INFJ Writer Problem № 4: We’re not willing to scratch and thrash
One more thing that trips us up about writing
Note: INFJ 101 resources available here.
The last couple of weeks I’ve been trying to figure out what in the world I’m doing with the Bibliotherapy club. I have no idea, and anytime I think I have an idea, I quickly lose sight of it, start thinking it’s dumb, or too unwieldy or whatever.
I’ve gone back to the drawing board on it so many times now, or at least that’s how it feels. (Objectively I know that’s not true, because I can still recite the original idea / “About” blurb for it from years ago.)
I just finished writing its newsletter (first one in a month), and as I wrapped up, I mentioned in the post-postscript the idea of “scratching” or “thrashing” from Twyla Tharp and Seth Godin respectively.
As I came over to the INFJ club to start this issue, I realized that’s one more thing that trips us up about writing, not being willing to scratch and thrash.
As frustrating as it is starting over again and again, struggling to see what it is we’re making before we make it, getting it out of our heads and onto paper when we do, and all the other variations of What IS this thing?! (and also, Should we keep trying to make it or quit?), it’s all just part of the process. But …
We forget that fact, and
Even when we remember it, we still hate scratching and thrashing, and
We especially hate scratching and thrashing in public.
Why?
Because it looks like we’re failing.
Because we are failing.
Every time we make an attempt, in the words of Seth Godin again, this might work and this might not work. And it often doesn’t. So we have to try again, and we have to try something else, which is likely to fail, too. And on and on it goes, until something finally (maybe) works. (And that’s only if we persist long enough to get to that point.)
In the bibliotherapy piece, I mentioned Lynda Barry’s book What It Is (which is effectively a compendium of scratching/thrashing!). Right on the cover she lays out the problem: “The formless thing which gives things form.”
What in the world is this thing?
It has to be formless first. And then, if we’re lucky, we’ll fail a million times until it eventually starts taking some sort of form, but we don’t even want the discomfort of figuring that out on our own, much less in front of others (especially as a perfectionistic INFJ!). So we usually quit.
In theory, it all seems obvious, as does the solution: Just don’t quit!
But tomorrow (or two weeks from now, in the case of the Bibliotherapy club newsletter), we’ll have to face down the next piece, the next issue, the next thing we have to make.
Well … we don’t have to.
That’s another thing worth remembering.
Until the next attempt.
A thing I learned recently was: Things that are worth doing, or also worth done badly when you begin with them.