative arts therapies. One day, the teacher asked what we thought a suitable vocation for a person with controlled schizophrenia might be. He was thinking, he told me later, about jobs that entail repetitive, easily mastered tasks and do not require intense interaction with co-workers or the public.

I was comparatively young and naïve then, and without reflection I blurted out, “Painter?” I was thinking specifically of Blake’s visionary drawings and paintings, of the beauty and terror that, I felt, were inseparable from his hallucinatory experiences. I could as easily have said, “Poet?”—and I should have, because writing therapy was not represented in this group. I didn’t mean to imply that visual artists were all “crazy,” but I never got a chance to explain this, because the room exploded.

“What about actors?” an art therapist shot back. “They all have multiple personality disorder!” Within seconds, adult graduate students were lobbing the names of impaired musicians, actors, and painters across the room like spitballs. “Robert Schumann!” “Van Gogh!” “Sid Caesar!” and so on, until the teacher finally restored order and deftly changed the subject. Relations among the departments were chilly for several weeks afterward.

Over the years, subsequent attempts to discuss the subject have been met with less dramatic, but still intense, responses, and I’ve grown leery of opening that door, even an inch or two.

So you will understand that my heart dropped down to my stomach last Friday when Peter Cox, the host of Litopia After Dark, asked me to comment, live, on Robert Burton's famous statement that all poets are mad. I was already nervous about appearing on this program, which is packed with brilliant, quick-witted panelists whose sparkling commentary on every imaginable topic of literary interest makes the listener feel like a privileged eavesdropper at the Algonquin Round Table. Was I about to turn the soiree into a food fight with a few ill-chosen words?

My initial impulse was to deflect the question with a laugh and a reference to ten-foot fountain pens. But, as I have posted here before, I made a commitment this year to engage as fully as possible with the interesting challenges that come my way.  I have systematically accepted invitations I would previously have declined out of shyness or insecurity. I have pushed myself both artistically and personally, and I have been savoring the rewards of overcoming my perceived limitations. A week earlier, I had fulfilled a promise to myself to ride the Coney Island Cyclone before the summer's end. Next to that, I told myself, pissing off a group of brilliant writers would be a sheet of blank writing paper. So I braced myself and plunged in, speaking from my training in psychiatric units and my experience as a therapist to writers.

Individuals in the throes of a florid psychotic episode, I said, often express themselves through seemingly incoherent, pressured speech, known colloquially as "word salad," and presumed to reflect disturbed thought processes. Although superficially these communications appear chaotic, they often represent "dream logic"--sometimes stunning leaps of intuition, symbolic connections, and imagistic thinking, unmediated by conventional logic or reason--the same well that the artist draws from in the initial creative stages.

The ability to access "primary process," though, is only one aspect of successful creativity. The material thus plumbed must be shaped, ordered, and made coherent--and that requires logical thinking, organization and discipline that are far beyond the reach of the acutely ill person. The manic phase of bipolar disorder can give a useful boost of creative energy and confidence to a first draft, but beyond that, mentally ill artists create good work in spite of, not because of, their painful and debilitating conditions.

At least, that's what I intended to say. I was nervous and perhaps a bit word-salady myself. It didn't matter. A lively discussion ensued, but no tomato-slinging. We debated, discussed, and, at times, disagreed strongly--and it was stimulating, thought-provoking, imperfect, and fun. This "saying yes" program is paying off big time.

In fact, I've been invited back as a monthly guest on the show.

I said yes. 

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. Her book,  Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007) is now available in bookstores. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com. 

THE DOCTOR IS IN

Dear Dr. Sue,

I've done the hard work of writing a novel. I found a wonderful agent with almost miraculous ease and then endured a year of rejections while my agent never lost faith. Now we have found an excellent publisher, the contract is soon to be signed, and I will soon begin revisions. I'm thrilled, of course, that the book has found a home, but being a highly credentialed neurotic, I've spent little time leaping from joy to anxiety. I'm proud of the book I've written, but I am also afraid of so many things--that it will be ignored, that it will be eviscerated, that my friends and family will politely avoid me. How do I make myself strong enough to face its emergence into the world?

Trembling

Dear Trembling,

Congratulations!

Of course you are anxious. Publication by an excellent house represents a rare and important opportunity, and thus, in a novelist's imagination, myriad chances to fail.

I would guess that, like most fiction writers, you have a greater than usual investment in being in control.  In writing the book, you were able to engineer the plot, and the fates of your characters, to conform with your vision. Out in the world, the book's reception will be largely out of your hands. Worrying--imaginatively rehearsing doomsday scenarios--can provide the illusion that we are in command of a frightening situation. As you may have experienced, though, worrying can generate negative energy and can even paralyze our ability to take the actions that are in our power.

I would suggest that you address your anxiety in two ways: first, by exerting the control you do have, and second, by practicing letting go of the elements you can't direct. Here are two exercises--one practical, the other emotional--designed to bind this type of anxiety.

TAKING POSITIVE ACTION

On a piece of lined paper, list of all of your fears for your book. Next to each fear, write down a corresponding hope. For example, next to "Book will be ignored," write, "Book will be a bestseller." (Don't worry about how realistic the hope is--just focus on turning the negative images into positive ones.) Then, for each hope, write down any practical steps you can think of to effect this in the real world. For example, for "Book will be a bestseller," you might write "Talk to book-promotion expert about affordable options." Use your creativity to work around seemingly uncontrollable factors. For "Book will be well reviewed" (rather than "eviscerated"), you might write, "Ask everyone who reports enjoying the book to write a positive Powells or Amazon review"--you can't control what the professionals say, but you can increase your chances of positive reader ratings, which do drive sales. If you can't come up with an action, brainstorm with friends. Keep the list in a visible location, and add to it as new fears emerge or new actions inspire you--and be sure to follow through.

LETTING GO OF THE OUTCOME

Sit quietly in a comfortable chair at at time you are unlikely to be interrupted. Think of an image that represents external success to you--a rave review on the front page of the TBR; readers lined up around the block for a book signing; a fat contract for your next novel--whatever would confirm that you had achieved your wish. Visualize this image as specifically and concretely as possible.

Now, enclose the image in a beautiful pink bubble. Pick up the bubble and toss it gently into the air. Watch as it drifts upwards, into the clouds. Follow it with your gaze until you can't see it anymore, then let it go. Say to yourself, "This is my wish. I wil do everything possible to make it a reality, but the results of my efforts are out of my hands--and that's fine."

Repeat this exercise as frequently as necessary.

Above all, keep reminding yourself that you have already achieved success. You have written the book you wanted to write. Everything after that is just logistics.

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. Her book,  Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007) is now available in bookstores. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

THE DOCTOR IS IN

ART AND THE AMATEUR

Earlier this week, a friend and I went to the theater. Over dinner beforehand, we discussed the mixed reviews the play had garnered. For the most part, the objections were to its "talkiness" and "slow spots," and we wondered whether we would be bored.

"I actually prefer talky and slow," I said. I tend to feel assaulted by the rapid-action films and books my teenaged son and his friends are drawn to. I prefer to be led, gently and thoughtfully, into the heart of the conflict. "If a reviewer complains that there isn't enough action, I know it's my kind of piece."

My friend, who is a gifted composer of musical comedies, observed that his own work (which is generally very well received) has sometimes been dismissed by critics as unexciting. "They want to be jolted out of their seats, bowled over by something totally new." My friend's music, while often innovative, draws subtly on his appreciation of classical, jazz, and musical theater traditions. His songs have moved me to tears, guffaws, and blissful trance states, but they have never jolted me out of my seat--for which I'm grateful. But critics--like agents and editors, we speculated--are not free to immerse themselves in the experience. They have a professional obligation to discover new and exciting work and bring it to public notice. They are attuned to the "cutting edge," the knife honed to draw blood, not to the lovingly crafted tea service.

"Maybe they get jaded, too," I said. "They have to see so many plays, read so many manuscripts, that they lose their patience for nuance and detail. They want to jump right to the meat." We speculated about whether this induced ADD might have helped shape an artistic culture that caters to thrill-seekers rather than lovers or conoisseurs.

The play was talky and slow, as promised. Nothing much happened on the surface. Yet an entire world was created, layer upon painstaking layer, that was so rich and believable that when I met some of the actors later, I was initially taken aback that their vocal patterns, body language, and attitudes were different from those of the characters they played. A half-hour could easily have been cut from the dialogue without damaging the plot or the major themes--but the texture and shading that drew me in would have been lost--as would the thoughtful explorations of seemingly innocuous cultural differences that can spark heartbreaking schisms, and of the ways language can both unite and isolate us.

I'm grateful that I don't have to say anything new or clever about this play, and that no one is paying me to assess its position in the canon. I couldn't even say whether it was "successful" or not by any objective standards. And I don't care. For a few hours I inhabited an environment completely different from my own. I experienced the world through the eyes of people I'm unlikely to encounter in real life. I left looking at certain questions of language use differently.

If I had had to approach the play as a professional, would I have missed the beauty, the luxury, of slowness?  Would I have advised theatergoers to stay home, or to forgo this experience in favor of something hotter, fresher, faster?

What do you think?

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. Her book,  Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007) is now available in bookstores. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

THE DOCTOR IS IN

Dear Dr. Sue,

    I'm writing a monthly column about writing. How much is there to say? I feel I've said all I can say and yet there are millions of books on the topic. Have any ideas of a fresh approach?

RS

Dear RS,

First, I would suggest that you explore your own feelings about your column. If you truly feel there is nothing left to say, is it possible that it is time to move on?

Most projects have natural end points. Endeavors that once sparked excitement and growth now feel repetitive and stifling. We have learned all we can from them. We have communicated our most important thoughts. We now have the persistent feeling of "calling it in"--of going through the motions without any real engagement.

If you have reached this point, consider either letting go of the column in favor of a new project, or taking it in a completely different direction--wherever your heart really lies at the moment.

On the other hand, if the topic and the process of writing continue to attract you, and the issue is simply that you need new material, consider asking your readers for suggestions. In my experience, readers of columns about writing are extraordinarily literate, thoughtful, and opinionated--qualities that make them excellent advisers and inspirers!

(Speaking of which--a few weeks ago, my inbox deleted itself in a fit of either temper or despair--we're still working it through. In the meantime, if anyone has sent me a letter for this column that hasn't been answered here, please re-send. Do this even if you wrote me a year ago--I intend to answer every letter, but some letters require more research and rumination than others. Yes, I know I should have backed up and saved elsewhere. That is what I advise clients and students to do. The shoemaker's children and all that.)

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. Her book,  Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007) is now available in bookstores. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com. 

THE DOCTOR IS IN

MORE ON COMMITMENT

Last week I had lunch with a friend who is not only a gifted and successful novelist, but a savvy businessman. Among the many topics we covered during our wide-ranging conversation was the nature of my next project.

"You have to write another book on creativity!" he said.

"I've started a new novel...."

"But you have the perfect platform! Listen!" And he proceeded to outline a fascinating concept--a book I would love to read. I began to imagine such a book. I started throwing out ideas. "Brilliant!" he said. "You can sell this as a proposal. There's no way this won't be snapped up. It will be the next Blink!"

I floated out of the restaurant, a bit surprised that the waitstaff wasn't more deferential to the new Malcolm Gladwell. On the train, I opened my Moleskine to jot down a few more scintillating ideas--and found pages of notes for the novel I have been working on, sporadically, for the past two years. And my stomach sank.

I have had very good luck getting my stories and essays published. My two completed novels, on the other hand, have gone nowhere. They are too weird. They don't fit into any category that marketing departments recognize. I have told myself, repeatedly, that there is no future for me in novel writing. Friends, including my lunch companion, have encouraged me to stick to nonfiction because it is much easier to place, especially when you have a built-in platform.

And yet this novel really wants me to write it. I'm fascinated by the subject matter. Getting a grip on the topic requires extensive research--and everything I read pulls me more deeply into the story I want to tell. I find myself composing passages on the train, in the swimming pool, while washing dishes. I have pages of outline that I revise continually.

The only things holding me back from writing it full-steam are a) lack of time; and b) the conviction that I should put other, more practical projects first, because, based on history, the chances of publication are slim to none. Working on it is pure self-indulgence.

This projected nonfiction book, I told myself, did have promise. I have the background and understanding of the field to write a very good, helpful book, and the qualifications to sell it. It would be only practical to set the novel aside (again!) and work on a proposal. If it did sell, that could only help in placing my novel down the line. Right?

And yet there was that sick feeling--the one I get when I'm in danger of betraying myself, of doing what I'm "supposed to" do, according to some outside standard, instead of following my internal compass. I've done that too often in my life, and I'm trying to stop.

So I had to ask myself--did I really want to write this new book? Would I be completely committed to, and engaged in, the process? Or did I just want to have written something that had a reasonable chance of publication?

The topic interests me--I would certainly read such a book if someone else wrote it--but enough to spend years researching, writing, revising, and promoting? Years that I could use to finally get a handle on my novel? Or to live my life in other fulfilling ways?

I would love to be as successful as Malcolm Gladwell. But his books are so good because they reflect his authentic interests and enthusiasm.

Or am I just naive? Or manufacturing reasons not to take the next step?

To be continued.

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. Her book,  Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007) is now available in bookstores. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

THE DOCTOR IS IN

Dear Dr. Sue,
My novelistic abilities are making me crazy. The very thing that enables me to be a writer is torturing me in real life. I find that I am projecting my imagination onto already stressful situations and making them almost untenable. For instance: a family member needs surgery. I not only play out scenarios  - complete with dialog - of what it will all be like, how it will go, the possible ways it could go wrong, how I will react, how he will react, and exhaust myself emotionally.  I spend untold hours trying to imagine what the family member is thinking, inventing a depression and then playing that out to its disastrous ends. I picture him going through untold tortures. I can see it all! I write the scenes. I know how to do that. I make my living doing it. I try to write the other scenarios - the positive ones - but keep going back to the scary ones. It's as if I am luxuriating in the terrible drama of our lives that I am scripting. And making myself anxious and exhausted.

How do I turn my writer's mind off?

A Writer, through and through

Dear Writer,

Your letter provides a vivid example of the pitfalls of the creative imagination. I think most writers have suffered the stress of living through fantasy scenarios that are much worse than the real-life situation. Some of us are able to find relief in scripting a more hopeful series of events; others--especially in such difficult circumstances as you describe--find that the effort to focus on the positive feels false and even frightening.

Many of us have had the experience of being blindsided by a tragic or frightening event. Sometimes we respond with an unconscious resolve never to be surprised by bad news again. Thus, when we confront a potentially dangerous situation, our impulse--often mysterious to us--is to project the worst, often in excruciating detail. Your sense of "luxuriating in the terrible drama" may actually be an expression of your psyche's desire to take care of you by preparing you for the most dire outcome imaginable.

As you have experienced, this "technique," however well intentioned, serves only to deepen your anxiety and to drain energy that would be better used caring for yourself and your relative. Since you have been unable to divert this creative energy to happier images, you may wish to try an exorcism.

Write down the horror story in your head. Include the most dire, terrifying details that come into your mind. Illustrate it if you wish. Don't worry about literary quality, but be sure to describe your nightmare as completely and accurately as you can.

When you're finished, take the manuscript to a fire-safe place. Crumple each page, saying aloud as you do so, "I release these ideas. They no longer have power over me." (You may feel silly, but do it anyway--voicing intentions is much more powerful than just thinking them.) Then burn the pages. If you have saved the story on your computer, delete the file. Resolve to be done with negative scenarios.

Then, try to stay in the present. This is not easy to do, especially for a novelist, but it is probably a more realistic goal than substituting a sugarplum fantasy for your worst nightmare. Focus on what you see, right now, in front of you. Are there small (or large) ways you can help? If you think you see signs of depression, ask the family member what might make him feel better. Stay with him, in the moment, realizing that this is all any of us can really be sure of, and use your writer's imagination to find ways to make the most of it.

Be sure to keep up with your own self-care routines as well. It's easy to let these slide as we become immersed in others' more pressing issues--but regular exercise, a healthy diet, and, especially, sufficient sleep can help stabilize your moods and enable you to be more fully present.

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. Her book,  Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007) is now available in bookstores. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

THE DOCTOR IS IN

FULL COMMITMENT

Recently, I had the privilege of reading a friend's novel in manuscript. I was gripped by the thrilling, fast-paced story that unfolded on the surface, and intrigued and moved by the underlying themes of loss and reconciliation. I was also struck by another phenomenon.

My friend had asked me to look for instances of awkward phrasing, inappropriate usage, and repetition, and I did mark a number of passages that seemed to warrant rethinking. What fascinated me was the distribution of these problematic passages.

The manuscript contains scenes of powerful drama and high emotion. The writing in these is consistently graceful, evocative and poetic. The prose sweeps the reader viscerally into the action and the internal life of the characters.

It is in the connective tissue--the narrative nuts and bolts, obligatory backstory, and descriptions of settings--that the writing sometimes becomes awkward and self-conscious.

When I discussed this with my friend, she told me that this issue had surfaced over a decade ago, with her first novel: "I could have fifteen pages of a sex scene with not one mark and then 20 marks on the next five pages of transition," and the pattern has never changed. She asked if I had any ideas about why this happens.

I thought about my own social shyness, and how it disappears when I'm engaged in a discussion on a topic I'm passionate about--and about the stories of mothers who find the strength to lift cars off of their toddlers. When our hearts and our passions are engaged, we are often able to marshal resources that are unavailable to us under normal conditions, I said. We bypass our internal censor and act from our instincts and inner wisdom when we are fully committed.

My friend was disappointed in my answer. "I was hoping you had a more provocative reason that might cure me of awkward writing althoghether," she said.

I don't. But we can't be the only writers who struggle with this issue.

What do you think?

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. Her book,  Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007) is now available in bookstores. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.