Dorothea Brande’s “Formula for Success”: The Will to Fail Revisited

March 28, 2017March 28, 2017Samantha Tetangco Avoiding Evasion Strategies, Setting Writing Goals, Writer's Reflection, Writing Advice, writing habits Tags: Avoiding Evasion Strategies, Dorothea Brande, Formula for success, setting goals, the will to fail, Wake Up and Live, writing, writing goals, writing habits Leave a comment

At the onset of this Writer’s March Challenge, I wrote about Dorothea Brande and the “Will to Fail,” a concept based on Nietzsche’s “Will to Power” that seeks to name the human propensity towards self sabotage. As I explained,

Each person has a dream, a goal, an internal sense of what would make their lives better (their own will to power, so to speak), but each person’s will to power [is] usurped by the stronger will to fail.

selfsabotageyoursuccess Many people have watched Neil Gaiman’s commencement speech, a video I shared and discussed many years ago. In this speech, Gaiman talks to a group of graduating art students about how to make it as artists in today’s world. He tells them to always keep in mind what they have at the top of their mountain (their life goal). Then, when faced with choices on what to do next, he said, keep in mind this mountain and choose options that will take you closer to the top. And so, put another way, the “Will to Fail” involves all the life choices we make that either take us down or away from our mountains. It also (perhaps most importantly) asks us to examine all the reasons we stop climbing altogether.

So, what do we do to avoid this “Will to Fail”? How do we overcome it? In other words, I keep hinting at Brande’s formula for success, but have yet to offer it up. And so, I offer it now. As Brande Says,

All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is this: Act as if it were impossible to fail.

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Day 12: Writerly Catnaps (“Tuesdays with Nari”)

March 12, 2013March 12, 2013Nari Challenger Updates, Tuesdays with Nari, Writing Advice Tags: art, catnaps, napping, pep talk, sleeping, teaching, writer's march, writing, writing goals, writing tips 5 Comments

Often on Mondays I ask my writing students to name the highlight of their weekend. I receive a variety of replies, from the sarcastic “revising my essay” to the provocatively nebulous “doing stuff with friends.” Every now and then a student proclaims “Napping!”, to which I respond “Awesome!” Although many students might think my rejoinder sardonic (and this is usually a safe assumption), in the case of napping it’s always sincere.

I love napping. Long ones, short ones, deep ones, dozy ones, naps are–as much as this admission may not commend me–one of my favorite pastimes. I close the blinds, set my alarm, pull up a fleecy blanket, and slide into sleep. And when I wake up, the tasks that seemed hopeless before suddenly stir with possibility.

On Wednesday of last week, I reached a stage of drafting that felt endless. While I was close to finishing my essay, which I’d started in 2011, I’d read its sentences so many times I didn’t really see them, let alone hear them, anymore. Some words didn’t sound right, but I wasn’t sure why. The structure had kinks, but I wasn’t sure how. My Writer’s March hours passed with minimal progress. Finally, I decided to nap, and by “nap,” I mean “take a break” from my project: I wrote poetry. I drafted one poem during my last hour of writing on Wednesday, another during my writing time on Thursday. On Friday I returned to my stubborn essay, my vision clear, ears alert. The draft improved at a rate I hadn’t seen in a long time. I sent the draft to a writing buddy that afternoon, and yesterday she proclaimed it, aside from a few line edits, “done.” By the end of this Writer’s March, I’ll have sent it out to be read, ridiculed, rejected, and–perhaps–picked up by a magazine editor.

I believe in writerly catnaps. Not multi-week comas, not evasions, but brief respites–a half hour, hour, couple of days, taken only when needed–during which the writer whimsically concocts something new. This other creative project is key. A writerly catnap isn’t a complete vacation; it’s a succinct foray into some other imaginative articulation that keeps one’s voice alive, just channeled in a fresh way. The benefits are (at least) two-fold: First, the writer will regain stamina for her main project. Second, she’ll have started something she might not have otherwise written. One of my new poems was a satire on bad romance novels, the other an acknowledgment of someone I’m worried about. Maybe I’d have gotten around to them at some point, but I’ll never know because I don’t need to find out–now they’ve been formed into existence and when I flesh them out someday they’ll have a chance at becoming resonant.

But whether a writer “naps” by crafting a poem instead of revising her novel, or flash fiction instead of memoir, she must do it with a time limit, then stretch her artistic muscles and return to the original piece in progress–that cantankerous, obstinate, inimitable first love.

Day 5: Run Toward Confidence (The First of Several “Tuesdays with Nari”)

March 5, 2013March 5, 2013Nari Avoiding Evasion Strategies, Setting Writing Goals, Tuesdays with Nari, Writing Advice, Writing Prompts Tags: writing, writing goals, writing tips 3 Comments

Yesterday I went on the longest run I’ve gone on for a while. (Using patchy to describe my exercise record for this past winter is optimistic at best.) It hurt. For the last two miles, I was out of energy and out of breath. I had to pause four times to rally my muscular and respiratory systems, each time imagining that my body was a story’s punk villain staring insolently at me as she raised her middle digits. When I got home, I sank down onto the carpeted stairs, chugged water, and felt pathetic. But also accomplished.

This is not me.

After enjoying a snack–which I’d like to say consisted of exquisitely balanced portions of carbs and protein, but was really a Trader Joe’s cinnamon roll slathered with cream cheese frosting–I embarked on the next item on my agenda: three hours of writing.

I love what my friend Sam wrote about seeing writing as play, as enchantment. But for whatever reason, yesterday’s writing session was for my attention span what the run was for my body–hard work. I’ve been revising a personal essay that’s almost finished, but it’s not there yet. Sentences need to become cleaner and sharper. Sections need to be swapped around for maximum potency. I thought this final drafting process would be easy, but it’s not. And yesterday I had to summon all remaining willpower to keep at it for those three hours. As the minutes ticked by, distractions continued to appear: The couch wasn’t comfortable. The air felt too cold, then too warm. I was thirsty. I satisfied each need as it arose, determined not to let it eclipse my productivity. Although the going was slow, I got through the three hours, at the end feeling mentally hyperventilated. But, again, accomplished.

My point here is not that I’m awesome (though my back is always available for patting–that is, unless you’re creepy). My point is that on the days when writing feels like work, that’s okay. Adjust the thermostat. Kick your roommate/partner/spouse/cat out of the comfiest chair and claim it. Just keep writing.

Recently I read Stephen Koch’s fantastic book The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction, and there’s no other book about writing that I’d recommend more. The chapters travel through the writing process, from inception to the final draft. Chapter two, “The Writing Life,” is about becoming a writer by living as a writer. Koch says that any talent a writer has “will go to waste unless it is sustained and strengthened by the nagging, jagged, elusive thing called obsession, that stone in the shoe of your being known as a . . . vocation. Call it dumb persistence. Call it passion. Call it a fire in the belly or the madness of art. It is less the ability to write than the insistence upon writing.” I freely admit that I’m not obsessed with writing. I’m not the crazy wordaholic who sees scribbling in a notebook as her bread and water. At least not now. For me, writing is a choice–in the case of this Writer’s March, a daily choice. And today, day five, I can’t say that my writing is that much more brilliant, but I do feel like more of a writer. After all, as Koch points out, “Productivity is the only path to confidence. . . . Since writing is what generates inspiration–and not the reverse–abundant writing produces abundant inspiration.” So when you don’t feel the enchantment, write your way toward confidence. If you produce writing, you’re a writer.

Or, to speak for myself, the more I write, the more I know I’m a writer.

This is not me either.

Exercises (No Actual Running Required)

In the spirit of generating writerly confidence, feel welcome to try one (or more) of the following:

Pick a phase of your life (high school, for example) and write about how your spent the bulk of your free time. What did you love to do? What images and moments can you recall involving this activity?
Write about something that you’ve produced (infuse that last word with whatever meaning you wish).
Write a scene that shows you practicing something (an instrument, a sport, a concept like compassion).

Day 1: Set Your Goals

March 1, 2012March 1, 2012Samantha Tetangco Take the Writer's March Challenge, Writing Advice Tags: Derek Silvers, Greg Martin, John Dufresne, setting goals, ted talk, treadmill journal, writing, writing goals 2 Comments

Since last year’s Writer’s March, I’ve been thinking a lot about goals. What makes a goal “Good”? For the purposes of this Writer’s March, I would like to define a “good” goal as a goal that is, above all else, “achievable.”

4 things to keep in mind when setting your GOAL

Start Small but Don’t be Afraid to Push Yourself

If you aren’t already writing daily, don’t jump into five hours/day. I was writing an hour a day consistently, and when I bumped myself up to 90 minutes, I struggled to keep it. I grew discouraged, and as a result, I stopped writing. Don’t let that happen to you. If all you can do is 15 minutes/day, don’t be afraid to say it. Chances are that you’ll write for much longer anyway. Remember, the purpose of Writer’s March is to find a way for writing to fit into your life. They say that it takes 30 days to create a habit. Why not make the habit a goal as well?

That said: whenever you sit down to write, aim for more. Can the 15 minutes become 30? Can the 30 become an hour? Just because you’ve set a goal, doesn’t mean you can’t surpass it at every chance you get.

Be as SPECIFIC as Possible.

They say that goals are better achieved if they are measurable. In other words, if possible, make your goals concrete. Here are some of the Current Challenger goals posted so far:

Melanie Unruh’s Monthly Goal: To write 4 stories in the month
Lenore Gusch’s Monthly Goal: To write a short story
Teresa E. Gallion’s Daily Goal: To write a poem a day

What I envy about those training for marathons are the way they are always advertising their running times and training schedules. Ran six miles today. Ran ten miles today. Think of the daily goals as the same thing: what are you doing each day (writing and for how long?), and what is your version of the marathon (a novel, a story, a single poem)? And don’t forget: the act of building a writing habit is also an excellent monthly goal.

Once the Goals Are Set: Keep Them!

When I was at the Taos Summer Writers’ Conference in 2010, the question posed at every reading was this: What is the best writing advice you’ve ever been given? John Dufresne, fiction writer and author of Is Life Like this?, gave this advice: KEEP YOUR BUTT IN THE SEAT.

These are words I have heard so often I can no longer count them. The first time was through Greg Martin in a Creative Non-Fiction workshop. Greg advocated for a minimum of 3 hours/day for his MFA Graduate students. He firmly believed that even if you couldn’t write a word, you had to sit there anyway. As Greg put it, you are training your body to write the same way a runner trains his/her body. You sit there staring so that the next time, when the inspiration strikes, you are ready for it. If you’d like to hear more about Greg’s theory, you can visit his famous TREADMILL JOURNAL (for writers).

And finally: Don’t Let the Goal Stand in for the Task

Derek Sivers in this Ted Talk says it best:

According to Sivers:

“Repeated psychology tests have proven that telling someone your goal make it less likely to happen. Anytime you have a goal, there [is]…some work that needs to be done to be done in order to achieve it. Ideally, you would not be satisfied until you have actually done the work, but when you tell someone your goal and they acknowledge it, psychologists have found that…the mind is tricked into the feeling that it’s already done, and then once you feel that satisfaction you are less motivated to do the hard work necessary.”

In a way, perhaps this Ted Talk is saying that Writer’s March is a bad idea. But I don’t think you have to look at it this way. Especially when, at the end, he says that if you must say your goals out loud,

state it in a way that gives you no satisfaction. Such as, I really want to run this marathon so I need to train five times a week and kick my ass if I don’t, okay?

In others, rather than focusing on the end result, focus on the difficult path (because writing daily is not easy). But whenever possible: STAY SILENT. For my purposes, I’ll keep my thoughts about my novel to myself. And if you must talk about your writing, why not talk about Writer’s March (…ahem…shameless promotion…)