Do you feel unmotivated to write? Perhaps you have an idea and a vague sense of where the story is going – but you just don’t feel like writing it. As a matter of fact, the mere thought of sitting at your desk and opening your notebook or laptop scares you.
The reason why it scares you is because you fear that everything and anything that you will write today will be terrible. If you can relate to all of this, then we are here to tell you that such feelings are okay and valid and can happen to the best writers out there.
Here is how to get motivated to write and fall in love with writing again.
Know That You Are Not Alone
The words “endurance” and “perseverance” are not necessarily the words that come to your mind when you consider pursuing a career in creative writing. But – reminding yourself of these words is vital if you want to be a successful writer.
On that note, the truth about any creative career is that it is not all fun and games. The truth is that it takes a lot of self-discipline, and even the best writers feel demotivated from time to time. So, if you ever struggle to push through the boring days and the days where you don’t want to sit down and write – you should know that you aren’t alone.
Keep Writing Anyway
The brutally honest truth that you need to read today, which is also the golden key for getting over hard and unmotivated days, is to keep writing anyway. So, when you sit down to write, and you are not just feeling it, and you have that constant voice of self-doubt in the back of your mind telling you that you aren’t able to write today – keep writing anyway.
You must stay determined enough to overcome that moment of intense weakness when you feel like giving up and turn your back to writing. Just stay determined and push yourself to conquer your fear before it conquers you.
Remember – It is Just A Momentary Feeling
What you are feeling is an emotion, and this emotion is not going to last. It is nothing but a momentary, fleeting feeling. No matter what you do, you cannot let that momentary feeling of discomfort and hesitation stop you from pursuing your dream career.
It doesn’t matter whether you are working on fiction or poetry; you must keep writing. Understandably, the first draft will be bad, which is okay as you will be self-editing it later anyway. Also, you will be hiring an editor, such as a poetry editor, if you are working on poetry, to help you polish your final draft before you publish it.
So, don’t worry about how awful your writing is when you don’t feel like writing – the key is to keep writing anyway.
What is The Worst That Can Happen?
Now, if you keep writing despite the fact that you don’t feel like it – what is the worst that could possibly happen? You might write a few pages that you have to edit. Now, what is there to worry about, as your whole book is going to be edited anyway?
Everything you write is going to have to be edited. If you are scared of having to edit your work later, then you shouldn’t be a writer. No matter how good you write – everything is going to have to be edited. It will have to be rewritten and edited again. Then, you will share your work with beta readers and edit it again.
Afterward, you will pass your draft to a professional editor, and you will edit your draft again until it reaches perfection. Now, if editing is the worst thing that can happen, you should know that editing is inevitable.
Train Your Brain for Success
If you give in to the feeling of self-doubt and listen to your fear, you will be going nowhere with your writing. When you give up just like this, you are literally training your brain to listen to fear and obey it. On the other hand, if you are actually burnt out and need a break – then you must listen to yourself and your body.
Listen to your mental health and take the rest that you need. But never let that rest be an impulsive reaction to you feeling uncomfortable and giving in to fear. If you do so, you will develop a certain habit, and this habit can creep into other areas of your life very easily.
What it will do is it will make you very quickly an unhappy and unfulfilled person, which is what you should avoid at all costs.
Doing Things Over and Over Again Leads to Mastery
The thing about creative writing is that it doesn’t only require creative inspiration and imagination – it essentially requires cold, hard discipline. As a writer – no matter what genre you have chosen to work on, you must exhibit a willingness to show up for yourself over and over and over again – even when it is boring.
Believe us when we tell you that boredom is the side effect of mastery. When we are impressed by people’s massive successes, we cannot help but applaud and recognize their brilliance. But – have you ever wondered how boring it must be for them to have gone through the repetition of training over and over again to achieve that level of excellence?
Just imagine how many times the successful people who are at the pinnacle of their chosen careers wished they could sleep in or take the day off or stop obsessing over this idea of perfecting what they do. The truth is that it is impossible to become a master of something by doing it only when it is fun.
Even a hobby that you might do for fun at first can become tedious when you have to do it over and over again – including when you are writing fiction or poetry and working on your writing career. Everything that you want to become a master of becomes tedious after a while – but – it doesn’t mean that it is not the right thing for you or that you are not making progress.
So, keep the bigger picture in mind and keep writing at a steady pace.
