When I went back to writing fiction, a lightbulb moment happened: if I wanted a consistent creative practice, I’d need to make friends with what was happening deep inside me.
Let’s Meet Internal Resistance
We might think we can’t get back to the manuscript because we’re don’t have time, but I suggest the root cause of this distance from our work is a quiet internal resistance.
Internal resistance is emotional and psychological self-protection masquerading as procrastination. It is the silent horseman that pushes writers off their productive and satisfying paths of creative consistency. This deep cause of distraction can rob a writer of valuable months and years. It might look like being over-scheduled, or spending time socialising and missing our self-imposed deadlines. When this happens, I take stock. I ask, “What am I avoiding in my writing? Am I skirting around the edges of something, afraid to dive in?”
Making Friends with Internal Resistance
I spent years not writing fiction. I didn’t understand why writing fiction was important to me. Seeing no value in it, I spent a few miserable years writing about my life in my diary. It startled me when I realised what I was doing. I was still writing. Because I was writing, I felt a deep sense of alignment. It was clear to me I needed to express myself this way. It made sense to go ahead and work on a longer project, because finishing a novel would be a better use of my time than filling journal pages.
Writing and finishing my novel is what I wanted to do all along, but first I had to reckon with the resistance stopping me. This was no run-and-hide strategy. This was a conversation I had with this part of myself that won the debate with logic and experience. It worked in this case, but there would be many more to come, most of them so deeply carved into my interior landscape I would need more powerful searchlights and garlands.
Who is Your Constant Writing Travelling Companion?
How do you experience this internal resistance? For me it feels like an undercurrent of anxiety as I approach the page to start my next writing session. It’s as if something inside me is uncomfortable about confronting the unknown currents of the deep waters inside me. I’m afraid that I won’t be able to ‘do it’ today. That I’ll be wasting my time… These are the thoughts I have as the moment approaches. My worries sound like the warbling of an ill-intentioned ‘frenemy’ on a worn cassette tape. It rewinds and starts at the beginning when I haven’t heard it for a while. And when it’s loud and screaming in my ears I know I’m getting close to substantial work. This is what this resistance is to me. I need to watch for it. It can unnerve me to the point I’ll stop writing if I’m not careful.
I’ve worked hard to make sure my internal resistance doesn’t capsize my creative progress. To be in control of it and feel comfortable in its presence (which is always), I’ve had to accept it’s coming with me. It’s a constant travelling companion. And knowing that, I relax into no longer needing to fight it, or outrun it. It’s right here, next to me. It’s coming with me and I have to deal with it.
Getting to Know Your Constant Writing Travelling Companion
I experience this resistance as an obnoxious and self-concerned traveller sitting in the seat next to me on a long journey. It will be with me for the whole journey. At its most innocuous, it never gets off at the next stop, eats hot food, talks loudly on the phone, and favours candy with noisy wrappers. At its worst, it’s drawn the blinds and pulled the cord to stop the train.
When I start to resent this passenger, I remember I need to find a way to make friends with it, to find compassion for it, and to be ready when it kicks back. I know that how well I get on with this commuter determines the duration and quality of the creative journey I’m going to have. That’s because this passenger is the version of me that’s insecure and fragile. It doesn’t want to be exposed or noticed. More than anything, it doesn’t want to be embarrassed or shamed. It’s the hurt parts of me.
So, even when it’s being relatively quiet, I know it will kick, hard. So, I bravely offer an olive branch, and take the hand of this part of me, and reassure it I’m not here to hurt anyone. I tell it that I see it and I’m not a threat. I tell it that it’s safe. That we’ll work together on this, and this is how we get this done.
Carl Jung Called it The Shadow
Carl Jung called this aspect of ourselves The Shadow. Dr Jung recommended getting to know it and integrating it, and so do I. Sometimes I think of it as structures in my subconscious, like interpretations, reactions and false beliefs. For those writers and artists out there, like me, who use all of themselves in their work, sooner or later we’ll encounter this internal resistance. It’s normal and natural and a sign we’re moving into useful, heart-based territory. The kind where the work connects and resonates. It’s the juice. Writing needs juice. It needs pain as well as heart-aching joy.
The Good News: Resistance is Juice
My writer friends who seem to come back to the page, month after month, year after year, have reckoned with their internal resistance, and they use it. They know it’s juice. They welcome it as the energy in their work. Even if they don’t fully integrate it, they know that being in touch with who we are is connecting to something real. If it’s not going in that direction while we’re working on a text, then turning the mirror back toward ourselves and inward, by journalling, can help us get in touch with this. On many levels it helps to become acquainted with this fellow traveller.
What’s Driving this Internal Resistance?
Fear. That my writing will be terrible. That someone will see something in me they don’t like. That I might see something in myself. That it will all be a waste of time. That even if I put my heart and soul into it, no-one will read it anyway.
We’re afraid our writing won’t be good. That it will be good. That it will be rejected or embraced. We writers can be highly conflicted. We want it all to work, or not to work. Are you wondering, it’s just fiction, it’s just a bit of creative practice, we’re just making it up anyway, so why are we afraid of that? Well, the truth is, we’re afraid because it means something to us.
Exercise: Pointing Resistance in the Direction You Want to Go
Internal resistance is the part of us that is trying to keep us safe from real emotional risk. The presence of it means you’re on the right path.
Let’s try something. Every time you’re about to return to the page, pause for thirty seconds and acknowledge the resistance. Not to banish it or argue with it, but simply to say, “I know you’re here. Let’s do this together.” I promise, the ideas will come in stronger, the impulse to doom-scroll will lessen. It will become easier to move deeply into the work. And why would we want anything else for our creative practice?
Have you encountered resistance with your creative practice? How do you recognise it? What helps you return to the work? I’d love to hear about your experience with creative resistance in the comments below.
2026 is Coming… Come and Meet Me
What are your creative plans for 2026? Now is the perfect time to start thinking about it. If you’re in Melbourne and you’d like to attend a creative writing class, I’ll be teaching a class at Laneway Learning in early January. I’d love to meet you there if you can make it. Details here.
Thank you, and until next time…
I’d love to hear from you. Please let me know how you’re getting on with your own creative projects. I’ll be spending some dedicated time revising my novel as the year closes out. And reading. And studying craft. And painting. And writing. And dreaming…
I’m excited to share more with you in 2026. Hope it’s a restful and peaceful one for everyone for the next few weeks, and I look forward to chatting with everyone again soon, Mxxx
Studio Practice For Writers 