In Praise of Anxiety

Ah, anxiety. A great post, Roger--especially coming from someone who has had so much success in the publishing world over the last couple of years...

I used to worry about how anxious I was, until I did the obvious math and realized that amounted to compounding the problem. Most writers I know suffer from various forms of anxiety. In the later stages of a manuscript, the anxiety awakens me at three in the morning, usually after some horrible dream involving a) cancer, or b) prison, or c) some small pet you’ve apparently bought and forgotten about that is quietly starving to death in a cage somewhere. At this point, the only way I can manage to get through the night is to stumble downstairs and write. When I’m writing, it seems to go away.

Or so I thought. But then I read Rollo May’s classic book The Courage to Create, and Ralph Keyes’ amplification, The Courage to Write, and I realized that anxiety is actually part of the process. Not only does it keep us alert and concerned about quality, but when we are writing, anxiety is our ally, working with us on the page.

Now, that sounds nutty at first. I usually don’t experience what feels like anxiety when I write. In fact, I usually sort of “trance out” into a place where I am so absorbed with mumbling under my breath that time vanishes and you’d think I didn’t have a care in the world. You folks all know that zone I’m talking about, right?

Yet when I finish writing, I’m exhausted, and my shoulders are as tight as if I'd been pumping weights. My whole body aches. I may have felt relaxed the entire time, but clearly that’s an illusion.

This all came together for me when I learned about the concept of “flow,” first defined by the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (and I have no clue how that’s pronounced). Flow states are an odd combination of mastery and challenge—a state where you are totally engaged in what you are doing, and have sufficient skill to be engaged in the first place.

But if it’s easy for you, it won’t be flow. If you’re a pianist playing a song you’ve played a thousand times before, using nothing but muscle memory, you may not be in flow. You may even be bored. But if you are a pianist improvising with a jazz band, or performing a concerto that is right at the limits of your skill, you will probably be in flow. In this state, anxiety is converted to hyperawareness. If you aren’t anxious, you aren’t going to perform at your best. That annoying, nasty little critic all writers have is our friend…as long as we aren’t really aware he’s there. And about the only time we’re not aware he’s there is when we’re really engaged with our writing.

The downside of all this is that it’s hard to get him to shut up when he isn’t needed. Which would be, in my opinion, just about any time when you aren’t writing. Anne Lamott calls this guy KFKD, K-Fucked Radio, broadcasting on all frequencies around the clock. Nothing is good enough for this guy. I imagine he’s busy in JK Rowling’s head, whispering, sure, you’re richer than the Royal Family and possibly the most popular writer since God, but is your stuff really significant? Aren't you wasting your time? Wouldn’t you rather be Melville, or Camus, or even just a well-regarded, middling-successful literary writer? (I love the fact that Stephen King admits he’s a little disappointed and jealous that the literary community doesn’t take him as seriously as he would like. That's candor.)

The only way to shut this guy up is to write. (I suppose the danger comes when he gets so loud and pushy that writing becomes impossible. Is that what writer’s block is?) So, I’ve grown more comfortable with him, and with my overall level of anxiety, as I think that nervous, quarrelsome critical energy is the fuel that keeps us running. How else is it possible to sit and gnaw on your knuckles over whether someone is “wandering” or “meandering”? The deejay at KFKD is on our side when we do our work, and maybe having him hang around the rest of the time is part of the price we pay.

At least, I hope so. If there’s a writer out there who’s having fun round the clock and is never plagued with self-doubt, I’m not sure I want to hear about it.