I sit down in front of my computer, pull the keyboard closer, and open the document. I’m ready to go to war with my book.

But the moment the loading bar disappears, I freeze. Everything I had prepared in my mind is gone. I can’t do a thing.

Sound familiar?

I think I have lost count of all the days when I didn’t know how to stay motivated when writing.

That dreadful feeling rushing through your body. The lack of motivation, sending knives right through your dreams like it was butter. It’s a crushing thing that will stop your writing journey before it gets off the ground.

But luckily, I found a way through.

As a writer I’ve dealt with this almost on a weekly basis, but word after word, session after session, millions of ideas floating inside my head, I figured it out. And now I have cut it down to five tips.

These five tips are some I have used over the past year to write my 130,000 words novel while having the time of my life and you deserve to do the same.

So, let’s get this show on the road and get you writing again.

Here are my five best tips on how to stay motivated when writing.

Tip 1: You’re being too hard on yourself

What’s the first thing you did when you wanted to become a writer?

You probably searched: “How do I become a writer”

And got about a billion results on how to become a writer, stay a writer and how to motivate yourself.

But the fact that you’re here tells me it didn’t work out exactly the way you thought. Am I right?

And I get it.

The general idea floating around the internet is that to become a writer, you’ll need to burn through hours upon hours to stand a chance.

But a chance, at what? Becoming a bestseller? Getting your novel published? Wasting an enormous amount of time?

That’s really the question you should ask.

Because if that’s the case, then yes. You’ll need to burn through hours.

But what if your only goal is to write a novel and actually enjoy it?

Being a writer is a journey, not a sprint

It’s a cliché at this point, I know.

But the first thing you’ll notice as you start your writing journey is that you want to see results.

You want them now.

It’s as guaranteed as catching a cold after running around in the rain.

But you need to constrain yourself.

It’s those same thoughts that’ll knock you out of course once you realize that it’ll take months of hard work before you see any of the right kinds of results.

One of the turning points for me, when it came to staying motivated when writing, was the time I thought I had made it. I had forced myself to write for 3 hours without breaks for three days.

18,000 words.

I was so proud.

Like I owned the world.

Only for the fourth day to roll around, and bam.

I couldn’t put a word down. I’d gone out, 110 percent, for the past few days and it had now caught up with me. I’d made a great story, which I liked, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t convince myself to work.

In the end I took a week off and started over.

This time with only 30 minutes a day.

Let an easy goal motivate you to keep going

Writing is a slow grind and if you try to force it, you’ll only end up hurting yourself. Besides, you are completely new, so how can you expect yourself to be an expert already? Therefore, my first tip is to dial the expectations of yourself down.

Like, way down.

Think you can write for 30 minutes? Start with 15 minutes.

Give yourself an easy goal to start with and you’ll remove the unnecessary pressure from yourself. It’s paramount if you want to stay motivated when writing.

When I started to write, I thought I had to write for hours to be taken seriously. Anything less, and I was just pretending.

But five hours a day didn’t make me a writer, in fact, it made me the opposite as I ended up hating writing and quit.

It’s okay if you set your goal low, it’ll just add more fuel to the fire as you become more consistent.

Tip 2: Build a Writing Routine That Keeps You Motivated

You need to build a routine to write. Here, I’ll only give a brief overview of how to build a writing routine, if this is something that interests you, I have written a post where I go into depth about how to create a writing routine.

When I started, I liked to do what I call “fuck around writing.”

It’s the act of writing whatever I felt like, whenever I felt like it.

There’s an amazing sporadic element to it.

An element I now enjoy as a writer, but as an aspiring writer trying to stay motivated, I don’t think it’s very productive or motivating.

At first, it’s fun, but then the excitement wears off, and you’ll feel the pull of other things take over.

And if you’re anything like me, you’ll end up wasting hours watching videos on YouTube instead of writing the 15 minutes you had promised yourself.

The solution?

Get a system in place.

Why Writing Routines Beat Motivation Alone

Find a time that suits you best and schedule those 15 minutes of work.

It’s crazy, but I realized, once you have a system in place that kindly tells you: “At 9 pm, I’ll write for 15 minutes” there’s something inside our minds that gets triggered.

It wants to work.

Sometimes it’s not the action, but rather the thought of the action that stops us from writing. And that’s where the system comes into play.

Having that system, it’s like a free entry past the ‘I can’t write’ barrier, and it’ll help you stay motivated, all you need to do is find the best time for writing.

But if you just sit down and try to force yourself through the blank page, then you’re just going to dig yourself further down.

Tip 3: Conquer the Blank Page and Never Look Back

You sit and stare at the cursor blinking. It’s been 10 minutes since you opened the document, but it’s still blank.

What the fuck am I even trying to accomplish here.

The sinking feeling hits you like a truck.

A foreign and unjustified feeling explodes inside your mind: I’m not cut out to become a writer. Only an elite few make it.

Staring at the blank page is probably one of the biggest reasons aspiring writers feel demotivated. The idea that you can’t make it past the first page.

“Am I just bad?”

It’s such a natural question to ask yourself, but I’m fairly certain that’s not the case. You opened the document because you have something you want to say, but now that it’s go time you just don’t know how to.

Hello, and welcome. Writer’s block is a nice place isn’t it?

I was stranded there at the start of my first novel. I knew what I wanted to write, but every time I opened the document, it was like someone swept the ideas from my mind.

But with time, I realized that all it takes is a break and you’re good to go, again.

Let Imperfection Help You Past the Blank Page

“Take a what?”

I hear your objections but listen.

The story is there. It’s inside your mind, but it gets shy – Why is that?

You want it to be perfect.

And that’s why you need to take a break.

You need to get away from that mindset.

Step away to eliminate the blank feeling inside your mind and once it’s gone, then it’s back to the keyboard.

This time, allow yourself to write.

Let your words be messy, let them ramble. Let them make no sense.

You just need to get them out.

The blank page stops you because you let it.

You let its monstrous posture push you to overthink every detail of your story, when you should in fact just write.

Action Over Anxiety – Just Start Typing

“Just write.”

I know it sounds trivial, but it really is the best medicine for the blank page and to stay motivated when writing.

Once the words have filled the first page, you’ll realize it’s much easier to keep going.

Yes, the page will be messy, but this isn’t a “how to write the best draft”, I have got a post about that if that’s what you’re looking for.

But truth is…

Even if the first page is messy, it’s nothing you can’t edit away during your editing phase. The most important thing right now is to make sure you’re motivated to keep going.

And now that you have experienced what it’s like to write, your mind will do you a massive favor.

It’ll automatically help and remind you to have fun.

Tip 4: Make Writing Fun and Exciting

Writing can be a complex thing.

One of the things I struggled with quite a bit when I started my journey was that I thought I had to write in a specific way.

My style had to be in a particular way, my character crisp, and my dialogue perfect.

It’s the thing every writer wants, but nobody really gets. Right?

It took me months to realize this, but unfortunately, nothing kills motivation faster than if you try to restrict the way you write, so I was headed for mount burnout quite fast.

But that’s exactly why I’m boasting to share this with everybody that wants to listen:

Short stories, poems, novels, whatever they are, don’t matter.

As a writer working on your first project, the most important thing is to focus on having fun as it’s a necessity if you want to stay motivated when writing.

Inject Joy Into Your Drafting Process – It’s a cheat code to staying motivated

But really, who wouldn’t want to have fun?

It’s a no brainer.

But what is fun in writing?

I like to let the words flow and see the story develop in front of my eyes, another writer I know likes to describe their environment as if preparing a presentation on it.

You need to figure out what your type of fun is, but once you do, hang onto it for dear life.

It’s the thing that’ll keep you going.

But even with a bit of fun, just like life, you’ll experience bad days. Don’t let them knock you down, they are part of the journey to become a writer.

Tip 5: Accept that bad days are a part of the journey

No matter how prepared you are, no matter how many remedies you have stacked up, there’ll be bad days.

It’s as guaranteed as the sun rising.

And what exactly are you supposed to do with them?

Well, you just accept them.

I can’t tell you what to do, but one thing I can tell you is not to ignore them.

Going back to my story about writing for 3 hours for 3 days.

On the second day of writing, I felt my inspiration and creativity start to slip. I couldn’t see the story as clearly in my head and I didn’t feel as strongly about the story as I did in the beginning.

The person I am now would have stopped, but back then? I ignored it.

I wanted to prove to the world that I could be a writer and this was the way I was going to do it.

You already know how that went.

Therefore, my recommendation is that once you start to feel burned out or have multiple bad days, know it’s okay to change things up a bit.

It’s okay to only write for 20 minutes, even if your goal is 30 minutes, if you feel overwhelmed.

Use the bad days to stay motivated when writing – Even if it’s just for a few minutes

A word of caution.

Just because you don’t feel like writing one day doesn’t mean the world is falling apart around you. That’s just called being a human and I’d always recommend that you try to write.

Sometimes that dreadful feeling inside disappears after the first few minutes – It would be terrible to lose a day’s work because of a pseudo feeling, wouldn’t it?

Just because it’s a bad day doesn’t mean you can’t turn it around.

Okay, you have decided that today is a bad day, you can’t do anything without risking burnout, what do you?

Great question.

A bad day could mean that it’s time to grow some distance from your writing. Take a day off to do some of the other things you have put off in life, go outside, or do something else that motivates you.

The last thing you want to do is jump straight to another thing that’ll sap your energy and make you feel worse.

Life is a constant battle for balance and everything will impact each other, so if you’re serious about becoming a writer then you need to make sure every other aspect of your life is great.

And if this means taking a day from writing to clear your to-do list, then go do it.

Final Thoughts on How to Stay Motivated When Writing

Phew, that was a lot.

Motivation is a complicated thing, but through my personal writing trials, these are the five tips that have helped me the most:

1. Don’t be too hard
2. Build a writing habit
3. Don’t force your way through the blank page
4. Let yourself have fun
5. Accept the bad days

Whatever might make you struggle with motivation, just know this: it’s okay to take things one day at a time.

This is a marathon not a sprint.

And the best way to make it through is to focus on your own journey, compare yourself to you and write for yourself first.

The rest will follow.

That’s a wrap for today.

Writing is hard. But it’s also deeply worth it and if this post helped you find even a spark of motivation, I’d love to hear about it. Share your struggles, your wins, or just say hi in the comments. Or shoot me an email. I read every single one.

Until next time – Hope you have a productive and creative day.

Your writing buddy,

Jack

Authorbytrade – Time to take control of your creativity