I have had a particularly difficult time writing since starting my detailed outline of my current novel in the works. This current difficulty is surprising in that the story itself is pretty much laid out for me. All that is left is the writing. I've pondered this for days, wondering what is the slow-down.

I considered if I've run out of passion for writing. While not wanting to write can sound like "not wanting to write," I knew in my soul writing is here to stay, that it is something deep within my genes. There's no getting rid of it.

I considered my ADD or my crippling lack of organizational skill was too severe to overcome, that I would be doomed never to complete a long or in any way complicated work. I looked at my detailed outline and knew that couldn't be the case. It was/is not perfect, but it's perfect enough to allow me to write without a significant risk of cornering myself with a plot hole.

I considered I may lack the maturity to sit my butt down and do the hard work. This is probably a contributing factor, something which needs to be addressed sooner than later. But as the main reason, it lacked legs. I sit for hours and work on websites, a task that, over time, has given me less satisfaction but that I do well. I also recdntly completed P90X, that maniacal exercise challenge/program from the infomercials, on my first attempt. So I have discipline. Something else is at work.

Ashamedly possessing what I've described as a "mystical bone," I took something akin to a spirit walk to look at how I was thinking about the story itself. I often wake up in the middle of the night and think or work for an hour. In this time, my creativity seems closer to the surface. Sometimes I'll come up with a solution to a design problem or I'll be "given" the solution to a POV issue that's been bugging me for days. I might realize how to handle a parenting issue. Anything. But just as often, I'll be able to see a problem that I didn't realize was there in the first place. The answer to my writing difficulty was "revealed" to me in this way.

Days and days have gone by with my writing at a constipated pace. I've written the beginning of the story five or six times, doubting the direction of these first steps each time, hearing the voices of my critique partners in my ears. Beckie would say this or Joe would ask that. Sanford would urge me to start more aggressively.

Then it hit me. I was no longer writing the story of my heart from my heart. I was auditioning every word for the people who would see it in a couple weeks. Like asking permission to take each step, it was taking me forever to get across the room or, in this case, get the story written.

One can't write effectively with eyes over his shoulder or with the voices of his audience in his head. Doing so is not joyful writing and if one writes without joy he may as well take out the trash or wash the dog.

An article in the most recent issue of Writers Digest mentioned that critique groups can sometimes stifle a writer's creativity by building in him the urge to write for those people, knowing what each of his peers picks up on.

Guilty. 

(Footnote: The fact that there is a downside to critique groups -- or anything related to writing, for that matter -- doesn't mean that one should exclude them from one's consideration, only that one should know and avoid that specific downside. One wouldn't stay home just because there is a potentially car-ruining pothole on the way to work; one would drive around it.)

As soon as I realized that was what I was doing, the desire to write returned as if it were Granola and I just got found starving in the forest. 

So my advice at this point is this. Write for yourself. You guessed it. That means keep your critique group out of it. Keep your spouse and your kids out of it. Keep your mom out of it. Keep your 5th grade English teacher out of it. Keep the invisible eyes of your present or potential audience out of it.

Writing for yourself doesn't mean you need to be selfish or stupid. You still need to integrate your writing schedule with family and work. And you still need to avoid overtly stupid writing errors if you have an eye on getting published. What writing for yourself means to me is keep the child in you who always loved writing interested in the writing.

When you sat in your room as a teen, writing the story you HAD to write, you never thought about how women's groups in Pennsylvania might accept your lead character's misogynistic tendencies, right? Well, don't set out to intentionally offend anyone, but also don't set out to appease anyone for the sake of safety or sales. I'd bet you didn't try to write the story perfectly; it was the story that mattered most, not the perfection of every line. If you're reading this, you probably want to get published and that's fine, but you can't afford to let that slow or soften your work, especially in the early drafts.

Write the story you had in mind the way you envisioned it. If you're involved in a good critique situation, you'll be able to take what you need and won't offend anyone by leaving what you don't need behind. They'll let you know if you've gone unmarketably too far. They'll also let you know if something doesn't make sense. Hopefully, they'll let you know when you're probably worrying about nothing too.

But, at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter who says what. If you knew today you'd never get published, would you really stop writing? Probably not. So you must embrace writing for yourself and trust the craft will improve on its own.