Writing Under Duress

Blog 27 September 17, 2021

Writing under duress. I imagine as many reactions to that underscored word as I do readers of this blog. Whatever the reaction to duress, it could significantly affect the needed equilibrium of a writer to create.

Familiar to many writers would be the duress of deadline, externally or self-imposed. My sense is the latter might be an even more difficult challenge. If it’s just me and my pen (or keyboard), the pressure emanating from within, let me count the ways I can divert myself from the task at hand. I cannot; the number defies counting.

Most of us have dealt with deadline duress multiple times, e.g. likely at every level of education and work. At this moment, I’m referring to creative writing, i.e. fiction, and the duress of external pressures, unrelated to writing that, nevertheless, impinge upon it. To cite just a few examples: a personal or occupational crisis, the loss of a loved one or a beloved pet, tension in a major relationship (especially when you’re trying to write about relationships) and, not unfamiliarly, a financial pressure.

My purpose in examining this issue is not to restate the obvious. We all share in periodic bouts of duress. Rather, it’s to stimulate thought as to how to deal with it, how each of us deals with something that has the power to douse the flame on our desire and wherewithal to create. Let me initiate an approach to the question by offering a couple of my methods to prevent duress from grinding my writing life to a halt.

Framing an effort to combat the ordeal of duress, I strive to maintain routines, e.g. exercise, when it would be so easy to let them go. To accomplish this, one’s sense of meaningfulness normally derived from routine may need to be temporarily suspended. The purpose is to get through the duress functioning. The routines of yesterday, pre-duress, were part of the structure of my life and they will likely be so post-duress. Therefore, I strive to bridge the abyss of duress by sustaining routines of living when they temporarily appear diminished in relevance. In addition to reminding myself at some point the duress will end or at least lessen in intensity, I maintain some aspect of the writing process on a daily basis – writing, if I feel I can; if I feel I cannot, then, revision, editing, reading, and, if possible, thinking about what I’m writing and where I’m headed.

Recently, under duress, I thought of the firefighters from New York City who died heroically on 9-11-2001. It brought immediate perspective to my duress, shrinking it while calming, allowing me to proceed.

What do you do, some of your methods?