BROADCASTS.com

In Rumors of Water, L.L. Barkat recommends a book to her daughter. Barkat is out in the garden with her girls, who are pulling weeds, and one of the girls, Sara, has decided she hates Bishop\u2019s Weed.\n\nBarkat tells Sara, \u201cIt\u2019s your nemesis\u2026Every gardener has a nemesis.\u201d She continues with her own reflection on the impact of having a nemesis\u2014a garden nemesis or otherwise:\nIt\u2019s not going to cause psychological distress and end up in her memoirs. But it\u2019s not going to go away either. She\u2019s going to need to work around it, dig it out, ignore it, accept it, if she wants to grow lettuce and peas in this garden bed. (41)\nShe recommends to Sara a book by Michael Pollan that has a nemesis\u2014maybe a gopher. I, being rather lowbrow, thought of Caddyshack instead of Michael Pollan, and then of Seinfeld and Newman:\n\nJerry...\n\nNewman.\nThe Writer\u2019s Nemesis\nYou probably don\u2019t have a Newman in your life. In fact, I hope you don\u2019t have any actual nemesis\u2014that is, a flesh-and-blood writer who steals your ideas or steals your thunder.\n\nBut Barkat suspects every writer does indeed have some kind of nemesis. Maybe it\u2019s The Censor, she says, \u201ca prohibitive voice,\u201d or The Market, \u201calways demanding writing that\u2019s saleable." Maybe it\u2019s The Procrastinator, which is \u201ckeeping us from writing.\u201d\n\nIn his book The War of Art and Do the Work and countless articles and interviews, author Steven Pressfield presents the idea of Resistance. It\u2019s his way of talking about a nemesis.\n\nResistance is the root of all manner of evil and issues, as it includes trouble like fear, self-doubt, distraction, timidity, self-loathing, ego, and perfectionism\u2014any force working against us and our creative efforts. Resistance is an enemy, a nemesis. Pressfield practically personifies it by capitalizing the word Resistance when he writes about it.\nWhat's Your Nemesis?\nWhat's your nemesis?\n\nWhat hisses at you when you sit down to write? What threatens to grind you to a halt, causing Resistance to your creative work?\n\nYou\u2019ve got to know your enemy\u2026name it if you can. That\u2019s a good first step in order to fight back and be free.\nIf you know\nYou might already know your nemesis. You may have identified it long ago and immediately blurted it out the minute I asked the question \u201cWhat\u2019s your nemesis?" It\u2019s procrastination! It\u2019s jealousy! It\u2019s fear of success! It\u2019s fear of failure!\n\nIf you know, write it down. Knowing it\u2014and naming it\u2014can help you recognize it when it knocks at the door, blusters into your writing space, and sits there staring, glaring, boring a hole in your confidence.\nIf you don\u2019t know\nIf you don\u2019t know your nemesis, it\u2019s time to explore.\n\nL.L. Barkat sends writers off with a bit more instruction. She recommends working through a book like The Artist\u2019s Way to explore what\u2019s hindering us. She also recommends studying other writers\u2019 processes to hopefully see ourselves more clearly and pay attention to \u201cour frustrations and our joys with writing\u201d (42).\n\nOnce you know it and name it, how can you be free of it?\nHow to Be Free of a Nemesis\nIf your nemesis is fear, Elizabeth Gilbert has quite a bit to say. In talking about the kinds of fears that keep us from our creative work, she says, "Your fear should always be allowed to have a voice, and a seat in the vehicle of your life. But whatever you do \u2014 don't let your fear DRIVE.\u201d\nWrite fear a letter\nShe also recommends letting that fear write a letter to you. In a Facebook update a year or so ago, she recommended we ask fear what it wants, what it doesn\u2019t want, and why it\u2019s holding us back.\n\nAnd then, after \u201cfear\u201d writes that letter, read it, she says, with an open mind and heart. And then she says we should write back to it. Make sure that this fear understands you have a new plan\u2014one in which fear cannot touch the steering wheel.\nFocus on the Dream\nSteven Pressfield suggests that we overcome Resistance by identifying the dream that may have stirred up Resistance in the first place.