Just Write Some Garbage

I don’t have anything to say.

I’m just not feeling inspired today.

I’ve got some serious writer’s block. No cap (lie).

These are the common refrains that echo around my middle-school humanities classroom. And when I hear those complaints, I'm discerning that, somewhere along the way, writing has gotten way too serious, high-stakes, and formulaic for the 12- and 13-year-olds I teach.

My most common answer to these writing struggles is to hit them with my old standby: "Just write some doo-doo garbage."

Sure, it's silly and meant to be so, but there's a lot of wisdom in just writing some doo-doo garbage. There's a lot of psychology and science lurking beneath the surface of my crass advice.

Source: Zhang Kenny / Unsplash

1. Stop Trying So Hard

Often, people try to force creativity. We try to muscle our way through.

When we focus on the future, what we want the final draft to look like, how we want to be perfect, or that we're not, we're not present. And presence is a crucial component in doo-doo garbage writing.

Charles Limb discovered a pattern in a series of brain scan studies. Whether he was putting freestyle rappers or jazz pianists in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), he found that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) decreased in activity when these creatives improvised. This brain region is an executive functioning center. It's a key player in working memory. I think of it as the voice in your head that tells you when you're doing great or should be better.

Think back to my middle-schoolers for a second: too much dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. When we're trying too hard, we can't hear those creative ideas over all that DLPFC.

Over decades of improvising and writing and trying too hard, I've figured out a way to trick myself into not caring (even though I really do). When I sit down to write, I tell myself to write some doo-doo garbage. No one cares. No one will ever read this. Just have fun. Then, I usually crack my knuckles and mutter an expletive-laced phrase to myself that means "forget it," according to the Urban Dictionary.

I shift my focus from "in my head" DLPFC thinking to more creative and carefree "forget it" thinking. I stop trying to be smart, perfect, successful, and life-changing, and I start writing some doo-doo garbage.

2. Let Your Unconscious Do the Heavy Lifting

The next trick to get the writing flowing is to get your unconscious to do more work. When you try to muscle through your draft, you use your conscious brain, only about 5 percent of your total dome. Another problem with your conscious brain is that it's exhausting. It requires an incredible amount of energy to think those conscious thoughts. As if that weren't enough, your conscious brain isn't great at making creative connections and playing around with patterns.

That's what your unconscious mind is for. Your unconscious is pretty effortless. It's that part of you that helps you think of that one actor's name while showering the day after you tried so hard to think of it but definitely couldn't. When you're walking your dog and suddenly thinking of revamping your business or finishing your painting, that's your unconscious. She's fun. She's easy. And she's always on the go.

We're usually too caught up with and focused on our conscious thoughts to hear her.

You can invite your unconscious to the writing party by daydreaming, journaling, strolling, and generally not forcing it. I like to write some doo-doo garbage for about an hour a day. Then, with plenty of gas still in the tank, I daydream and marinate. By my next writing session, I have tons to add to my draft because my unconscious has been sorting things out and putting the puzzle pieces together sparkly and effortlessly.

Source: Luis Fernando Rómulo / Unsplash

3. Keep Putting One Foot in Front of the Other

Another writing trick is to "just keep swimming," as Dory, the beloved Blue Tang, famously said in Finding Dory. I teach my students the improv principle called "Yes, And" or "the rule of agreement," which basically means when one person says or does something, the other person agrees with that reality and adds to it with more words and behaviors that keep the scene going.

If one improviser says, "I just ate a Blue Tang," I'm "yes, anding" if I say it's a rare delicacy that only this restaurant sells. I shut the scene down if I tell him he didn't eat a Blue Tang or act like I don't know him.

We shut down our writing all the time. Instead of "yes, anding" ourselves, we stop our creative flights of fancy by telling ourselves that this scene isn't going anywhere or that this character isn't interesting enough.

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Improv's "Yes, And" principle may be why one study showed that participating in an improv class contributed more to students' writing. They literally wrote more words after doing just a little bit of improv.

So say a thing and then tell the next, most obvious thing that makes sense with that first thing. And on and on until you have a 50,000-word draft. I'm oversimplifying the process, but you get the idea. Keep putting one foot before the other by writing a sentence and then writing another that goes with that first one.

Stop metaphorically eating Blue Tangs, and instead, keep swimming.

4. Surprise and Delight Yourself

My final thought is to surprise and delight yourself. I didn't plan to make Finding Nemo references, refer to the unconscious mind as "her," or reveal that I started my writing sessions by cursing at myself. Those were all fun surprises along the way. It makes writing feel novel, fresh, and a little dangerous. Middle-schoolers love novel, fresh, and dangerous. Actually, I think most people do.

So, if you're feeling uninspired or know a young person who thinks they have nothing to say, take some of the pressure off. Stop trying so hard, let your unconscious do more of the work, "yes, and" yourself, and throw yourself some exciting curveballs along the way.

In our new artificial intelligence world, we don't need more formulaic writing. Skynet's got that under control. Instead, see what happens if you lower the stakes and take some chances. I think you, your students, or your children will have a lot more to write and way more fun writing it. No cap.