How to Deal with Resistance, and Our Podcast Farewell

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Welcome to the Inside Creative Writing Podcast, the weekly discussion of craft and technique for writers of fiction and creative nonfiction. And now here's your host, writer and educator, Brad Reed. Episode 37. Today we're talking about resistance to writing and how it can so easily disguise itself as productivity. Sadly, it's also our podcast farewell. Welcome back to the Inside Creative Writing Podcast.

Farewell to the Podcast

My name is Brad Reed, and I want to thank you for choosing to spend part of your day with me today to talk about writing. Now, today is not going to be your typical episode. We're not going to be getting into wise words or weekly challenges and all that, because today is, I'm sad to announce, the last episode of the Inside Creative Writing Podcast, at least for the foreseeable future. And before I get into the reasons why, I want to take a moment to thank you, the listeners and the fans of the show. Thank you for being so great and so supportive, especially those of you who joined the Patreon team. I mean, it's one thing just to listen to the show.

It's a whole different level of support to use some of your hard-earned money to show us that you valued the show. It's really thanks to all of you that pulling the plug on the podcast is so difficult for me to do today. I want to talk about resistance in our final few moments together. Much of what I'm going to talk about today comes from a great book called The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield. You really should pick up a copy if you've never read this book. I'll have a link to it in the show notes.

Understanding Resistance

Now, it's been quite a few years since I've read this book, but its insights and its lessons have stuck with me till this day. They're always kind of in the back of my mind. And the basic premise of the book is this. That art, any kind of art, is kind of a war against resistance. And this resistance can take a huge number of forms. We recognize this resistance easily when it comes in the form of the full-time job that robs us of our time and our energy to write.

Right? We recognize that as resistance to getting our art created, to get our writing done. We recognize it when it comes in the form of writer's block that freezes our progress.

Disguised Resistance Examples

But resistance is actually all around us at all times. It's pernicious. It's constant. And it's often invisible until we really, really look for it closely. The most damaging form of resistance, at least for me, is the resistance that comes disguised as something productive. Even something helpful and good.

Let me give you an example. So Twitter is a great place to meet other writers. To network, to find inspiration and motivation to sit down and write. I've found some great friends and writing role models on Twitter.

So yes, there are great benefits to joining the writing community on Twitter. But if you take a step back, it becomes clear that it is essentially a form of resistance to getting your art done. It's something to get in the way of you putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and making the words happen. We can easily convince ourselves that our time on something like Twitter or other social media is productive and even furthering our writing careers. And it may actually be to some extent.

But most of it is just disguised resistance keeping you from creating your art. Now does that mean I'm swearing off Twitter and I'm encouraging you to swear off social media? No, I'm not. Right.

But what I'm trying to do for myself is to be a lot more intentional about how and when and why I use it. Because I recognize it as a form of resistance and I don't give into it, at least not to the level that I once did. So another disguised form of resistance can actually be reading about and listening to podcasts about how to become a better writer.

Now, do those things improve your craft? Absolutely. Right. Are they an important way to stay motivated and keep improving your skills? Well, for sure they are.

Evaluating Time and Priorities

But can they become a method of resistance to keep you from actually creating your art? And the answer is absolutely they can. So does that mean that I'm swearing off reading books about writing or listening to great podcasts about writing? No, but I'm always leery and watching for when the scales tip from providing a benefit to simply being a distraction or a form of resistance that gets in the way of my writing. And that brings us to the main reason that I've made the decision to discontinue the podcast, at least for the time being.

Now, I love doing it. Don't get me wrong about that. And I really do believe that it helps people improve their craft and that it's a worthwhile use of my time.

But at the end of the day, I have to ask myself, is it the highest use of my time? Is it on some level a form of resistance not only for me, but for the people who choose to listen to it as well? And more and more, it's become obvious to me that it has tipped the scales from being beneficial to being a distracting form of resistance. For the last few episodes, I've kept track of the time I've spent writing, recording, producing, distributing the podcast, doing all the artwork for it. And all that time has eclipsed the time that I've actually spent writing, actually working on my own art.

So I toyed with the idea of just simplifying the format, streamlining the production, and actually spent quite a bit of time thinking through this process and realized that it was just another form of resistance, right? That I was spending even more time not writing by spending time trying to figure out how to spend more time writing, if that makes any sense. That's how pernicious resistance is, right? It hides, it disguises itself as these productive things.

So I can't say that I'm happy about this decision. And if the email and notes I've received from you guys over the time I've been doing this podcast are any indication, a lot of you won't be happy about it either. And for that, I sincerely apologize.

But that's the thing about overcoming resistance. It's almost never a fair fight. I mean, if my main resistance was a choice between either writing or doing the dishes, I mean, the writing would win every time, right? No contest.

But resistance is smart, right? Resistance is effective. Resistance is really fucking good at what it does.

So it comes disguised as things that look smart, things that look enjoyable and productive and worthwhile. And for me, it comes in the form of the hours of time and creative energy that goes into this podcast instead of into my writing. So I hope you'll understand where I'm at on this. And honestly, I hope you'll make it an opportunity to look at your own writing life and see where this subtle resistance has clawed its way into your schedule and into your priorities. I guarantee it's there. It's there for all of us.

Future Teaching Plans

And this is a lifelong battle of the artist, right? That's why Pressfield calls his book The War of Art because it's a constant war to overcome that resistance that is always pulling us away from our work. Now, having said all this, I am an educator at heart. I feel like I'm just born to teach people, right? I have a compulsion to teach, to share insights and discoveries with people who I feel I can use them. I can't not do that in some way.

So what I'm going to be doing is challenging my kind of teacher's heart in a couple of different directions other than the podcast. First of all, and primarily into my classes that I teach in person. They deserve the best of what I have to give.

But also into the weekly newsletter that I launched a few weeks ago. Yes, it's a different format. It's not nearly so intimate, not nearly so flexible, but it's still an opportunity to stay connected with you guys and share what I'm excited about when it comes to writing, what I'm learning, what I'm discovering, what I'm thinking about and what I can hopefully share to benefit your writing journey.

So I hope you'll subscribe to that. Head on over to Brad Reed writes dot com. You'll see the subscribe links there. You know, I can also still envision doing the occasional video or audio recording that I'll release through the website and announce in the newsletter.

But it can't be anything like the weekly commitment I've made with this podcast. I mean, besides, there are so many incredible podcasts out there now when there really weren't that many when I started this. And I'll be sharing some of those recommendations as well through the newsletter. Not only great shows that I love to listen to, but specific episodes that really strike me as particularly valuable.

So with that, we're going to wrap it up for this week, and that's actually going to wrap it up for the Inside Creative Writing podcast. I hope you'll remember that the best way to improve your craft is by writing. That's what I'm off to go do. And I hope you're off to do the same.

Let's get some words on paper and I hope we can meet up on Twitter through my newsletter and through the website at Brad read writes dot com. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the show. It's been my honor to have spent this time with you. Thank you.