"Dissolving the Granite Complex," from Communication Training and Consulting in Business, Industry, and Government. William Buchholz, editor and contributor. Urbana-Champaign, IL: Association for Business Communication (ABC), University of Illinois, 1983, 290 pages. Dissolving the Granite Complex William J. Buchholz Bentley College Waltham, Massachusetts For many people one of the most terrifying experiences in life is sitting down to a blank piece of paper. Before they get up again, they want that blank page full of facts, thoughts, opinions-all perfectly expressed. These writers, if they can get words to come at all, are almost compulsively driven by a need to put the words down flawlessly the first time. They behave as though they are hammering their words everlastingly into granite: the first word they find, the first sentence they cast, the first paragraph that haphazardly builds itself-these bits and pieces are chiseled into stone, largely because the writers are afraid. Their fear of writing has made them victims of the writing anxiety syndrome. This syndrome (the “granite complex” or “writer’s block”) has probably affected all writers at some point. Actually, writing instructors spend much of their time simply coaxing inexperienced writers into overcoming their fear of writing. “Confidence building’ it is called. Poll any group and you will likely find that most consider themselves inferior writers. Ask them why. They will tell you that writing just bedevils them: “Besides,” they say, “I’m math oriented. Wasn’t born with the writing gift.” If you pursue the question, you will find that these people are hostage to their own biographies; that is, enough people and enough experiences have conspired throughout their lives to convince them they cannot write well. They may also be convinced that you can do nothing to help them. Their very attitude, you see, is cast in granite. Communication consultants, and writing teachers in general, know that the key to successful writing is attitude. No one can be forced to become a good writer; people simply must desire it. But their desire is often contaminated, sometimes suffocated, by fear. Even if you can convince people that with practice almost anyone can learn to write functional prose, you must get them to admit that they, these single individuals before you, can do it. Your clients can build their confidence, but only if you help them articulate their fears. Once identified, however, these fears can he mitigated. The chief enemy in the granite complex is rigidity. The writer assumes a single attitude to all writing and is afraid to deviate from that attitude. Upon approaching the page, something like this unconsciously goes through the writer’s mind: “all writing is the same; all readers are the same; I am the same.” This ossification of self and context is what destroys the writer’s confidence. People who enjoy writing do not experience this attitude freeze. In fact, they experience quite the Opposite feeling. For people who enjoy writing, the process is probing and exploratory. They see the blank page as a vehicle of discovery, an expendable sheet that is slave to the facts and ideas, not master of them. Words sometimes come fast and easy, sometimes slowly and hard; but wordsDissolving the Granite Complex _________________________ William J. Buchholz page 2 02/04/2001 on a page, they recognize, can be changed at any time, as can the sentences which they form, and the paragraphs built from the sentences. Flexibility, change, and growth; a playful, experimental attitude toward expression; the realization that writing must be viewed first as a tentative, groping process full of false starts, exciting twists and turns, even frustrating losses at times-these make up the successful writer’s attitude. One thing more: the playful attitude toward writing recognizes that all communication is settled precariously upon the shifting sands of self perception and the relation of self to others. In short, human personality has multiple faces and attitudes, various personae or masks, that shift and blend one into another. These multiple personalities are shaped by both internal and external forces. Briefly, then, a writer’s persona will always be determined by the problem at hand, by the nature of the audience being addressed, and by the writer s momentary self perception. It would take a lengthy volume indeed to explore these three variables in depth. Instead, I should like to offer some writer-based questions that directly chip away at the granite complex. The questions concentrate on the writer, the reader, and the data. If your clients use these questions to probe writing attitudes and contexts, you might find that in time the “problem writers” can overcome, or at least reduce, their fear of writing. They will he concentrating on writing as a process, a dynamic interaction between writer and reader. Even though their writing will eventually freeze into a product (the written page), they will find that focusing on the process will make writing more enjoyable-certainly less terrifying (1). Writer’s attitude Some primal law of survival in human nature, in nature itself, dictates that we take the path of least resistance. This underlying principle is sometimes the cause of the writer’s block: evading work is simply easier than undertaking work. But since most of us are also victims of the Puritan ethic, we find it difficult to resolve the conflict between expectation and desire: put briefly, we experience guilt and thereby seek to rationalize our behavior. This process may be unconscious: we avoid acknowledging our need to defend the indefensible. But our minds will send us signals in the form of discomfort, fear, and anxiety. At other times we are wholly conscious, uncomfortably so, of our shortcomings. We are distracted by various worries or personal concerns: we lack confidence in our mental prowess, in the conclusions we have derived, in our writing style itself. The following ten questions seek to probe these rather nasty little truths we all find difficult to admit: 1. Am I unconsciously evading work? 2. Am I not yet determined to begin? 3. Do I lack confidence in my reasoning ability? 4. Do I have other more important, more urgent business concerns that are distracting me? 5. Am I afraid of the results of my conclusions? 6. Am I afraid to make recommendations? 7. Is there something in my