real/brilliant: Dysfluency And Its Cure

Dysfluency is the inability to write. Dorothea Brande’s book, Becoming a Writer, is now the standard (her solution for it was free writing, now used as the first step to getting unstuck or moving to fluency) on working through these issues. You can plan to write all you want, but actually doing it may be an entirely different issue.

Julia Cameron espouses free writing in her famous Artist’s Way series, so there is something to it.

Read Brande’s words:

Write anything that comes into your head: last night’s dream, if you are able to remember it; the activities of the day before; a conversation, real or imaginary; an examination of conscience. Write any sort of reverie, rapidly and uncritically. The excellence or ultimate worth of what you write is of no importance yet . . . your primary purpose is not to bring forth deathless words, but to write any words at all which are not pure nonsense.

This produces what Brande termed the “full, abundant flow” otherwise called fluency. The key to understanding why fluency is so hard to attain comes from understanding two things about writing, termed by Robert Boice as 1. What makes writing so inherently difficult? and 2. What other hindrances do writers bring to writing?

1. For me, writing isn’t hard as long as I’m writing nonsense. I can toss out blog posts full of gossip or advice off the top of my head like there’s nothing inherently difficult about it. That’s the problem. I have strengthened certain writing muscles (probably the most obnoxious ones) and the smaller, more important writing muscles are still hiding. It’s the same as our body’s muscular systems. A workout dvd I’ve been using and have gotten friends and family hooked on is one from a dancer who tires out the bigger muscles in order to strengthen the smaller muscles (in arms, legs, torso) so that the strength is in toning, not in bulk. (I love this workout dvd; it does wonderful things to your arms.)

I think that has a lot to say about writing and it being difficult. It’s certain parts of writing that I find hard. I get lost in more serious pieces and I write so well just instantly that I don’t linger over the sentences and find the perfect word instead of a placeholder.

This is why I’m in a writing class. I want to slow down. I want to figure out the best possible choice for that sentence. Sure, most of my writing is paid, so I want it to go fast (I’m making money, folks!) but sometimes with a project, it’s better to just slow it down and really consider the choices you are making, much like turning rocks over in your hand after the ocean has brought them in on the tide. You pick and choose. You don’t just pick up every single rock you find.

2. The other piece of dysfluency is what sort of baggage we writers bring to the writing task. Most of what really works in our writing hurts–a lot! We can’t quite touch it because it hurts so badly or we hold it at arm’s length and refuse to come any closer. An electric charge exists around these pieces of our writing or psyche and we’d much rather just write nonsense or pieces about organizing or budgeting or going green than touch these pieces that are our solid gold. Writing is not something to hide in, although a lot of us professional writers do tend to hide in our corporate work. (My writing class is made up of several professionals and we all prefer our day job exhaustion to pouring out our deepest fears and worries.) But when we crash through and do it, we are intensely satisfied.

In my next post, I want to touch on worries that plague writers and keep them from moving closer to the deep writing that we all are searching so eagerly for. Until then, sending good vibes for your writing.

Tagged as: real/brilliant, writing