How Can You Find Motivation to Write?

Being a writer is not the easy task that it is often written off as. Many people don’t understand the work and time it takes to write a novel or anything for that matter. The reason that writing can be such a difficult task is because there are three main factor working against writers:

1. It is often unpaid.
2. Society has a difficult time understanding that not all work has to be physical labour.
3. And inspiration, which seems to be going extinct in a lot of people.

This all being said, there are still so many reasons that it is important to keep writing and to keep motivated, so here are some great ways that I have found motivation:

Goals

I set both daily goals, and weekly goals when I am working on a project and though they are mostly just guidelines for an overall word count they really help me stay on top of my project and to keep writing.

Keep Writing

No matter what kind of day you are having, an inspired or not so inspired day, write anyways! It is so important to write every day, whether it is a blog post, an article or a chapter in your book, you have to write. Once you get the ball rolling, it will just fall into place and you will hit your word count goal and inspiration will ensue.

Word Sprints and Word Wars

Sometimes the best way of getting motivated is if you are sprinting to beat someone else’s word count! And there are some really great twitter accounts that run sprints all year around and it is always easy to find an opponent with the #wordwar hashtag.

Smart Outlining

This is a little trick that always works for me. What I do is a take a chapter of my novel and I write out a bunch of key points that need to happen in that chapter, just simple and point form. (I give myself a set time to do this part as well because I write better under pressure.) Once you have your notes written, you set the timer and sprint one point at a time.

For added motivation, I sometimes give myself incentives for each point. For example, if I get this point done, I will go get a quick snack before I do the next one, or it could be as simple as putting a gummy bear on that point, which I can’t eat until the point is written! Surprisingly enough it works really well once you get past the staring at the gummy bears part!

Plan Your Day’s Productivity in the Morning

When I wake up in the morning the first thing that I do it write the list of things I need to do, not just writing things, but house things, school stuff, everything I need to do in that 24 hours. Once the list is written I make my morning tea and I sit down for my first sprint.

Before the sprint begins I tell myself, “after this sprint I am going to go and start my laundry.” I always break down my tasks so that I can still do short sprints throughout these activities. I find that the on and off routine of my writing keeps me thinking about it constantly and makes it so much easier for me to write when I do.

Some other important things for writers to remember:

1. Keep hydrated, and no, that does not mean caffeinated!
2. Stay nourished, always remember to eat, if you do not eat you won’t be able to concentrate on your writing.
3. Sleep normal hours! Get your 8 hours of sleep because the brain and mind may not be able to work to full capacity unless you do.
4. Find your prime writing time. Some people work better in the morning and some work better at night. Cater to that time so that you give yourself a couple extra hours to write when you write best.