Getting Started #3: Use the Future

This article is for: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced—i.e. ALL of us!

We all need emotions—but sometimes they get in the way of our writing.

I’m sure you’ve had the experience of sitting down to work on a poem, and getting waylaid by all kinds of troublesome feelings: fear, doubt, reluctance, confusion, lack of confidence, or even boredom!

Sometimes, no matter how much you try, no matter how many good plans you make, those negative emotions come back and back, and throttle your creativity.

I’ve written about ways to tackle to a few of these negative feelings here, here, and here.

In this article, I’m going to outline another approach, where emotion can actually help you overcome those blocks.

Because, it’s surprisingly easy to use positive emotions to neutralize the negative ones.

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Shake hands with the future

If you’re stuck on a poem or project, I am willing to bet that some part of you is painting a dire picture of the future.

You may not be aware of it, but I guarantee that your imagination is picturing, in excruciating detail, exactly how things can go wrong with this piece of writing: all the technical things that you don’t know, all the words you won’t be able to think of, all the criticism the poem might get from family or peers, all the rejections from editors…. and so on.

With this vision of the future, it’s not surprising that you can’t write!

And the worst part is, you’re particularly skilled at creating these horrible visions, because you’re an imaginative, creative poet!

So you’re particularly good at blocking yourself from writing…

Sounds hopeless? Not at all!

You can easily turn your creativity and your emotions from harmful to helpful by trying out these three simple steps.

1. Picture a different future

First, you need to consciously and deliberately picture an opposite future, the vision you want instead of the one you fear.

I think it’s important to have a few specific things in this vision, but not necessarily a ton. As you know from poetry, a small number of details can have great power.

So pick a few key details that you want in your writing future. And make them things that could plausibly happen: you want your vision to feel like it could be just around the corner, not a million years off.

You can make this specific to the poem you’re working on, such as:

I write this poem confidently and happily
This poem turns out really well and I am pleased with it
This poem gets accepted by a good magazine.

Or, if you’re stuck more generally, you can create details about your poetry life overall, such as:

I write confidently every day
I publish poems in 10 magazines this year
I have a manuscript that I’m happy to send to publishers.

Then spend a moment imagining that these things are happening—right now. Do you feel good? Does it sum up where you want to be as a poet?

If yes, you’ve got it!

If not, you need to readjust the details.

When you’ve got this vision, you’ve got a weapon you can use against the gremlins.

Whenever your Negative-Future fairies get started with their bleak picture, you can say to yourself, Look, I have another vision, and this one is just as likely to happen as yours is! So there!

Hopefully, pop! the nasty fairies will vanish, taking their dark emotions with them.

And instead, you can feel enthused, cheerful, confident. and energized, and—get writing!

2. Future Poetry You

Step 1 may be enough—just having that positive vision of the future may get you writing again.

But you might need another couple of steps. So let’s move on.

Next is to get to know more about the Future Poetry You who lives the writing future you want. Conjure up your picture of her, and ask yourself, Who is this person?

What has she grown skilled at?
What does she value?
What is she proud of?
How does she feel about herself?
What are her writing habits?
What problems and worries do you have, that she does not?

Again, you don’t need a million answers—just a few powerful ones.

My Future Poetry Me:

Writes every day
Is fine with writing poems that sound different from everything he reads
Has a strong submission habit
Loves working on complicated book-length projects that require lots of research and planning.

And that’s about it—for now. No doubt my ideas will change over time. (A couple of years back, I would have included “Reads poetry frequently,” but I do that now, so I don’t need it anymore.)

Now, here comes the crucial part:

Work out what steps might START to move you from where you are now to your Future Self.

If you want to write every day, could you start by writing at least once a week?
If you want to learn more about poetry forms, could you buy a book? (Or read some of my other articles!)
If you want to be more confident about your poems, could you get some feedback and advice, maybe even mentoring?

Whatever it is you want to be, think what action you could take to begin the journey.

Taking action towards a clear goal is one of the strongest things you can do to pulverize doubt and fear, and get yourself feeling enthusiasm, confidence, and al those good feelings.

3. Shake hands with Future Poetry You

But, you might need more. And here’s a technique that I stumbled upon lately, and which I’ve found to be 100% effective so far!

You and Future You are going to have a short conversation.

And you are going to play the part of Future You.

So, take a moment to get into character. Imagine that you are already Future Poetry You. You have her skills, her learning, her resources, her experience. You have all her achievements and plans. You are the poet you want to be.

Now, as Future You, picture you now, faced with all of the worries, problems, fears, and challenges that you now have. Make sure you have a clear sight of just how difficult things are for you.

And then, as Future Poetry You, say something like this to you now:

Me, I am so grateful that you put in the hard, hard work that was needed to get where I am now. You were faced with tough situations, but you did it—you fought through. And it’s entirely thanks to what you did then, that I have things so good now. I owe everything to you.
I am awed by your courage and your persistence, and the faith you showed in working so hard. You think I have it good, but life is easy for me now: it was your hard work in the beginning that made that possible.
Thank you so much.

What you want to experience is a deep and sincere feeling of gratitude.

Gratitude has been shown to have immense effects on us. It reduces stress, it increases resilience, it raises self-esteem, and more.

And it also makes us want to act to help others.

So when you create this gratitude in yourself, you will find that it not only de-stresses you and makes you feel stronger, but also:

You will strongly want to make Future’s You’s wonderful life happen, by doing what you need to do—and so, you will be empowered to take action.

So there you have it: three ways to use the future to make it easier for you to write.

Next Steps:

Think of a poem or project that you’re blocked on. What negative future visions are you creating about it? Now create a vision of the future where things go really well.
Create your Future Poetry You, as you want her to be. What steps would help to make her happen? And what action can you plan right now to get started?
Become Future Poetry You and have the Gratitude Conversation explained above. Then picture yourself now as a warrior or hero, battling for Future You’s happiness. What would that hero do now? Then do it!