Monday 23 January 2017

You Can Do This! Let's Talk About Writing Motivation

Writing isn't difficult. Wait, come back! I didn't mean it like that. Of course writing is difficult, but it's also easy. Sometimes you can look up and be three-thousand words up. Sometimes it's just three.

What's equally bi-polar is the little voice inside your head. This is amazing. This is terrible. Everyone will want to read this. No one will want to read this. This is what truly holds me back, and I know others are the same.

This is why being a writer is such a crazy thing. That and all the people walking around in your head.

Sometimes that voice is your inner editor trying to make something perfect. But what it can't come to grips with is that nothing is perfect. That's when it becomes your inner demon and tries whatever it can to put you down.

I'm here to tell you to almost never listen to your inner demon.

But how do you slay that particular dragon? How do you carry on when you've had eight awful days in a row battling through every word?

There are many ways to do this, but the two I've found most helpful in my writing career so far are to just keep on going, powering through like a mad person, and finding solace in others.

I know that 'just keep on going' might not be the most helpful thing I've ever said, but I stand by it. If you write every day, you get better at writing every day. All of a sudden, it's easy to reach that word count. All at once you feel like you're doing it. You're actually doing it. You're a superhero!

That's how you should feel all the time. You're a writer, and that's incredible.

If you finish your project and stop writing, it'll be harder and harder to write every day once you start something up again. Write every day. Believe me, I know how difficult this is, and I would be lying if I said I'd mastered writing every single day of the year, but all us writers should. Write blog posts and short stories and flash fiction. It doesn't matter how terrible, these things are flexing your writing muscles. You'll thank yourself for it later.

My favourite thing to do is take a character from one of my novels and write something from their perspective. I tend to show no one these pieces of writing and sometimes they're all over the shop, but it doesn't matter. Whatever keeps me writing keeps me happy.

Just as important, is finding solace in others. Writers, you are not alone. Whether you like it or not, there are thousands of us out there, and we all suffer from the same issues. Instead of struggling on and letting doubt weave itself into your head, go and find some like-minded people. Writing websites are a terrific, beautiful places that have made me feel infinitely better about my work. Facebook has loads of groups. Twitter has so many authors to confide in. NaNoWriMo gets hundreds of thousands of writers together every November. And of course, Movellas, my writing home, has made me confident and more of the writer I want to be.

Go check these things out. There's so much out there, and you should use what you can to motivate yourself.

Who am I to motivate you? I only know how it works for me.

So I implore you to go in search of your muse, and when you find it, grab hold and never let go.




Author / Editor in Chief at Molten Publishing / Freelance Editor / Writing Coach / Reviewer / Blogger / Wrimo / Movellian / ZA Ready

molly@moltenpublishing.co.uk

Visit me on Facebook / Twitter LinkedIn / Movellas NaNoWriMo

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