Don't Get Trapped in a Vicious Cycle in Your Writing

With a nod to Joni Mitchell

Dec 12, 2024

I recently read an article by Bill Abbate and it tweaked my interest.

He wrote about cycles that play out in our lives and how we can learn from them. It helps to look for patterns in our lives. These patterns might tell us we’re locked in a cycle.

A cycle is “a series of events that are regularly repeated in the same order.”

It reminded me of one of my favorite Joni Mitchell songs, The Circle Game.

She reflected on how seasons move in a circle like riding on a carousel. If you’ve never heard it, it’s worth a listen.

The three cycles are:

The vicious cycle, the closed-loop cycle, and the virtuous cycle. Relationships are one area in your life where you might be trapped in a cycle.

I decided to look at my relationship with writing. I can see that all three cycles are at work. My writing habits fall into one or more of these traps.

The Vicious Cycle

The first thing I noticed was my habit of checking statistics. When I first joined Medium, I found myself obsessively checking reads and claps, in an attempt to ‘game’ the system. Eventually, I realized the best way to promote myself was to focus on writing. I focused on quality content, consistent posting, and relevance. This pushed me into the creativity cycle, which is a positive shift.

There are other unhealthy habits in my vicious cycle.

I get caught up in details, editing, and improving articles that are already published. In some ways, this is a good thing to do but when it becomes obsessive, I find that I’m not writing anything new.

It’s a vicious cycle when I don’t let inspiration in because my articles aren’t inspired. They tend to fall flat.

Now that I see my need for perfection, I’m going to focus on new work before I spend time editing old stories.

When you recognize a vicious cycle, the best thing to do is stop doing it.

The Closed-End Loop

I like to call this behavior: life on repeat.

When I review my posts I can see where I sometimes get stuck writing about the past. Instead of looking at the present, I repeat stories I’ve created about my past. Creating from past events reinforces these old stories. That stops me from letting go.

You can change a closed-loop behavior into a vicious cycle or a virtuous cycle, depending on the choices you make.

I’m going to commit to creating articles from the present, rather than my past.

The Virtuous Cycle — the Cycle of Creation

This is where my writing sweet spot lives. When I wake up filled with new ideas for articles I want to write, I am energized by the creativity bubbling up inside of me.

I’m excited to get to the page and put the ideas into play. This kind of work builds on itself and spirals upwards.

If you recognize a creative cycle, figure out ways to do more of it.

If I create a regular pattern of capturing my inspirations I will move into the creating cycle more and more.

Here’s my takeaway from these reflections.

1. Stop striving for perfection.
2. Write more about the present than the past.
3. Capture my inspirations right away.

I wrote this because I started thinking about how much I focus on details, in an unhealthy, obsessive way.

So I hopped down a story rabbit hole:🐰🕳

Questions for you:

Which cycle do you tend to fall into?
What do you do to help you notice when that’s happening?
If you had a nothing box, what would you do with it?
Are you the opposite, focusing on the bigger picture? Does that help or is it another trap?

Please answer in the comments below.

Words In Motion

Discussion about this post