Saturday, July 03, 2010

Lie on my couch and tell me all about it

Reading an article today about psychotherapy and writing, I realise that, yes, I am in need of psychotherapy. Again.

I'm struggling with my novel. I put it aside months ago but recently have been feeling excited and keen to get going on it again, but when I try ... I seize up. I go and do other things: blogging, cooking, even, so help me, cleaning.

To quote the article in The Author (the journal of the society of authors), "So why the procrastination?
In psychoanalytic terms, what I'm manifesting is clearly some kind of resistance ... There's clearly something here that I don't want to face. So what is it?
...
I think we get stuck because a part of us does not want to move on, for we know that to move on means to become more aware of what is going on deep within us ..."

And that all makes sense. I grunted in revelation as I read the article. Husband said, 'What?'
I said, 'I'm just realising something.'

My novel is fiction. It uses aspects from my life but it is not about me. It's not true. Yet the bit that comes next, the bit I'm avoiding writing, is ... what? It never happened and it never will but I have imagined it before. Indeed I've written about it before in short story form. Maybe that's the difference: in a novel I'm free to delve much deeper, uncover ... brr, I'm shuddering. No, I don't want to go there. I don't want to find out what I already know.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Hmmmm...I say as I stroke my beard...Liz, are there by chance characters in your novel who will experience unpleasant things in the pages you've yet to write?

Katney said...

CLEANING????

That's serious.

CherryPie said...

I agree with Katney. Cleaning does sound serious!

Liz Hinds said...

Not unpleasant, nick, not exactly, but it's dealing with, I suppose, my unresolved issues.

Precisely, katney and cherrypie. Send chocolate!

Leslie: said...

I know exactly what you mean, Liz. In trying to write about my life as a survivor of suicide, I got to a point where I could not go on. It was far too painful to relive it.