Your Writing Struggles Aren’t New—They’re Timeless
Journalism jobs are disappearing. Academia offers little refuge. B2B writing provides a world of opportunity—but this world also includes a million projects vying for your attention, as well as the pressure to work all hours of the day and night and the need to tactfully responding to client emails that begin “Listen, I’m no writer but…” and then delve into critique.
When the writing grind wears you down, it can be tempting to get nostalgic. The writers of yesteryear were respected, goshdarnit. They had time to mull over their ideas and serenely compose their prose. They certainly weren’t beholden to their clients’ every whim.
A glimpse into the golden age of writing, which definitely existed. Right? | Credit: Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, 1787
Or were they?
In this article, I delve into the age-old struggles that have plagued writers for centuries and how famous authors learned to overcome them. I hope these stories reassure you that you’re not alone and help you vanquish your own writing demons, whatever they may be.
Writers have long been contorting their bodies into unnatural positions to pursue their craft—often to their physical detriment. While today’s writers contend with side effects like eye strain, neck and back injuries, or sleep difficulties brought on by too much screen time, the writers of times past didn’t have it much easier. In fact, scholars have turned up plenty of amusing notes scribbled in the margins of medieval manuscripts by copyists complaining of their ergonomic distresses. “Oh, my hand,” complains one. “Writing is excessive drudgery. It crooks your back, it dims your sight, it twists your stomach and your sides,” grumbles another.
— UNKNOWN MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPT COPYIST
William Wordsworth, the famous Romantic-era poet known for his masterpiece The Prelude and such lovely lyrics as “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” understood these difficulties well. “For Wordsworth, the act of writing, the sheer physical act of inscribing words on paper, was itself associated with a series of physical, psychosomatic and psychological symptoms—including bad eyes, headaches, bowel complaints, chest pains, irritability, fatigue, [and] insomnia,” notes one scholar.
Known to compose his poetry by speaking it aloud—often pacing along a gravel path to feel the rhythm of his lines—Wordsworth relied on a network of close friends and family to act as his scribes. His sister Dorothy, wife Mary, daughter Dora, and friend Isabella Fenwick all took turns transcribing his verse from speech. Were it not for their diligent efforts, we might not be able to enjoy Wordsworth’s poetry today.
The age-old answer: Practice good writing posture
While your physical discomfort in writing is likely not as extreme as Wordsworth’s, we could all benefit from good ergonomics—especially given that the average American spends approximately 7 hours in front of screens every day. (For the average writer, I’d wager that number is even higher.) Here are some pointers:
Posture—Are you sitting up straight, shoulders back, feet flat on the floor? Aim for 90-degree angles between your feet and ankles, knees and legs, hips and torso, and arms and elbows.
Workspace—If possible, set up your workspace to support good posture. Keep your screen at eye level and sit in a chair that supports your back. If you’re frequently on the go, it might be worth purchasing a collapsible laptop stand and separate keyboard that you can use wherever you’re working.
Movement—Take a cue from Wordsworth and go for a walk! Taking breaks at regular intervals to get up, stretch, and look into the distance. It’s key to preventing injuries and reducing strain on your eyes and body.
There’s a trend of blaming distraction on our modern, device-filled world. But the truth is, these technologies don’t cause our tendency to lose focus on writing—they only amplify it. Just look at Victor Hugo, the Victorian-era French writer who brought us such classics as Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He did not have a smartphone, nor an internet connection, but nonetheless found plenty of ways to waste his time. Like throwing dinner parties for thirty-odd guests every night. (He liked to show off his party trick of swallowing an orange whole. True story.)
Between his busy social calendar and other writing projects, Hugo managed to procrastinate from writing The Hunchback of Notre Dame for over a year past its initial due date. Eventually, his publishers got so fed up with his shenanigans that they gave him an ultimatum: Deliver the book within six months or pay a hefty fine.
In order to meet this impossible deadline, Hugo had to get creative. According to his wife, “He bought himself a bottle of ink and a huge grey knitted shawl, which swathed him from head to foot, locked his formal clothes away so that he would not be tempted to go out and entered his novel as if it were a prison.”
Should not have swallowed that orange. | Credit: Nadar via The Guardian
Until the book was done he couldn’t socialize—unless he wanted to face the embarrassment of going out wearing nothing but the 19th-century equivalent of a snuggie. Confined to his workspace, Hugo wrote feverishly and actually finished the novel with time to spare.
The age-old answer: Find your focus
Procrastination is, at its core, an emotional reaction to difficult or boring tasks. For Hugo, the social attractions of Paris were an appealing escape from the mentally taxing endeavor of writing a book. In order to focus, he needed to remove the temptation entirely.
While your tendency to put off writing is likely nowhere as extreme as Hugo’s, you can still benefit from applying this technique to your own writing practice. If there’s a writing task you’ve been putting off, you too might benefit from isolating yourself from temptation or “confining” yourself to your work for a period of time. Here are some strategies you can try:
Go analog—Step away from the computer screen for a little while and work out your thoughts with pen and paper. You might find it easier to focus in the absence of notifications or the constant urge to check your favorite sites.
Block time-wasters—Put your phone in your bag, or better yet—in another room. Use a website blocker like Focus to limit your favorite distracting sites (you know what they are) during work hours.
Break your work into blocks—Instead of placing yourself under self-imposed house arrest like Hugo, you can confine your time. Some people swear by the Pomodoro technique (working for 25-minute blocks interspersed with 5-minute breaks), but you can break your work into any length of time that makes sense for you. Define the task you want to complete, set a timer on your phone, and go.
A few months ago, I submitted a draft of an article for a client—one that I was genuinely proud of. But, instead of giving me concrete feedback on the substance of the piece, they took the draft as an open invitation to line edit my work. I watched the Google doc turn blue and pink with suggestions—my carefully chosen phrasing discarded in favor of jargon and buzzwords the client thought sounded better (but were likely just more familiar).
While collaborative writing technologies like Google docs have exacerbated these kinds of misunderstandings, I’m far from the first writer to be misread. Writing is—and has pretty much always been—a commercial endeavor, driven by the taste of the literary gatekeepers: the editors, publishers, and more recently, the content marketing managers. And sometimes there’s a disconnect between what good writing is and what the gatekeepers think will move products.
Just look at the rejection letter Herman Melville received when he first submitted the manuscript for Moby Dick. Editor Peter J. Bentley commented on the “vision-impairing length of the manuscript” and wondered “does it have to be a whale?” He mused, “For instance, could not the Captain be struggling with a depravity towards young, perhaps voluptuous, maidens?” The message was clear: Voluptuous maidens sell books—not whales. Yet, the bodice-ripping penny dreadfuls written by Melville’s contemporaries have faded into obscurity while the tale of the white whale has endured. There are plenty of cheap writing tricks, but good writing speaks for itself.
The age-old answer: Get on the same page
Your client isn’t a mind-reader—it’s up to you to set expectations about your working relationship and let them know if something is off. To avoid misunderstandings, it’s better to over-communicate than make assumptions. As a company, this is definitely an area we’re still working on, but here are some things we’ve been trying:
Make sure your clients understand your process—You can’t fault your client for violating the terms of an agreement that only existed in your head. By making sure you define your process from the beginning, you establish healthy boundaries in your roles and ensure everyone has clarity.
Articulate your value—If you find clients stray from their assigned roles and start to, say, nitpick your word choice, circle back to your agreement. Gently remind them that they hired you for your writing expertise and they need to trust you to perform your role, just like you’re trusting them to perform theirs.
Don’t be afraid to walk away if it isn’t working—Despite best intentions, sometimes it’s just not possible to align what a client wants with your expertise. It happens. Finish your project, let them know you appreciate their business but you don’t think it’s a good fit for future work, and part ways amicably.
The truth is, a golden age of writing probably never existed. Writing has always been a challenging profession: physically taxing, mentally draining, and subject to the caprices of patrons and publishers. It’s never been easy. But I think there’s something comforting in knowing that some of the most brilliant writers of the past have been right there down in the trenches with us.
