Should you pose like Super Man/Wonder Woman?

I’ve been working on this short story now for over a week. It’s going to end up at about 6K words, which is fine. A story needs to be whatever it’s going to be. But it’s a complex story, and it’s taken a lot of writing and rethinking. Yesterday I was stuck, and I was actually dreading the process of looking at it again. I needed to write some new stuff to get it to a final shape, and I was just kinda done with it. You know what I mean, right? It just didn’t get me going to think about working on it.

Other times, I would have just jumped to another project and hoped to come back to this one. But I really, really want to get this thing cleared out. I need it to be out of the queue.

Changing topics for a moment …

Last time I went to work out, I listened to a Ted Talk Radio Hour podcast that was about spoken and unspoken communication. Amid the collection of talks that were touched on was one by Amy Cuddy about body language. You can find the entire talk below. In this talk she showed some scientific evidence that the concept of “Fake it Till You Make it” thing can really work (Though I like her rephrasing of it to “Fake it until you become it” even if it doesn’t rhyme as well). Specifically, she shows how some tests she’s been involved in suggest that taking power poses for a few minutes before attacking a tough situation or problem can really help you out. She showed several such poses, including the traditional “Super Man” pose–though she called it the “Wonder Woman” pose, which is just fine with me.

the video’s the standard 18 minutes, but it’s a good one and worth the investment.

Okay, back to the manuscript in question …

So, yesterday, rather than fiddle with another story, I decided to try it. I started my morning session with a couple minutes of standing in the Super Man/Wonder Woman pose, and telling myself that I was stronger than this story and that I could bend it to my will. Then I started writing. Next thing you know, the story part was done, and done in a way that I like. I still have some detail to fiddle with (half of which I finished this morning, the other half of which I’ll (hopefully) finish in my next full writing session. If that works out, the thing will be out of my queue and all will be right with the world again.

Was this because of Wonder Woman or Super Man? No. Of course not. I was because of me.

But then again, perhaps this means I’m a super hero’s alter-ego in waiting.

Hey … it could happen!