The other day, I was listening to my favourite podcast, Bewildered with Martha Beck and Rowan Mangan.
The episode was called ‘Don’t Control Yourself’. And my listening quickly turned into a feast of recognition.
Since I’m deeply into the preparations for my 8-week writing programme that starts soon, this is the lens through which I view everything at the moment. While Martha and Rowan weren’t talking about writing per se, it struck me how much their key points about the dynamics of control relate to academic and professional writing.
I wonder if any of these ring true for you?
1. We constantly try to gain or maintain control over our writing.
Many of us approach our writing projects with the expectation that we can and should control their progress.
I do this all the time. Even now, as I write this post, I can feel myself wanting to control exactly how it comes out and how quickly I do it.
The fact that I’m trained and practised in supporting myself as a writer through thick and thin doesn’t negate the fact that ‘control’ is still a go-to mode: I have expectations about when and how the words should come out, and, as I sit down to write, I try to meet those expectations. When I fail to control how it goes, it’s tempting to conclude that I am doing something wrong.
2. Nothing could be more natural.
Control feels like a good thing.
The tendency to grip, force, and dictate, in the belief that only this will ensure a good outcome, is wired deeply into us — an instinctive way to deal with danger and uncertainty.
It’s also much valued in the cultures we live in, not least in academic cultures, which seem to be infused with the message that one can absolutely get control over one’s writing, and the sooner one learns to do so, the better.
(The moment academics have a deeper conversation about their writing, I’m always struck and moved by the much more nuanced and human picture that emerges. But surface impressions that ‘everyone but me is in control’ do still reverberate loudly.)
3. But we’re not in control of our writing.
There are very few things we have true control over, and writing isn’t one of them.
This is not only because the times and spaces we reserve for writing aren’t free from interference — an urgent email needs answering, the dog suddenly needs the vet, construction starts next door, etc.
And it’s not just because — even when there are predictable and formulaic aspects to it — academic writing is fundamentally about contributing something new, so we can’t fully predict or control the hurdles we’ll face or how the work will evolve.
It’s also because, as Rowan says in the episode:
the ultimate not-controllable is my mood when all these things come together.
My mood, energy levels, and courage change constantly. And this means that I won’t know in advance who shows up for the writing. Maybe today I won’t feel up to it in the way I thought I would. Maybe I won’t like what I wrote yesterday. Maybe a reference I suddenly remember and really want to include pulls the whole thing in a different direction.
For better or worse, at the heart of it, I can’t control my writing because I can’t control who shows up to write in this moment.
4. There is a negative paradox here.
In the episode, Rowan points to a grim paradox that shows up when we try to exercise tight control over an activity like writing:
When we’re in control-mode, we can’t make shit good. But yet the feeling in our heads when we’re in control-mode is: “this is the only way I can make shit good”.
This dynamic explains why we get into spirals of gripping ever tighter.
When this happens to me, I call it ‘the hole’: a place that has me writing for hours and hours on end, with an increasingly paranoid mind and an increasingly rigid and contorted body.
That experience of writing in the hole is further illuminated by Martha asking listeners to recall a time when someone was trying to control us in a relationship — whether romantic, work-related, or parental:
The more someone tries to control you in order to make things work right, the more you want to escape them.
My writing seems to respond in exactly this way to my attempts to control it. The deeper I get into the hole, the more elusive my connection to what I’m actually trying to say.
What Martha says next is also so recognizable:
Control takes the joy, the life, the creativity out of the relationship.
My relationship with my writing feels one-sided in the hole: it’s as though I alone am trying to make this work, and there’s no room for my writing to ‘give back’, to surprise, or to delight me in the way it unfolds.
We need joy, life, and creativity in our relationship with our writing, just as we need it in our relationships with other people. Of course we do. Without it, what’s the point of keeping at it?
5. We can reverse this paradox.
Martha and Rowan say that to stop the urge to control from hardening in on itself and making everything worse, we have to consciously ease up.
I love how Rowan puts this in the form of a What-if question:
What if I don’t try to control this moment… maybe then the life, the beauty, the joy, the creativity, gets a chance to come back in.
What if..?
Maybe then…?
The power of this question is in its openness and gentleness.
Still, it takes courage to do this, because of the negative paradox. The moment I ease my grip on my writing, I have to confront the acute sense that I’m abdicating my responsibility, that this will surely not work, that I am doing the opposite of what I need to do to secure a good and timely outcome. Nothing could be more natural (see point 2 above). So it’s uncomfortable to move in the other direction.
But if helps if we can give ourselves huge credit every time we even attempt to stop the urge to grip tighter.
And it also helps to receive the sweet rewards on the other side. Not trying to control the how and when of our writing as much feels risky, but the life, beauty, joy and creativity really do come flowing back when we ease up.
This is the reverse of the negative paradox.
I can’t tell you how many times when, just as I was sure that no progress would be made, something came in — a thought, an idea, a different solution, a new phrase — that moved my writing forward.
It happened in writing this post. Not once, but several times.
6. It’s a practice.
And this is the final point: shifting out of control-mode not only takes practice, it is an ongoing practice.
We are going to have to do it over and over again.
But the sweetness from feeling the life, the beauty, the creativity come back in — and from giving ourselves huge credit for our courage — does help a lot.
You can try this at home
When your writing isn’t going well, check if there’s a negative control paradox at work.
Physical markers are often good indications: are you tightening your eyes, face or legs, holding yourself rigidly, holding your breath?
If so, see if you can gently stop yourself from gripping harder. What would it be like for your muscles to find a bit more softness, a bit more ease?
In your imagination, picture a shift from focusing tightly on the writing (wanting it to go well), to letting yourself be well-cared for as the writer (wanting you to be well-supported for what you’re trying to accomplish).
And you could try saying to yourself something like what Rowan said (or a variation of it):
“What if I don’t try to control this moment… maybe then the life, the beauty, the joy, the creativity, gets a chance to come back in.”
Notice what shifts in your body and your mind. From there, see what opens up as a way forward with your writing.
You can also get my support
Bringing yourself back from a tight grip to a place of possibility and creativity for your writing is part of the experiential, practice-journey that is Cultivating a Sustainable Writing Practice: An 8-week programme for academic writers.
As one former participant wrote:
The learning of this class felt like a succession of tiny shifts, but these small shifts had big effects: I feel I can start to have a rich and complex relationship to my writing instead of one based mostly on fear, avoidance, perfectionism and resentment.
A small group of wonderful people has already signed up, and it’s not too late for you to join us! Registration is open for a few more days, and there are still spaces available:
Cultivating a Sustainable Writing Practice: An 8-week programme for academic writers
This is not a typical writing programme — it’s a coaching programme in the truest sense of the word, in which you will feel yourself supported as a writer and strengthened in your ability to support yourself.
If you want that kind of boost for your writing in the months ahead, I hope you will be a part of it! Registration closes on the 1st of October (2024) and we start on the 4th.
Please ask me any questions you may have.
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Whether or not the programme is of interest, I hope you found something useful in reading this post.
I would be remiss not to include the link to the podcast episode (of Bewildered, by Martha Beck and Rowan Mangan) that inspired it: you can find it here.
Warmly,
Catelijne