Staying Motivated As A Writer

Practice, practice, practice.

It’s the secret mantra to being a writer. Do you want to improve? Do you want to be published? Then practice, practice, and practice some more.

Yet, this is easier said than done. Many writers, myself included, have other responsibilities that demand our attention. Even when we do find free time, the urge to close our computer and find something else to do can be overwhelming. After all, why write when the new episode of our favorite show just dropped? However, if we want to publish our work or simply improve our craft, then we absolutely need to practice. The question then becomes, how?

To answer this, we need to understand why we procrastinate in the first place. For those not chasing perfection, we put down the pen for the same reason we pick it up: passion. When we’re inspired, we can write until the crack of dawn and when we aren’t, we take it as a sign to simply not write at all. Our love for our craft becomes the very reason we avoid it.

Thus, the first step to improving our work habits is to remove them from our passion. Loving what you do is all fine and good, but it can’t be the only reason you do it, especially if you want to be a professional. You need to practice every single day, even during times you’d rather not. However, this can be quite challenging, mostly because our idea of what practice looks like has become warped by decades of pop culture. Many of you read that sentence and probably pictured Miles Teller in Whiplash being berated by J.K. Simmons and practicing until his hands bleed. The media has long propagated this image of the tortured artist working themself to death, to the point that it has become a cliche.

Image by Patrca

However, and I cannot stress this enough, you don’t need to be Miles Teller. True practice does not demand obsession, but consistency. This can mean simply setting aside a few minutes a day to write or jotting down a couple sentences each afternoon. The point is not to create a masterpiece every single day, but to create something, especially when Miles you’d rather not. This trains us to write even when we’re feeling uninspired. Like running up a hill, if you do it enough times, eventually, it will stop feeling so laborious and become just a part of your routine.

Once we’ve gotten into the habit of practicing daily, the next step is to set goals. When we do practice, many of us stop when we feel like we’ve done enough, and this sense of satisfaction comes over us. This can not only cause us to quit practicing early, but worse, cause us to throw ourselves into our work, furiously writing page after page as we chase that satisfaction.

Setting goals helps to counteract these two conundrums. On our lazy days, they can push us to keep practicing even when we feel we’ve done enough. On our obsessive ones, they can help anchor ourselves. For example, I have a goal to write 2000 words every day. Not only does this force me to work more when I’m feeling complacent, but it also keeps me from falling into an anxious spiral. Whenever I’m feeling uncertain of my writing, I can look at that goal and tell myself, “Well, at least I wrote 2000 words.” Little victories like that can go a long way to keeping yourself sane while also pushing you to practice.

This raises the question, however: how do we stick to our goals? Put simply, we don’t. At least, not alone. This is where we need to do the most terrifying thing a writer can do: share their work. Fear not, this doesn’t mean sending our writing to a publisher, but rather a friend or family member –someone who we see often and is willing to badger us about our progress. On the one hand, it can be hard to admit we failed to meet a goal, especially to a close acquaintance. On the other, there’s no feeling quite like showing your work to a friend and having them go, “Wow, that’s impressive.” In this way, sharing our work acts as both a carrot and stick, giving us an outcome to avoid and another to strive for.

While I, personally, prefer reporting to someone in person, for some, this may not be possible. In this case, the best course of action would be to find an online writers’ room at a site like Discord or Twitter. These forums are not only a great way to meet other writers, but some of them are explicitly dedicated to helping their members stick to their writing goals. However, there are a lot of these rooms, and it will take time to find one that suits your needs. My advice here is to start with a clear understanding of what you want out of your room as well as the type of book you are writing. This way, you can narrow your search parameters and find the group you’re looking for all the sooner.

That being said, even taking all of this advice into consideration, there are still going to be times when you slip up. Maybe there was a family emergency, you had to pick up more shifts at work, or maybe you simply got lazy. Whatever the reason, the result is the same: you’ve failed to hold yourself accountable and reach your goals. You search for a way to fix what you’ve done, but in the end, all you’re left with is yourself. It’s in these moments you need to do the most important thing of all: forgive yourself.

Holding yourself accountable for your failures is crucial to growing as a writer, but not at the cost of your mental health. It’s as they say: failure is inevitable. It is a simple enough lesson that we, as writers, are soon to forget. Failure is inevitable, yes, until it’s our failure. Then, it becomes an unforgivable sin that we must atone for. It’s in these moments that you need something to remind you of that lesson, something personal that cuts through the noise and centers you on the here and now. What that is comes down to personal preference, but to give you an idea, I’ll share what I use.

My hero, like many writers, is George R.R. Martin. While his Song of Ice and Fire series is a global sensation, many don’t know about the book that almost ruined his career. The Armageddon Rag was a commercial disaster of such colossal proportions that it utterly decimated Martin’s reputation. Publishers stopped buying his work. He even considered quitting writing altogether. Now, he’s one of the most celebrated authors of all time. Every time I fall behind on my goals, I read that story and remember Martin. If he can survive such a devastating failure, then so can I.

So can all of us if we only persist. We need to find ways to push ourselves, without turning our work into a chore or source of anxiety. Writing is, at the end of the day, something we love to do and it’s important we don’t forget that. We need to stay creative, stay curious, stay--at heart--that curious kid who looked at a blank page and saw worlds waiting to come to life.