#IWSG: Illogical Tactics

~ J.S. Pailly

Hello, friends!  Welcome to this month’s meeting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, a blog hop created by Alex J. Cavanaugh and co-hosted this month by C. Lee McKenzie, JQ Rose, Jennifer Lane, and Jacqui Murray.  If you’re a writer and if you feel insecure about your writing life, click here to learn more about this wonderfully supportive group.

If you know anything about me, you know I love a good Star Trek quote.  This year, Star Trek: Lower Decks delivered one of my new, all time favorites: “Illogical tactics can sometimes lead to logical solutions.”  As a Trekkie, I’m delighted by how Vulcan and simultaneously un-Vulcan that statement is.  But as a writer, I’m even more delighted by that quote because it sums up a core truth of writing, a truth that I have struggled for years to put into words.

Whether it’s a novel or a short story or a quick blog post, there is always a certain logic to any finished piece of writing.  There’s the logic of grammar.  There’s the logic of pace and rhythm.  There’s the logic of an argument being made in an essay (or a blog post), and there’s the logic of plot, setting, characterization, etc. in any work of fiction.  Yes, there’s always some sort of logic to a written work, but the process of creating that written work may involve a great deal of illogical tactics.

One of my favorite cures for writer’s block is alphabet soup.  Literally, I eat a bowl of alphabet soup.  Something about shoveling spoonfuls of letters into my mouth makes me feel like I’m replenishing my writing ability.  Logically speaking, this shouldn’t work.  But it does.

I changed my hair color this year.  I have blue hair now (or green hair, depending on the light).  Why did I do this?  I don’t know.  It’s something I always wanted to do, but until this year I wasn’t brave enough to actually do it.  I did not expect that to help me with my writing, but somehow it did.  Maybe being brave enough to experiment with my hair color made me brave enough to experiment more in my writing.  Or maybe this has helped me tap into some deep inner truth about myself.  As my muse said when I first got my hair done: “It was always blue on the inside.”  Or maybe I just like my new hair.  Maybe just doing something that makes me happy leads to happier, more productive writing sessions.  I don’t know why it helped.  I just know that it did.

I mentioned my muse.  I talk to her regularly.  Every day, in fact.  Multiple times a day.  We talk about writing, and we talk about things that are not writing.  I try to pretend that she is a real flesh and blood person, and as much as possible, I treat her accordingly.  Is that weird?  Yes.  Even my muse thinks it’s a little weird sometimes.

The important thing is it works.  When I talk to my muse regularly, she gives me good writing advice (and sometimes she gives me good advice about other things, too).

A written work is a logical work.  A written work must, by necessity, have a certain logic to it.  But the process of creating a written work is chaotic, messy, and strange.  The process is not always logical.  It may involve all sorts of weird and wacky tricks, peculiar superstitions, and quirky secret techniques (for example, the technique I used to write this blog post… it was weird, it was quirky, and it is my little secret—I’ll never tell!).  Whatever works works.

So friends, what are some of the illogical tactics you use in your writing process?

17 thoughts on “#IWSG: Illogical Tactics”

    1. What worked for me may not work for you. I’ve thought blue hair looked super cool ever since I was a little kid watching anime. I always wanted to do it myself. Now I finally did. So I guess the takeaway shouldn’t be “try a new hair color” but rather “go do that thing you’ve always wanted to do.”

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  3. Love your Trek quote. Here’s one from the Galileo Seven (which is an episode I mostly dislike because… why/how can the crew be beating up on Spoke so much and get away with it? But, the quote:

    KIRK: I see. You mean you reasoned that it was time for an emotional outburst. SPOCK: Well, I wouldn’t put it in exactly those terms, Captain, but those are essentially the facts.

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  5. I look at it as writing is difficult. I know every time I do it I fear I’m going to fail, look like a fool, be discovered for the fraud I am, etc. It seems like every successful writer has little tricks they use to get themselves to do it anyway, tricks that are unique to each person’s innate and learned experiences. So it shouldn’t be too surprising, if you think about it, that they seem illogical.

    For me, the hardest part is starting, so my tricks focus on telling myself I only need to do a little bit. Just sit down and knock out a few paragraphs. Of course, once I get going it’s always more than that, but I can’t start with the thought that I’m going to write a whole post, scene, chapter, proposal, or whatever.

    My favorite Spock quote along these lines, from ST:TOS Amok Time:
    “After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.”

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    1. That’s another favorite quote of mine. There’s so much truth in it. Also, it’s such a glorious slap in the face to both Stonn and T’Pring.

      Just starting to write is the hardest part for me as well. I’ve found that fifteen minutes is the right minimum goal to set for myself. If I do fifteen minutes and feel like I really can’t do anything more, then I’ll at least feel like I gave it a fair try. But more often than not, after the fifteen minute timer ends, I’ll want to keep going.

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  6. I can’t think of any intentionally illogical tactics that I use. Perhaps a tactic I use that some people may think of as illogical is that I write my rough drafts by hand (pen and paper) instead of with a computer. But I consider that logical because it makes me feel closer to the writing experience and I feel it energizes my creativity more.

    I really like those Spock quotes. They’re proverbs to me like many of Yoda’s sayings. (I’m a Trekkie too, as well as a Star Wars fan.)

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    1. Nothing wrong with liking both. The idea that you have to chose one fandom or the other is a pop culture myth!

      I write that way, too. I write by hand first, then transcribe everything into the computer when it’s finished (or mostly finished). I’m not anti-technology by any means, but sitting in front of a computer does seem to stifle my creativity.

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      1. Yeah, I don’t go for that myth either. I’m a science fiction and fantasy fan, not simply a Star Trek fan, a Star Wars fan, or a Lord of the Rings fan, etc. I have to have interest in several speculative fiction TV shows and movie series, not just one.

        Neither am I anti-technology. I think computer technology is one of the best things that have happened to us. It’s really helpful when you need to continue editing after you’ve made all the pen marks your paper draft can hold!

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  7. Thanks for stopping by my blog. I didn’t change my hair color but a few years back I changed my hair in a way that made some people stop talking to me. I’m glad they’re gone now. I love my hair for me, not for anyone else. I think I take that same approach with my writing. I have to like it before anyone else, even if I am using some oddball techniques sometimes.

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    1. If somebody is going to stop talking to you because you changed your hair, you are better off without that person in your life. No doubt.

      And yeah, you have to take the same approach with writing. Worrying about what other people might think (especially early in the process) is a great way to give yourself writer’s block.

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