Stop Procrastinating, Just Do the Art
Hormesis, Resistance, and Finding Joy in Small Doses of Pain
I love writing, but that doesn’t mean it’s not excruciating half the time.
There’s a long history of writers who loathe writing. In a letter to Fanny Guillermet, native English speaker and novelist James Joyce said, “Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives.”
In a New York Times interview, writer John Dos Passos described the revision process this way: “If there is a special Hell for writers it would be in the forced contemplation of their own works.”
Slaughterhouse-Five author Kurt Vonnegut was extremely vocal about his hatred of writing, telling Charlie Rose that any writer who enjoys writing is probably a terrible writer, and the London Times that “When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.” Flannery O’Connor probably felt similarly, as she put it in Mystery and Manners, “Writing is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay.”
Why so much disdain for the craft they’re most known for? Well, The War of Art author Steven Pressfield would blame “resistance.” It’s the self-sabotage and/or self-doubt that discourages creatives from working on their creation.
This lesson applies to all art, not just writing – from painters to interior designers to comedians to filmmakers. Resistance is the malevolent barrier between creatives and their purpose.
The artist has to slog through resistance each and every morning – the temptation to procrastinate, scroll through social media, tidy up their room, walk the streets, eat an early lunch – basically do anything but create. So to overcome resistance, Pressfield suggests that they need to fall in love with the “misery” of the craft.
Obviously, “misery” is slightly hyperbolic. But, in earnest, sometimes sinking into the writing process really can feel like a little death. Especially when you get past the point of dumping words on a page and actually have to read them over and decide what does or doesn’t suck. That’s where the most visceral demons in yourself and your work show up.
But I can say from research and experience that the writers who refuse to double, triple, even heptuple (?) check their work are destined to be the worst writers of the bunch. My friends who are NYT bestselling authors tell me that they reread each chapter a minimum of ten times before moving on. And once the project is completed, they reread and re-edit their whole manuscript a minimum of fifty times. If that sounds painful and time consuming, it’s because it is. But their sales and critical reception speak for itself.
So, when it comes to getting over the pain of writing, I think it’s helpful to frame it as hormesis. Hormesis is a concept that pops up in toxicology circles that has broad implications for human life.
According to neuroscientist Mark Mattson, hormesis is “a process in which exposure to a low dose of a chemical agent or environmental factor that is damaging at higher doses induces an adaptive beneficial effect on the cell or organism.” Basically, it’s the idea that small or controlled doses of pain, discomfort, or noxious sensations actually create long-term pleasure and benefits.
Humans are built to adapt to tough environments and toxic substances. Dealing with hard things grows calluses. The more we expose ourselves to toxins or harshness, the stronger our cells become.
Exercise is the most obvious example. You give yourself a light dose of a tough workout routine that causes pain and discomfort but eventually makes you stronger through continued exposure.
As the psychiatrist Anna Lembke notes in Dopamine Nation, hormesis also helps explain why certain activities like intermittent fasting or cold plunges – or even small doses of radiation – lead to weight loss, natural highs, resilience, and better self-control in the long run. The more we expose ourselves to small doses of pain, the more adaptive our cells and brains become.
Importantly, hormesis also explains why putting ourselves through intellectual challenges – such as reading difficult books, problem solving, dreaming new ideas or, in our case, sitting down and writing – actually helps our brains get stronger. Through enduring the opposite of pleasure in small doses, we enable ourselves to experience more and superior pleasure overall.
We might never not encounter pain from approaching our laptop or writing station each day. But the more we do it, the easier it becomes.
I can barely call the writing I did when I started writing at 22 “writing.” I would wake up, drink coffee, and then wander around the house looking for distractions. My stomach would churn just thinking about reviewing the work I’d spat out 24 hours prior. I’d eventually sit down, stare for a bit, look at a sentence or two, start checking my phone, and then forget where I was. The “two hours” I’d set aside for writing were more like 15 minutes of actual writing and 105 minutes of intentional procrastinating tinged with guilt. But by 23, those 15 minutes turned into 25 minutes. At 24, 35 minutes. And on until I’m at 27 and it’s more like 90 minutes. It’s still never easy. The point is, the more you expose yourself to small doses of discomfort, the stronger you get over time, and the easier it is to get started.
Lastly, it reminds me of my favorite lesson from David Foster Wallace: “If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish.”
The more okay you can feel about boredom – looking at screens of your own sub-par writing, the canvas that looks lopsided, the disappointing turnout from your film directing – for extended periods of time, the stronger you’ll become as a human being. “It is a key to modern life.” Through hormesis, there is literally nothing you cannot not accomplish.
This really rings true for me! I'd never heard of "hormesis" but it reminds me of the idea that the way of growth is in the space right outside (but not necessarily dramatically far from) our comfort zone. The more often I commit to sitting down with the pain and indecision of actually writing, the more I feel able to actually use that time to write, and the more I'm okay with the fact that the writing is sometimes bad. Because there are other times when it's actually good, and I won't find that out without just doing it!
So happy you liked it :)
Did Adam Grant write that line about growth being right outside our comfort zone? Regardless, I love that! It’s so true.
Even after 5 years of deliberate practice, my ratio of halfway decent writing to terrible writing is still pretty dismal. I’m so glad that you’re being intentional about it though. Best of luck!!