In an odd sort of way, today’s article is actually about the last Monday release I posted.
However, it’s not actually about the content itself. Today’s article isn’t about fantasy apocalypses or drawing either — as much as I love both. Today’s article is about why that Monday’s article exists in the first place.
I am far from creatively dry or burnt out at the moment. Sleepless has just finished and is entering its revision phase, I’m also doing light revisions to Cardinal’s first season, and the second season is underway and coming out at regular intervals. I’m brainstorming for the fantasy apocalypse stuff, and I’ll probably begin working on it in the next few weeks.
There’s a lot going on, and I’m excited for all of it.
But I can’t lie… it’s a bit tiring. Revisions are incredibly taxing both mentally and emotionally. Combing over hundreds of pages not only for grammatical errors but story inconsistencies, plot holes, janky dialogue, and more in order to restructure something that reads smoothly from start to finish? For two books??
That’s not even counting trying to get my brain wrapped around what amounts to a third project in the form of the fantasy apocalypse.
It’s more trouble than you’d think. Worth it in the end, but a lot of work.
And I will admit it has a way of making it sometimes difficult to get or have anything prepped for Monday releases, because my brain is being pulled in several other directions by other ongoing stories.
The Point of Author’s Notes
Author’s Notes functions on several levels for me. It’s all at once a platform for me to express myself creatively and share that with all of you, an exercise in writing consistently, and a way to encourage myself to work on projects rather than just brainstorm.
It’s that last point that’s important for today’s article: Self-motivation is hard without set deadlines. Author’s Notes makes motivation easy because I always know when I have to get things done, and that allows me to set reasonable expectations of what I need to get done in a week.
It breaks up the project into palatable pieces. I don’t have to write a whole book, I just have to write one chapter. That’s not too hard! And then after a few weeks of writing chapters, you suddenly have a burgeoning novel on your hands.
It also gives me a way to focus my creative energy on a smaller range of projects each week. The keyword being FOCUS, which is also very hard for me sometimes. Too many projects on the mind? Too many things I need to write? Perfect recipe for my brain to just shut down and not do any of it.
Logically, if you have a massive to-do list, you just have to start somewhere and run with it. My brain unfortunately suffers from a case of “these incredibly manageable tasks are Too Many and I shall be shutting down so our death is at least quick and as pain-free as possible”.
It’s incredibly annoying, especially because I know from experience that if I was able to point my brain at anything in particular, I would be able to cross items off that list fairly easily and make the tasks more manageable in the future.
To fight this stagnation, I’ve gotten into a habit of keeping a handwritten schedule on a whiteboard. It’s about the size of my torso, with a magnet I use to mark the day, and a big open section for me to write what I want to accomplish either that day or that week. I erase and rewrite that section on a regular basis depending on the needs of my brain at the time.
Sometimes it’s easier to envision things in terms of the week. What do I want prepped by the end of the week?
Other times, that’s A Lot of Tasks and I instead write out what I expect myself to finish on that particular day, which is generally a much smaller list in comparison.
How does all of this relate to the last Monday article?
Well, that’s easy. I was having an incredibly difficult time motivating myself to write anything for Monday. I was just tired. Even after I’d settled on doing something relating to the new project, I was just not motivated to type out any of the brainstorming I’d been doing or setting anything in stone about a setting I’ve barely explored.
I tried to write other things, but I was just tired. Nothing was working.
But I knew I still had to do something.
Y’see, the thing about solving A Lot of Tasks brain with creating a schedule and having an idea of what needs to be done per week or per day? It’s only a valid option as long as your brain is convinced you can and need to make those deadlines.
Your brain is an incredibly complex organ. It forms pathways and shortcuts between processes you use often, and for better or worse, it can get accustomed to just about anything. If the response to a lot of stimuli in your life is “I can’t”, your brain will stop looking for solutions and start offering I-Can’t to everything it encounters.
You may have legitimate restrictions causing your I-Can’ts, and no amount of motivational speeches or articles will fix them. The unfortunate reality is that no matter where these I-Can’ts come from, the more they pile up, the more your brain will be conditioned in favor of responding to things with I-Can’t.
In 1967, two scientists named Martin Seligman and Steven Maier did an experiment involving electric shocks and dogs. They separated the dogs into three groups: one control group, a group that could end the shock by pressing on a lever, and a group that could see the previous group, but when they pressed on the lever, nothing happened. They then placed all three groups of dogs into effectively a box with a dangerous side, a safe side, and a small barrier to separate them. A shock would be delivered to the dangerous side, causing the dogs from groups one and two to jump over the barrier to the safe side.
However, the dogs in group three just sat or laid passively, whining as they were shocked.
They had learned from the first half of the experiment that nothing they did would stop the shocks. They had learned that they were helpless, and that they just had to take it, and that mentality stuck with them even as an option presented itself, because their brain was so used to nothing helping.
This is the I-Can’t pathway in play. This is how the brain works when it’s overwhelmed by a negative situation it can’t do anything about. The dogs, heartbreakingly, gave up.
And do you know what broke them out of it? The researchers physically picked up the dogs from group three and moved them to the safe side, mimicking the motion they could take to escape the shock. When they did the experiment again, the dogs from group three jumped the barrier to the safe side.
I won’t pretend to be a psychologist or any kind of expert on the subject. I won’t pretend I have the answers.
What I do understand from all of this, though, and what I want to impart on all of you is personal agency.
The concept art article exists because I was at war with my brain to stay on track and feeling completely incapable of getting myself to be productive. It exists because I am in a constant tango with my own anxieties, which would convince me that I can’t do anything — that it’s safer or easier to give up.
It exists because I’ve done that song and dance enough times to know that the only way that’s worked for me to combat that feeling is to just make something. It keeps up my momentum, keeps me on schedule, and reminds my brain that I have agency and am capable of creating.
I’ve used this technique more than a few times in various chapters of Sleepless and Cardinal, where I was facing a block of feeling like I just couldn’t work out how I wanted a scene to go, so I just resolved to say Screw it! We’re just doing something! And resolving to fix it later. Were those parts shakier? Yeah, you bet they were. But did I get a ton of other great work done in addition to that because I retained my sense of agency and ability to write? Yes.
So my advice is this: Start small. Listen to music or do whatever puts your brain in the right space to work. Start as small as you like — but whatever you do, start.
It is far from easy to be both the dog and the scientist in this scenario. It is not easy to be the one having to continuously show yourself that you are capable of things, especially if your brain has learned that the majority of things you want to do will be answered with I-Can’t.
It takes a lot of time and effort to work through mental blocks like that. In a lot of cases, they’re fed and nourished by entire stacks of I-Can’ts, so to solve one block you have to solve another, and that can get extremely exhausting.
For example. Sometimes, I would like to go to the park by myself and write there. The park isn’t that far away, maybe less than two minutes by car.
At this point, the cascade begins.
I get a lot of anxiety about driving, so I never learned how/never got my license. So, I can’t drive. I do have an e-bike, which I use to get to my horse — about eight miles in the opposite direction, so I know it has the capacity to make it two minutes down the road.
But… there’s no basically sidewalks. The bike is street legal, but I don’t want to ride it on the street like a car — I don’t want to risk getting hit. I can’t take that route.
If I follow my street down a ways, there’s another way to get to the park that’s much more bike accessible, so maybe I can take that. But once I get the bike there, then what? I can’t lock the bike to anything — I don’t have a bike lock for it. I can turn it off, but I can’t keep someone else from getting on and turning it back on. I can’t keep someone from stealing it if I take the bike to the park. So, I can’t take the bike to the park.
I could walk to the park using that same route — I did it a few times last year and the year before. It would take longer on foot, but it’s still doable. But how safe is that trip by myself? How safe is the park if it’s just me going? What if something happens? Is the weather even conducive to a trek on foot? Do I have the right clothes and shoes? If I’m going to write, I’ll have to take my laptop to the park or else something to write on and with. That means prepping a bag which will be extra weight, which starts its own cascade about making sure my laptop isn’t stolen, making sure I have everything I need in my bag, making sure my laptop is charged beforehand because there’s no way to charge it there, etc. etc.
At what point am I stressing so much about going to the park to write that I should just stay right where I am and write from home? I don’t have time for this!
Suddenly, “I want to go to the park today” has become a series of compounding problems:
A) I can’t drive because I never learned how. This means I can’t go anywhere further than my e-bike can take me and I can’t carry more than would fit in a backpack while on the e-bike but—
B) I can’t take the e-bike anywhere that I would have to leave it because I don’t have a bike lock and there aren’t any sort of keys to it. It’s also heavy and would be difficult to justify wheeling it through or into a store. But if I walk —
C) I can’t go anywhere because I’m not adequately prepared for going anywhere and the preparations necessary to feel prepared would 1) take longer than is justifiable to make for the time being spent, 2) not change that I don’t feel safe when not in my home, and 3) are impacted by factors outside my control like weather.
That’s a lot to mull over, so my brain makes a shortcut. When I think “I want to go to the park today”, my brain simplifies the answers to “I can’t”. Which means when I think to myself, “I want to go to the store today for things we’re missing, my brain sees a similar pathway and says, “I can’t”.
“I want to walk into town for ice cream.” I can’t.
“I want to go to the library!” I can’t.
“I want to see some of my friends!” I can’t.
“I want to do something different today!” I can’t.
“I want to get something done today.” I can’t.
You get trapped in an endless spiral of impossibilities that start to bleed over into the rest of your life, to a point where your brain stops recognizing when alternate solutions are possible.
The solutions don’t even have to “fix” the original problem. The whole reason I have the e-bike is because of the car situation and getting out to see my horse — I still don’t know how to drive, but the e-bike gives me agency over where and when I go places — I’m not fully dependent on others for that mobility.
You can also work up to solutions — this is about reminding your brain that you have agency, and that can come in as big or small of increments as necessary. I don’t have to go to the park to write. I can just start with going for a walk, or setting up a go-bag that I always know has what I need for leaving the house. If going to the park is more about the change of scenery and getting some sun, I can also just start with writing in the backyard instead and build up from there.
Agency in all facets of life may not be a possibility for everyone, but it’s still important for your mental wellbeing to have things you have control over, and to remind yourself consistently that you have control over them. As much as my brain has a cascade of I-can’ts, I absolutely could wake up tomorrow and go to the park. The walk isn’t really that far and while it’s always good to be vigilant, there really isn’t anything that’s given me reason to believe the park or the way there are unsafe.
And similarly, if you’re like me and experience anxiety, fatigue, and writer’s block, I suggest you never underestimate the power of just doing something. Write even if it isn’t good, do art even if it’s nothing special — decide to go somewhere and go there. Anything.
Exercising your agency reminds your brain that you have it. It may not solve that darn plot hole, but it will keep you and your brain from feeling powerless.
And that, ultimately, is why the concept art article exists — to create something, to metaphorically pick up the dog and put it on the safe side. To show myself that I am still capable of creation, of maintaining my self-set schedule, and doing what I love doing.
To say to yourself, over and over, “I can. I can. I can”, until you don’t have to worry anymore about whether or not it’s true.