Writing from the Inside Out by Dennis Palumbo. 2000. ISBN 0-471-38266-3

The anxiety and uncomfortable feelings which we try to suppress are the raw material of creativity.

Supressing uncomfortable feelings leads to writers block.

"You are enough."

Mine the emotional landscape of your own life for the material to work with. Trust you have all of the experience and resources you need to create.

Calling it a block places a negative, destructive connotation on the experience. The experience of not being unable to write is full of a collection of different emotions, memories and expectations. Instead of wanting to destroy, instead look carefully at all of the threads of your current experience for your material. All the energy that prevents you is there because you haven't looked closely.

A block is a good sign, because it indicates you're working with powerful emotions, and that's great for your work.

Do you treat your work as you were treated as a child? Critical, overprotective, neglectful?

"... a fundamental goal for every writer: to develop a benign relationship with his or her talent."

Inspiration isn't as important as craft. Recommends George Leonard's book "Mastery". Love the day to day practice.

Get a writing buddy.

Writing is a dialogue between you and the work. Recommends Robert Grudin's book "On Dialogue: An Essay in Free Thought". Grudin: "If my relationship with a text is dynamic enough, I am rewritten by what I write."

Writing begats writing. If you're stuck, write anyway. Create, even if you'll throw it away, because you may need to say that thing to get to the rest.

All writing is autobiographical. You're writing your beliefs about how this should go. The particular detail gives the audience something to identify with in their imagination. You are enough. Write your story.

In order to get out of your own way, you need to be with all of your feelings, and your feelings about your feelings, and write anyways. (Note: Meditation helps with this.)

Just because something happened that way in real life, doesn't mean it needs to happen that way in fiction. The emotional truth of the event may need to be told differently.

The practice of the craft is it's own reward. The process of writing leads to happiness.

Writing and mental illness. If you're sick get help. If you're a writer, write.

Comparing yourself to other writers. "... it's easier to endure feelings of inferiority than to challenge yourself to grow as an artist."

"Feelings are information."

Envy: deny it or celebrate it.

Faith and doubt: keep the tension between the two, they're both valuable.

Fear: keeps you in the here-and-now. Navigation signal. Source of energy.

The Judge: helps you choose. Both validating and invalidating. Examine it closely for both positive and negative aspects.

Blues: keep submitting your work, but don't expect your chances to change just because your craft improved. The external reward is random. Your real reward is your relationship with the work process and your talent.

Myths: the stories we tell about our feelings are important. Examine them. Pay attention and do your best.

Have an expansive, long view of your writing life to smooth out the bumps of external fortune.

The discipline of structure in your writing life can be liberating. Set a fixed, regular time to write.

Pitching your work is hard.

Rejection: mourn then move on.

That sinking feeling: "... hired for that special, ephemeral skill that only writers bring to the table -- then usually prevented from utilizing that gift to the fullest."

Reinventing yourself. Examine your preconceptions of what kind of writer you are once in a while.

Deadlines feared before, disappointment after. Examine the self-critical feelings you have around deadlines. Become your own authority about the time for the process, by imposing personal sub-deadlines, to remove the power from external deadlines. (Note: small steps are less frightening.)

Craft takes time to learn. Each project is a new learning process. There are no guarantees.

Writing habits

Gumption: "sustained, meaningful, and concerted effort to write." Recommends Robert Pirsig's book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" Examine boredom and impatience, and use attention rather than shame or guilt to get the juice out of them. "...gumption as the natural sustained effort that arises out of being absorbed in a task."

Procrastination: Write about what you're doing to avoid writing. The product of inner conflicts about writing.

Patience: a calming, protective function.

Perspective: The pattern doesn't appear till it's all done.

Goofing off: time to let your thoughts percolate and regenerate.

Work with what you're given. Write about what's with you here and now, both your feelings and your physical environment.

Going the distance: pace yourself, expect hard spots, take detours, avoid unhelpful people, don't rush the ending, expect a down period after you're done.

Writing is groping towards the thing you suspect is there, an exploration.

Develop a committed relationship to your writing, like parenting or marriage.

Burnout: let yourself burn out, and take a break.

Recommends:

William Goldman - Adventures in the Screen Trade

Stephen Berg - In Praise of What Persists

Annie Dillard - The Writing Life

William Barrett - The Illusion of Technique

Donald Hall - Life Work

Jill Rossiter - Essay Writing

George Leonard - Mastery

Rollo May - the Courage to Create

John Gardner - On Moral Fiction

The Journals of Eugene Delacroix

F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby

Eugen Herrigel - Zen in the Art of Archery

Writing as a still process that resembles prayer.

Hollywood as an intermittent reward system.

You and your writing are enough.