Mental Game of Writing |

Matt Ryan

By now you all know that Super Bowl LI (that’s 51 for you scoring at home) was one of the most thrilling football games of all time. Down by 25 points in the third quarter to the Atlanta Falcons, the New England Patriots somehow managed the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history, pushed the game into overtime, then won by scoring a sudden-death touchdown.

There were many spectacular highlights, most notably an impossible catch made by Patriot receiver Julian Edelman. With under three minutes to play in the fourth quarter, Patriots QB Tom Brady threw a ball that was tipped into the air. There were three Falcons in position to pick it off. The ball almost hit the ground, but the diving Edelman reached for it with his right hand. The ball then bounced off the foot of a grounded Falcon and was, for

The Julian Edelman catch

But the key sequence of the entire game revolved around two huge mistakes by the Falcons.

It was the fourth quarter. Atlanta was ahead 28-20 with 3:56 left. They had the ball at New England’s 23-yard-line, which was well within field goal range. All they had to do was get the 3 points and the game would be out of reach for the Pats.

But then … disaster. Falcon QB Matt Ryan, the league’s Most Valuable Player, dropped back to pass. Patriot’s defensive end Trey Flowers broke through the blocking and pulled Ryan down for a 12-yard sack!

Uh-oh. Well, the Falcons were still barely within field goal range. But on the very next play, Falcons lineman Jake Matthews was called for holding. That lost the Falcons another five yards, and no chance at a field goal. After an incomplete pass by Ryan, the ball ended up back in Tom Brady’s hands, and the rest is Super Bowl history.

Oh my.

Monday morning QBs across the nation were saying things like, “Matt Ryan just cannot take that sack!” They posited that he should have thrown the ball away. To be fair, after watching the replay several times, I don’t think Ryan had that chance. Trey Flowers simply made a huge, game-changing play.

And yet, that’s the way it is in the NFL. The quarterback gets most of the praise when a team wins … and most of the blame when it loses.

But to lose in such a spectacular fashion, on the world’s biggest stage, has got to be a gut punch like no other. In the locker room after the game a subdued Ryan could only mouth the expected words.

“That’s a tough loss,” Ryan said. “Obviously, very disappointed, very close to getting done what we wanted to get done. It’s hard to find words tonight.”

So much changed because of that one sack and one penalty. Tom Brady went from being “in the conversation” about the best QB of all time, to the undisputed holder of that title.

And Ryan, who had been brilliant in the regular season, could have put himself on a track to the Hall of Fame. Instead, has to hear from all the naysayers that his mistake cost the Falcons a championship and that he “chokes” in the big games.

All elite athletes know the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, and the sting of abusive criticism.

It’s what they do about it that makes champions.

I know Matt Ryan doesn’t have any quit in him, nor does the Falcons talented young coach, Dan Quinn. They will be back. All the way to the Super Bowl? I would not bet against it.

But let’s talk about you, writer. There are so many ways you can feel defeated.

You’ve just started. You love to write. You’ve poured your heart into your first novel. Every day you wrote was a high. The story flowed out effortlessly! Now you show it to a trusted friend, someone who knows good writing. And you get back the words, “This just doesn’t work.” (Been there.)

You’ve studied and practiced and written three or four more novels. It’s taken you a couple of years to feel like you’ve got a handle on things. Your beta readers, and a freelance editor, tell you this one’s ready. You query agents … for a year and a half … with no takers.

Your book gets accepted by a small publisher. Not one of the Bigs, but hey! It’s a traditional publisher, after all. They’ll do the cover, the layout, the marketing! Then the book comes out and lays a soft-boiled egg.

You’re a midlist writer, one who had a three-book contract with one of the Bigs. You even got invited to BookExpo to sign your first book, which got a great review from Publishers Weekly. But when it didn’t sell enough copies to satisfy the bean counters, your next two books were brought out with virtually no support. The publisher did not offer you another contract.

The book of your heart, the one you’ve labored over for a year or more, off-brand, gets the green light from your publisher but the red light from critics, and dies on the vine.

Your agent stops returning your phone calls.

You self-publish your first novel, and you know darn well it’s good. You do everything the indie gurus tell you to do to get the word out. You try every promo trick in the book. After a year you have three reviews on Amazon and a rank in seven figures.

All of the above has happened countless times. Something like it has happened, or will happen, to you. So how do you handle the agony of defeat?

Let it bite, then start to write.

Meaning:

Let the defeat hurt for a time … an hour … if you must, a day where you eat nothing but ice cream … but no more! Get back to your keyboard! When you are concentrating on the page in front of you, you are not thinking of the bad thing. When you finish writing, and the bad thing tries to come back to bite you again, the feeling won’t be as strong as it was. If the bad thing persists, rush right back to your typer––pen and paper works, too––and start writing immediately! See first if you can use your emotion to intensify a scene in your WIP. But anything else will do, too … a journal entry, a first line out of the blue, a jingle for toothpaste, a poem, a rant, flash fiction. Just get the words down without too much thought. You can think later. “Write like there’s no tomorrow. Edit tomorrow.” Repeat as needed.

“You must stay drunk on writing,” sayeth the Great Bradbury, “so reality cannot destroy you.”

So what did Matt Ryan have to say the day after the game? He took to Instagram:

“We came up short last night and my heart hurts for you Atlanta. Hats off to New England they played a heck of a game. We will adapt, we will over come, we will #RiseUp again.”

The same for you, writer. You will adapt. You will overcome.

You will rise up again.

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

No, that’s not a typo. I’m not talking about the three “stages” of writing. I’m talking about the Moe, Larry and Curly inside your head.

You know what I mean. You’re writing along, and then, all of a sudden, slap … poke … bam … woob woob woob! You’ve got a whole lot of Stooge noise going on.

So I thought it best to isolate these boys and deal with them once and for all, lest our writing time become a comedy of errors.

Moe is Perfectionism

Ah, Moe. He thinks he’s the boss. And he backs it up with violence. The two-finger eye poke, the basic slap, and any tool he can lay his hands on. And he’s always angry about something.

So you may be writing or editing, and suddenly you’re smacked with, That’s no good. And neither am I! Who am I kidding, trying to be a writer?

Or you’ve finished a novel, you’ve done the very best you can, and the next step is submission. But then you get your eyes poked by your inner Moe. You knucklehead! This isn’t nearly good enough! Submit it, and you’ll get turned down and never get another shot!

Now, there’s nothing wrong with a little bit of constructive questioning. But that’s far from the ham-fisted Moe! You’ve got to stop that Stooge in his tracks How? I suggest you do it physically (that, after all, is the Stooge style). Slap your cheek (gently!) and say, Stop it! All you can do is all you can do. And all you can do is enough!

Don’t laugh. This is a little trick that actually works. You can interrupt destructive thoughts with a physical move, then replace the thought with a better one, or with some positive action. When I was just starting out I’d sometimes get a Moe in my head, and he was vicious. So one day I slapped myself and, out loud, quoted Cher from Moonstruck: “Snap out of it!”

And then immediately went back to my writing.

Do this and at the very least you’ll be getting more words down on the page. That’s a lot better than letting Moe rule your roost.

Larry is Befuddlement

Poor Larry. He smarter than Curly but dumber than Moe, and is always caught somewhere in the middle. He spends most of his time confused. He can’t do a thing with his hair. When Moe slaps him, he usually has no idea why.

Ever feel like Larry about the publishing business? Should I go for an agent? How do I query an agent? How many agents can I query at once? Should I self-publish? How do I do that and get discovered? Will it hurt my chances of getting a traditional contract someday?

And then one day you’re slapped, and you don’t know why. Why didn’t they like my novel? Why didn’t it meet their needs? Is that just a phrase or does it mean I stink?

Your inner Larry needs get some education. Make a list of the areas you’re confused about. Write them down. Define them. And then you can make a plan to study each area.

Because I was once told I couldn’t learn to write fiction, and then went out and learned, I strongly believe that anything you need to learn to move forward in your career you can learn. The information is out there.

You don’t have to live with Larry in your head.

Curly is Emotion

We love Curly. Maybe that’s because he’s the Stooge who is most like us. He does things out of raw emotion and frequently ends up getting hurt. We’ve all been there.

But remember, Curly is resilient. My favorite Stooge moment is always when Moe clobbers Curly with some nasty weapon, like a pickax. Curly hollers, “OH OH OH OH!” then he quietly goes, “Look.” And the weapon itself is in worse shape than his head. That pickax is folded up like an accordion.

This writing life will hit you over the head. Rejections, bad reviews, unfair reviews, reviews with spoilers … lots of frustration! Sometimes you just want to lie on the ground and run around in a circle, Curly-style.

So realize this: it’s okay to let out an Oh! Oh! Oh! when you get hit.

And when something good happens, to shout out a full-throated Nyuck! Nyuck! Nyuck!

But never stay there. Let something hurt for half an hour, and rejoice over good news for a day.

But then get back to your keyboard!

If you do that, I guarantee you won’t get a pie in the face. You will get better as a writer.

What about you? Is there a Stooge who overstays his welcome in your writer’s mind? What do you do with him?

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And if you need further Stooge alleviation, please see my book The Mental Game of Writing.

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Category Archives: Mental Game of Writing

Let it Bite, Then Start to Write

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