The park bench problem

On dead ends, existential crises and why we keep going.

Hello writing friends, Chris here,

When you coach writers and write about writing, things can get meta very fast. As I mentioned before, we’re deep in the early stages of writing our next book. By ‘writing’ I really mean researching, reading and talking—a lot of talking.

There’s no real writing going on yet, although there’s a fair bit of arguing. I’ll read something, have a few thoughts and tell Bec. She’ll strut around the office in a big red jumper giving me encouraging and/or withering remarks—it’s always been like this.¹

Right now, it’s all tangents. We have no idea if any of these detours will bear fruit, but that’s part of the process.

One tangent led me to a post by filmmaker and non-fiction author Jon Ronson titled How to Find Stories. He’s deep into writing his next book too and shares his thoughts on what makes the writing process hard and where ideas come from (did I mention things can get pretty meta?)

His number one tip—with apologies to introverts like me—is to talk to lots and lots of people. But the advice that resonated with me was this:

“Read a hell of a lot of boring academic papers and listen to often very boring nonfiction audiobooks and podcasts. There’ll be a lot of dead ends. You’ll feel despondent. I can feel incredibly bleak during this part of the process. If I’m sitting on a bench listening to an audiobook for work and I can’t find anything interesting, sometimes I’ll suddenly think with horror, ‘I’m just a man sitting on a bench.’”

I had my own “I’m just a man sitting on a bench” moment this week. It was a sunny day and I needed to escape the house so I went to the park with a stack of research papers—probably none of which we’ll ever refer to again.

As I slogged through one snappily titled Overcoming Intuition: Metacognitive Difficulty Activates Analytic Reasoning, I thought how absurd it was that I was doing this while everyone around me was just... living. Riding bikes, smoking weed, walking dogs, eating ice creams, falling off skateboards—all the normal things people do in parks.

What am I doing? I thought. Why don’t I just get a real job—or an ice cream? I had an Existential Park Crisis. It was mercifully brief, because the thought of an actual job, while better paid, is far worse.

Oddly enough, that little crisis reminded me of something I came across ages ago from the artist Craighton Berman, called The Campaign for the Accurate Measurement of Creativity.

As you know, the amount of time you pour into creative work often bears no relation to what you actually produce. It feels like 90% of the time (yes, I made that number up, but it’s a lot) is spent reading, thinking, wandering down dead ends, scribbling, erasing and occasionally screaming. You know what I mean.

Berman’s solution was his ‘sharpener jars’—big jam jars with pencil sharpeners fixed inside the lids. He made two versions: The Workaholic and The Underachiever (ho, ho). The idea is that you fill the jar with pencil shavings as you grind away on your creative project, whether or not you actually progress.

At the end of the day, week, or month, you’ve got a jar full of shavings to show for your effort—a visual representation of your creative energy, even if your output is minimal.

I like the concept. Maybe a jar full of pencil shavings would comfort me after a week of seemingly getting nowhere. Or maybe it would make me wonder what on earth I’ve been doing with all that time, triggering yet another Existential Park Crisis. And we don’t need any more of those.

Going back to Jon Ronson, he writes in his post:

“…failure is fine. When you’re having terrible days or weeks, endless hours when you aren’t finding anything, try to remember that identifying and rejecting shitty ideas is part of the journey towards finding great ideas.”

It’s true that the effort we put into our creative projects doesn’t always show up in immediate progress. But, as Ronson reminds us, the shitty ideas, false starts and existential crises are all necessary steps on the road to something good.

The park bench moments are part of the ride, and maybe, just maybe, they’re what keep us coming back. Even when the only thing we’re sharpening is our sense of doubt, we’re still creating—one jar of pencil shavings at a time.

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Are you at Durham Book Fest? Pop along and say hi!

We’re delighted to partner with literary luminaries New Writing North and Arvon to run a workshop (an In Real Life one no less) at this year’s Durham Book Festival.

Whether you’re starting out or looking to rejuvenate your writing practice, our workshop offers the support to kickstart your writing journey and maintain momentum.  

Come along or just drop by and say hello - we’d love to meet you!

​🌍​​ Where: Clayport Library, Durham

📅​ Date: Friday 11 October

⌚ Time: 5 - 6:30pm, Friday 11th of October.

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Competition news: Congratulations Dodi!

A couple of weeks ago we offered you lovely lot the chance to win signed copies of Oliver Burkeman’s new book Meditations of Mortals and a copy of our book Written if you told us what your perfect writing routine would be.

We were really moved by Dodi’s submission to us which I’ve reproduced in full below. It’s a beautiful piece of writing and I’m sure you’ll agree, she’s a very worthy winner of the two books. Thank you for sharing with us Dodi. ❤️​

My desk has a glass top and steel legs. We brought it with us when we moved here. I was determined to change it. I wanted something completely different. Wood, which is warm to the touch. But now I don't have the mental space to choose a new desk. My life, if I can still call it that, changed. My six-year-old boy died. I'm not a writer, but I have found that writing helps me connect with his memory. Also, I would like to write about him, honouring his short but extraordinary life.

I moved my glass-topped desk in his room. The chair where I sit is white and soft enough, with a high back that holds my head when it needs to rest. Under the chair, there's the baby-blue rug that was his. His smile is captured in the pictures framed and hanging on the wall in front of me. I listen to my "Calming Classical" playlist, but I also hear the fizzing sound of the tablets dissolving in the glass of water. The keyboard beneath my fingers, black and clacking with each press, is a small comfort. The more I hear the click-clack, the more I feel like I'm tidying my thoughts.

This is my writing space. My fantasy one, you ask? Everything would be as it is, even the desk, which seems so irrelevant now. But my son would be here next to me, alive, filling the room with his giggle. His contagious and loud giggle that followed the shhh-shhh-shhh of his yellow rattle, his favourite toy. His presence would inspire me to write about bravery. And about curiosity and playfulness. About love and tenderness. About sweetness and happiness. This is my fantasy writing setup, and fantasy it will remain. But this fantasy is also a reality in my heart, where he is now, making me forever proud of being his mamma.

- Dodi

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1. Hello! Bec here. While I am partial to a big red jumper (ideally with a turtleneck to keep me warm) I don’t believe I have ever strutted about. Chris disputes this and while I have attempted to persuade him otherwise (while not strutting about) he would like to keep it. Co-authoring involves compromise, so he wins this edit. For now…