“Mom, want me to teach you a Levitating Hand Trick?”
When my oldest was eight, he presented the question to me one Sunday morning. Finished with my second cup of coffee, I felt up for the challenge.
“Hold out your arm,” he instructed, getting right to work. He pushed down so gently that when he removed the pressure, nothing happened.
“Maybe it only works on kids,” he offered.
“I’m sure it works on adults too. Want to try again?”
We did.
“Don’t be afraid to push down on my arm, hard,” I said.
He pushed harder and harder. I resisted the pressure and, sure enough, when he let go, my arm levitated.
“It worked!” my son said, with a mixture of excitement and relief. He loves a formula, a routine, or a simple system that works every time. He likes to know what to expect. And if a set of procedures brings about the same results every time, you can bet he’ll commit it to memory faster than most.
Pressure + Resistance = Levitating Hand.
He had discovered his party trick; he could count on it to make him look good.
We want to count on our speeches to work too. We want to “look good” in front of our audiences. Nothing worse than getting caught up there with material that doesn’t work. Our job as speakers is to elevate our audiences. We don’t want to come away saying, “maybe it doesn’t work on this audience.”
The good news is the formula that made my arm rise, can work for writers too. The gentle pressure of a soft deadline, the adrenaline that comes with a hard one, a financial commitment, a promise, the hundreds of people in your audience waiting for you to deliver.
We make commitments because we know what pressure will do.
Pressure and resistance will make us write, if we work with them.
Pressure + Resistance = Writing.
In physical fitness realms, we’ve got this: We know resistance is good. You’ve heard all the slogans: No pain, no gain. Before you primp, you’ve got to pump. Just do it.
But as writers, we tell ourselves all kinds of half-truths when we’re in the resistance phase: We’re procrastinating. It shouldn’t hurt so much. We don’t have what it takes. We suck.
It still happens to me. I’m working on a keynote I’m giving later this month and a few weeks ago, when I was nearing the end of my first draft, i had the same sort of crisis of faith I’m forever encouraging clients through. I was far enough along to begin to worry about the next phases–learning the script and rehearsal–but not yet close enough to be putting those anxieties to rest in action.
I had to finish the draft first.
You see, once I have a draft, I know I’ll work until it’s right. I’ll keep pushing until I’ve narrowed the gap between what I want to say and what I’ve said. Until it’s closed, like the leaves in the Thanksgiving table are closed (can’t have the Lenox, the gravy and potatoes, falling through to the floor). And, I can push; I’ve got two bigheaded boys to prove it.
What’s more difficult to reconcile is that by the time I get to that point, the point where there’s a draft with enough shape to be a draft, I’ve already put in a lot of work…usually, more than I’ve scheduled.
And, like so many writers, I like having written a lot more than I like writing.
This is when the self-doubt creeps in, during those tired hours when we don’t want to write anymore, when we want to be finished, and we’re not.
And when there’s shape enough to see what the writing wants to be at it’s highest self, that’s when we can also more accurately measure the gap we need to close, that’s when we have a rough idea how much more work we’ve still got to do.
It’s always a lot more but by now we can see it’s worth it. We’ve invested too much time to turn back and we find ourselves asking, “How much more?”
A good week or more and the time is ticking. And our fantasies about what a breeze this thing was going to be to write have long been replaced by the painstakingly real work of real writers.
It’s in these hours that the panic can begin to set in, if you let it. The panic can take many forms. For a lot of my clients, this is when perfectionism rears it’s ugly head or when they replace the breezy fantasy they know won’t serve them anymore for a much more thrilling, much more dangerous, one. It’s laden with glorious details about what this particular talk is going to do for them: Make their career, put them on the map, get them more gigs, more publicity, more people on their list…More, more, more until the stakes are unnaturally high, unrealistic, and worst of all, the audience is no where to be found.
When this happens, it is critical to re-imagine your audience’s needs. Put them in front of your own, and remember that this isn’t about you. In this particular instance, my own doubt crept in rather practically, on my calendar. When I looked at the self-imposed deadlines I’d created a few months back, I was already supposed to be well into rehearsal mode and I was still writing.
I was staring at another gap.
I tell all my clients not to memorize their talks; I prefer they learn them. I have cool tricks for that; like drawing a “neighborhood map” of the speech so they can see it. I tell them to set up Post It’s with the main ideas in each part of their talk in different rooms of their home so they can do “drive throughs” several times a day for a week to start. I demonstrate how, without even trying, I’ve usually already come to know their stories, the parts of their speech, the order, just by being with them in it.
I’ve got as many ways to get ‘er done as I’ve had clients. I know how to do it; I’m a pro at helping other people with this stuff.
But that doesn’t necessarily save me from the damage I can do to myself.
Because I haven’t, yet, worked with a writer whose problem is what they don’t know. The people I work with are smart. If anything, they know too much.
It’s their feelings, the thoughts they dare not speak–the ones that have little to do with the areas they’re subject matter experts in–that, if left untended, threaten to forsake them.
I’ve got them too. Difference is, I know my feelings and thoughts will behave much better when I share them with you. Here’s a sampling of my peskier ones as I neared the end of my first draft. First, the relative confidence I’d had since I’d accepted the offer to speak to the Society of Research Administrators International began to seem like a distant memory. Who was that Woman who had said yes? And why would she abandon me now?
“How are you ever going to memorize your speech? You know you should have begun that process already,” the wicked witch who replaced her said to me.
“It’s right there on your calendar, plain as day. You’re a week behind. It’s going to be impossible now,” she continued. It’s her job to keep digging the trench.
“Well, if you’re not going to memorize it—and how could you ever expect to?—you and your long-literary sentences should pack it in. You’re not fit for the modern world. You should have stayed in the classroom. Keynoter, my ass.”
“But, but, I don’t recommend anyone memorize a script, ever,” I said. Though, I should know better than to take a defensive stance.
“And what do you know?”
Isn’t she magnificent at the low-blow? I no longer justify her nastiness with a response. I know plenty.
I went back into the speech. Realized I was going to need slides to get my audience safely, and easily, over the chasm between what they know and what’s new to them.
And, if I had illustrations…I could take wordy, complex, ideas and make them super simple.
Now, that was an idea. I started to brighten.
Then I went dark again. I immediately started to worry about the technology.
What if it fails me? What if my pointer-clicker doesn’t point and click?
What are those called anyway?
“You see that? You see, you don’t even know what the most rudimentary instruments for speakers are called. Pack it in, I’m telling you, pack it in,” my saboteur said.
Saboteur may sound all fancy and French but that mofo will bury you in your own backyard.
IF YOU LET HER.
This is the moment when you’re presented with a choice: You can begin the downward spiral and hand fistfuls of dirt to your saboteurs…They won’t discriminate, they’ll take all the help they can get to bury you or you can throw out a lifeline.
The choice is yours.
“Mike, hi buddy, how u?” I wrote in Messenger.
“What’s up sis?”
“What do you call those pointer clicker things?”
“Wireless Presenters.”
Mind you, I’ve used these before; in fact, the last time I gave a talk to engineers I used an elaborate polling software and it all worked out swimmingly but none of this stuff that goes through our heads is entirely rational when we’re dealing with resistance. Which is why it is extremely important to go through the process of solving for what we can solve and learning to live with whatever anxiety remains.
When my husband came home, I said, “I need to get a wireless presenter.”
“I have two, I’ll gladly give them to you,” he said pulling one from each pocket of his suit jacket.
I felt my blood-boil. He’s always got an answer, a practical solution, a gadget or two.
“I don’t know if those are good enough.”
“Really?”
It’s a rhetorical question. We both know this isn’t about the pointer-clickers. We both know if I edited the last sentence I spoke for truth I’d have said, “I don’t know if I’m good enough.” But it’s so hard to say out loud, to my husband, the guy who has always seen me as my highest self. Fortunately, I don’t have to say the words out loud. And though it’s painful for him to watch when i get this way, he knows better than to try to fix this one for me, to insert himself in the middle of what’s my making. Besides, they haven’t, yet, invented a piece of technology that can solve for existential angst.
“I think we both know that’s ridiculous,” he said.
“I know. I’m in the resistance.”
“Well, then you know what you gotta do.”
I kept working. Over the next few days, I started to create simple slides that would make the more complicated concepts of my talk easy for my audience to consume. I decided they’d best be drawn well and I don’t draw well but that, I realized quickly, is a solve-able problem. What’s more, There’s someone out there who does this! Who will be thrilled by this collaboration, I thought. I reached out to my network for illustrator recommendations. I met with one yesterday. He was genius! He understood me! He gets why story is so important! The slides will be ready by the end of the week and I’ve used more exclamation points in that last sentence than I have in the last twenty years.
Because I’m excited again. I’m moving forward. Lighter, brighter, faster, more efficiently, more creatively, more collaboratively, and more supported than I was before.
And my saboteur? She’s not all bad. She just hasn’t figured out how to handle me yet.
She’s licking her wounds, watching, taking lessons from my friends. The people I reached out to about the illustrator, about the wireless presenter, about the slides, they inquired about my talk with curiosity not judgment. They wanted to hear about it. I sent them the teaser. They listened. “This is awesome.” “You got this!” “Btw, copy on this is really good,” they said. Besides,”You’ve still got weeks.” “I’m giving a talk next week, I’m writing it today.” “Wish I was going to be there,” and “love it,” they said.
Working with and through the resistance made me, and my talk, stronger than we’d been before. Kind words from my friends helped too. Like any of us in the throes of a creative project, I needed some encouragement. Had you been a fly on the wall when my oldest was born, you’d have heard me saying, “I can’t do this” for four of the twelve hours I was in labor. You’d also have heard my husband and best friend saying, “Nonsense, you’re doing it.”
To succeed, we have to communicate when the going gets rough, when we’re not all polished and perfect and expert. I got the support I needed only when I made myself vulnerable enough to allow others to rally around me, the woman whose helped countless others write their talks. It can be really tempting to think I need to do it on my own to keep my go to status as an expert but I’d much prefer you see me walk my talk.
And, more accurately, falter, curl-up-in-a-ball, want-to give up, doubt, stumble, have an out and out temper tantrum over a flat-tire…all before I walk my talk out on stage with all the grace and generosity I know I’m capable of in service to my audience.
Once I decided not to hole up alone in my office with my saboteur, the resistance made me ready, and so much stronger than I was before.
And when I released the pressure, bam, there she was, Creativity, as light and easy as my levitating hand.
Resistance is part of the formula; it’s part of the process, remember?
Pressure + Resistance = Writing.
Turns out the levitating hand trick, isn’t really a trick; you don’t get to float before you get frustrated, before you do the work, every last bit of it. Had you been able to see me and my son that Sunday morning, the intense eye contact, the way we grit our teeth, you’d have seen us test each other’s mettle. At first, I could see my son wonder if he’d have strength enough to push back against me. I’ve always prided myself on trying to model for him what it means to be loving and strong. And when I saw the self doubt make it’s move on him I saw an opportunity to teach him something it took me too many years to learn.
“Don’t give up.” I told him. “Push harder or push differently. Don’t forget to breathe and, most important of all, you can’t be afraid you’ll hurt me.”
“Mind if I blog about the Levitating Hand Trick you taught me?” I asked him when we’d proved the trick worked on adults too.
“Why would you want to?”
“Because you and the people I work with inspire me. I thought it’d be cool to put you together in the same space. Besides, it’s a pretty cool trick.”
“Sure, go ahead,” he said and smiled.
That was a long time ago because resistance is a real part of any writer’s process and it can retard our progress if we don’t recognize it for the rebel rouser it can be. The sooner you can recognize it, the sooner you decide what to do with it, the sooner you can write your way through to your next breakthrough. Chances are, whatever you’re working on will help someone else breakthrough too.