I want to want to write…

“I am not at all in a humor for writing; I must write on until I am.”
― Jane Austen

A common feeling for writers is “I want to want to write, but I just don’t want to write.” So here are some tips for getting past that mindset.

#1 Just Start

Tell yourself you’re only going to write one little sentence, nothing too difficult, and then write it down, no matter how bad it is. At that point, you’ve got momentum.

In chemistry, and in particular, biochemistry, the initial activation In chemistry, and in particular, biochemistry, the initial activation energy is often a significant barrier to the start of some sort of chemical reaction. Enzymes are molecules that lower that activation energy by attaching to another molecule and changing its shape or orientation to make it more amenable to reacting.

With writing, or any other endeavor that you want to want to do, you have to find what your enzyme is. Maybe it’s telling yourself a bit of a fib, “I just have to write one sentence and that counts as good writing today.”

For some people, the enzyme might be truly more chemical, coffee, for example. Or maybe just something to release some endorphins. How about some good music?

You can’t wait for motivation to come to you. You have to go after it. And the best way to build momentum is by getting started. The mindset that motivation comes first, is wrong. Motivation and passion, they come after you take action.

#2 Lower your expectations and your standards

Don’t go in thinking you’re going to complete a whole chapter, you’re going to write this amazing scene or even just an amazing paragraph. If you do, fantastic, celebrate that, but don’t expect it.

It’s okay to be a little negative about our expectations. A lot of the things we want to do in life are comprised of lots of little things that we don’t want to do.

I think about the 80-20 rule. 80% of our effort often feels wasted. I’m not saying it is wasted, but it feels wasted. With writing, this is the sitting down and staring at a blank screen or staring at a blank sheet of paper. This is the doing nothing and thinking about: Where does our plot go next? What do our characters do? Or what do they look like? Or what do they say? Or whatever the question is.

This is us writing down scraps of ideas on paper and then throwing them away. This is us going to our bookshelf and rereading On Writing, or Save the Cat, or Bird by Bird, and then beating ourselves up because we’re not literally putting words on the paper.

Get past that. Expect it even. That’s how things go. You can’t be productive (in the sense of putting the words down) 100% of the time. A lot of times you just have to sit there and be a little frustrated. Stare out the window and ponder for a bit and hope an idea comes to you.

Sometimes it will, and a lot of times, it won’t.

#3 Put in less effort

If you feel like you have the excitement to push onward, go beyond whatever your typically allotted writing time is…

DON’T DO IT.

Stephen King claims to end his writing sessions mid sentence so that he’s already falling forward with momentum the next time he sits down to write. Are you more prolific than Stephen King?

To be perfectly honest, I struggle with this one. I’m not sure I buy it. To be perfectly honest, I struggle with this one. I’m not sure I buy it. The idea of stopping mid sentence and having that momentum the next time you sit down to write, I love that. I’m cool with that, but the idea that if you’re inspired to push onward, don’t, pull back and hold off on that so that it carries on to tomorrow-

I don’t know about that. That has the feeling to me of a secret rule, of something that I’m forcing myself to do because I think that I’m going to be more excited in the future. I’m restraining from having my dessert so that I’ll savor it better in the future. I think that might be a personal choice. That might work for some people. It doesn’t work for other people.

#4 Get rid of secret rules

Writers make up all kinds of rules.

• “I can’t write on paper, it’s inefficient.”
• “I can’t write unless I have an allocated chunk of time.”
• “I can’t write in the morning.”
• “I can’t write in the evening.”

Question your rules.

I’m not suggesting that you should fill every spare moment with writing. I do think you should take breaks. I think there is some truth in that other tip about not giving 100% effort.

We need to refresh ourselves. We need to take breaks, but I do think we also constrain ourselves often, saying, “I have to write under these particular conditions.”

#5 Pursue fun

This one seems like it should be obvious, but it is not.

Suppose you are in love with flowery language. I’ve met plenty of writers like this. You love the purple prose. You want adjectives and adverbs all the way to the moon. You go ahead and do that, friend.

Write what you enjoy. Later on, you may need “make it palatable to the market” or whatever – fine, worry about that at a later date. You are trying to enjoy writing right now.

Let’s put in all those fun descriptions if that’s what you like. If you prefer to hit those word count goals, you really love to say “I wrote another thousand words today.” Awesome! You keep whatever sort of tracker you have that keeps track of word count. Churn out the words if that’s what motivates and excites you.

#6 Remove decisions

This is a corollary of “Just Start”. Decisions are exhausting. Decision fatigue is a real thing. For some people it may be advantageous to give yourself a curriculum, to say, “Tomorrow I’m going to write [fill in the blank], and that way you don’t have to think about it.

For other people who need more spontaneity, that’s not the way to do it, but one thing everyone can do is put in placeholders. When you’re writing and can’t think of a name for a person, place, or thing, just fill in a placeholder. A lot of us use brackets or have some particular word that we’re going to go back and search for when we’re revising. For the protagonist, you could name them “Protagonist”

Shit! if you’re Neal Stevenson you can just publish the book and leave that as their name.

7 Congratulate yourself

Congratulate yourself for your accomplishments, for whatever writing you have done today, yesterday, and hopefully tomorrow. You will build momentum. You’ll build momentum in the moment by starting to write and continuing to write. You will build the momentum on a day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month basis. Doesn’t mean you’re not going to take breaks in there. We need our breaks. We need our refreshers, but have that confidence that the momentum will build and the enjoyment will build.

We’re trying to enjoy this process because we want to want to write. Go revisit something you wrote that you think is really good. Right? Go back and find that and realize, “Yeah, I can do this,” and then go forward with whatever your new writing is.

I have some resources for you. This post was inspired by video game sage Day9:

Also this comic: How to Finish – Grant Snider x Jon Acuff

http://www.incidentalcomics.com/2017/09/how-to-finish.html

I think YouTuber Shaelin Writes also did a good video on this topic so consider checking out her video

Don’t lose yourself in motivational videos. The key thing is to get started. Motivation and passion and the desire comes after you get started, not before.