Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

The brain systems interrupt

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The best thing I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older is: not only can you not trust what anyone else thinks, you sure as hell can’t trust what you think. 

Except for that bit of wisdom. That, you can trust. 

Yesterday, I went running. I think I’ve gone running three times this week. My running schedule has been sporadic since summer (read: if I run more than once a week, it’s an awesome running week), but I know I have to keep it up, because I learned something very, very important about running. It keeps my mood even. Running has worked better than any psychoactive drug for keeping me cheerful and upbeat. 

I went running with Rob at Rancho, and we had a pretty good run and I felt great about it, both physically and in terms of endorphins earned.

Today, I used Freedom and turned off my computer for four hours. I got so much done in terms of applying butt to chair and getting stuff done that I realized I really have to make an Applescript that simply runs Freedom at 9am every weekday and turns off the Internet for four hours. I love it when I have a really productive writing day. 

So, to recap: I ran yesterday, and I had a great writing day today. Anyone want to guess how I’m feeling right now?

That’s right: like crap. I have the voices in my head telling me…well, telling me all those things that your voices probably tell you. It can be summed up as “Everything you have ever done is wrong, and you’re a bad dancer to boot.” The kind of voice cacophony where it becomes hard to breathe. 

The first thing I have to do is remember: You can’t trust your own thoughts. They’re just thoughts. Just because you’re having them doesn’t make them any more or less true than any other thoughts. There are days when I think I’m a damn snappy dancer, I’ll tell you that. (Those days are rare, because in point of fact I’m not a good dancer, and I’m okay with that, frankly. No part of my ego is dependent on my ability to feel the rhythms.) 

The second thing I have to do is what I call a systems interrupt for my brain. I think various branches of psychology or pop psychology call this process by different things. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the mystery schools called it some variant on a spell or incantation. Which seems fair, because this technique works wonders. 

Okay, so you’re having one of these bad days, where all you can do is focus on every single thing you’ve ever done wrong (or failed to do at all). What you say inside your head is:

Thanks for saying that, brain. Now shut the fuck up.

Say it out loud if you have. Say it a lot. Say it until the voice in your head shuts the fuck up. Say it every time the voice pipes up. 

This process works. The first time I heard about it, I thought, Well, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. I swear to you, since I started doing this a few years ago, since I began immediately talking back every time the voice said anything, bad days have gotten a whole hell of a lot rarer. (Which is why a day like today is really such a bummer — I’ve forgotten how to deal with them.) 

You have to take control of your own thoughts. They’re not particularly true just because you’re having them, and they can be discarded. 

And make sure you’re getting a decent amount of aerobic exercise. At least walk a few times a week. There really is something to the whole endorphin theory of emotional management.

Diane’s Writing Advice

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Here is everything I know on the subject of writing:

“Put black on white.”
— Guy de Maupassant.

Seriously. All of writing comes down to actually doing the writing. And doing it some more.

Oh, need more? Okay.

“The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, shit detector. This is the writer’s radar and all great writers have had it.”
— Ernest Hemingway

Look at a professional’s story. Now look at yours. Now back to the professional’s. Do you know where you went wrong? Do you know why your stuff isn’t as good, as polished, as exciting, as whatever? Work on it. Just because you know the alphabet doesn’t mean you know jackshit about arranging it in the right order.

Sigh. Still not enough? Here goes.

  1. Nobody cares whether you write or not. Honestly. We get so many stories bombarding us each and every day (TV, movies, the Internet, blogs, Twitter, Facebook updates) no one’s going to notice whether or not you do yours. So if you want to be a writer for any other reason than you can’t imagine a better way of spending your time, just stop now. There are easier and more pleasurable ways to get money, sex, and fame than typing.

  2. Write everything. Fiction, plays, newspaper articles, diary entries, poetry, letters to the newspaper, fan fiction.

  3. Write what you know? Fuck that. Write what turns you on, write what excites you, write what you want to read. If you don’t want to sit down and write it, we don’t want to sit down and read it. What book do you want to go buy? Write it.

  4. Finish what you start. (This is my personal bête noire.) Everyone has fun with the initial burst of energy when you start a new project. Go through the long slog, because that’s when you really learn how to create.

  5. Your writing is never going to be good. Do it anyhow. Imperfect and real stuff >> perfect, nonexistent stuff. No reader in history has ever pointed to the brilliance of a book someone was going write “someday.”

  6. Stop waiting for someone to tell you your work is any good or you have promise or whatever. YOU have to know if you’re good. It’s really as simple as that.

  7. If no one goes out of their way to tell you you’re good, you’re only just kinda all right. “All right” is my gentle way of saying your work is mediocre. Try harder. Try bigger. Try bolder. Read your stuff with a critical eye — honestly, would you shell out hard-earned money for what you’ve written?

  8. When you get criticism, hear what they’re telling you, not what they saying. I’ll let you in a secret: When someone says there’s a problem with your work, they’re right. When they tell you what the problem is, they’re almost guaranteed to be wrong. Most writers wouldn’t know a story if it came up and bit them on the ankle, why on Earth would a non-writer know how to fix a story? Readers always know when something’s wrong though.

  9. Creativity is a muscle. You have to use it. You have to work it.

  10. I need a tenth thing? Stupid lists of ten.

And, oh yeah, the best writing advice (and possibly life advice) ever:

Nobody knows anything.
— William Goldman

The Bank of Time

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It happens for everyone at a different time and for different reasons, but I believe this does happen to everyone.

One day, you suddenly realize you are running out of time.

Another Saturday has gone by. Another birthday (your own or your kid’s) is coming around. You realize you’ve lived more than half your life, because you double your age and you realize it’s unlikely you’re going to live to see 2x. If you’re a woman, you reach the age where people — people under 30, especially — no longer see you standing there, their eyes go straight past you like you’re a ghost. You start making a list of all the things you’d like to do once in your life and you see in black and white you’re unlikely to get all of them done. If you want to get any of them done, you’d better get cracking.

That’s a great exercise, by the way: make a list of 100 things you want to do at some point in your life. “Oh, that’s easy,” you say. “I can come up with two thousand things I want to do.” I recommend doing this exercise anyhow. The first 20 come pretty easily. Then you have to start thinking about it. One by one, you begin to remember what it was you wanted to do, what secret dreams you had, what things you wanted to experience before you died.

Recently someone I know got sick. First there was one health problem, and that exposed another health problem, which exposed three more… The last time I saw this person, I realized there aren’t going to be that many more times I see them. It’s eye-opening, watching someone go through this process. What’s worse is, they keep talking about the stuff they’re going to do, and that’s all it’s ever been: talk. You can’t put stuff off to the future indefinitely, and one day you are going to run out of road.

You don’t have time.

Right now I have 30 minutes before my next appointment of the day. What can I do in 30 minutes? I ask myself. I’ve gotten into the unfortunate habit of saying, “I must have at least an hour to write!” So I have the mental mindset I can’t get anything done in only 30 minutes.

Except I am working on changing this mindset, because there are things I want to do, big and small, and I need to use what I’ve got to accomplish them. I can get a lot done in 30 minutes, even if it’s just writing today’s post. Or I could read some more of my current book. Or I can work on my list of things I want to do in my life, carve out just a little tiny bit of what I want to do. I no longer have the time to waste.