Good morning, squiders! I meant to say last week (and didn’t) that I’m going to be moving to a once-a-week posting schedule for June (and maybe July, but definitely June). Now you are aware! Hooray.
I went to two sessions as part of my writing retreat a few weeks ago. The first was on beating self-doubt, because I have run into issues where I avoid opportunities because of fear or imposter syndrome or, to be completely honest, just being tired of not getting anywhere.
The other was on plotting because I just find people’s writing processes fascinating. (A couple of interesting bits there that I might give a go, but nothing mind-blowing. Also I did think we were going to go over different ways to plot instead of just hers, so I misread something somewhere.)
The self-doubt one I went to because it felt relevant, and also there was the promise of getting trolls. (I named mine Giuseppe. Why? Who knows.) It was run by Corinne O’Flynn who in addition to being a bestselling novel is also an entrepreneur coach.
As part of the session, Corinne led us through a thought experiment. Basically, you pictured your goal(s) on the top of a hill, but when you head toward the goal, there’s a river in the way that’s too big and deep to cross. But a little ways down, there’s a bridge.
But when you try to cross the bridge, a troll appears and blocks your way.
Corinne’s point was that the troll is a defense mechanism. It’s there to stop you from getting hurt, because reaching for your goals will expose you to failure, and maybe other bad things like ridicule or depression. This troll echoes back all your doubts to convince you to not go on.
Now, as part of the thought experiment, you were supposed to be able to talk your troll into supporting you, to change its negative messages into something positive.
I couldn’t do this part. I still have nothing. Not encouraging, whoops. Everyone else in my group did not have a problem with this so I assume it’s something with how my brain individually works.
But I did find the exercise useful, and I did come out of the session with some thoughts on how to push through my own self-doubt, and some ideas on how to increase my confidence, and a pretty good idea why I find it harder now to be as productive as I was in my 20s (basically, it boils down to being more easily discouraged now, whereas when I was younger I hadn’t really faced any criticism or failure when it came to writing, and so thought I could do anything).
What do you think, squiders? Do thought experiments work for you? What would you name your troll?
