030: How to Write When You Don't Feel Motivated
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how to write when you don’t feel motivated
Hi, friends. Okay. I am kind of excited about this topic, because I'm going to do something a little different in this this episode. We're talking about motivation when it comes to writing. And I'm going to give you two answers two approaches. I'm going to give you the tough love, talk. The tough love moment. Tough love answer. And then I'm going to give you like the gentler kind of softer answer of how you can tap into some motivation to write when you don't want to. Okay, tough love. I know tough love isn't always helpful for everyone. It's really helpful for some people, and they need to hear it. But there's already a lot of guilt and shame that can go on with people feeling like they're not writing and they feel guilty for not writing and why aren't they writing? Why can't they write what's wrong with them, and just always thinking about, Oh, I should be writing when I'm doing something else. Like, there's a lot of that happening.
And so tough love can pile more guilt and shame onto that, and we don't want that. But the tough love answer does play into this so that's why I want to do I want to do both. And before I get into the tough love answer, just real quick, I wanted to tell you that I made a decision that I'm gonna not hold myself back from cursing, which is something that I've been doing in this podcast. I don't curse a lot in my life. But I do like to throw an occasional curse in there. And I was not I was holding myself back from doing that on the podcast, I guess. Because I was like, Oh, I have to be professional but and like, what if kids are listening, but my ideal audience like my ideal listener for this podcast is not a kid like it's not a 10 year old kid. This is not a podcast for kids. So I don't know why I was holding myself back. So I just wanted to give you a warning that there might be an occasional curse word, if that's something you want to pay attention to. And like just not have on around your kids like just wanted to give you a heads up.
Okay, tough love answer. How do you write when you don't have motivation? The tough love answer is motivation has nothing to do with it. Stop reaching for motivation to write. Just, no, don't, you have to write sometimes when you don't feel like it. That's just the reality. If you are someone who is writing because you want to access creativity, and you don't ever really have plans to publish a book, you're okay with just writing one book, you're okay with that book taking years to write like, in that case, sure, you can write once every month or once every two months, when you're feeling motivated, that's fine. But for the people who want to actually complete their book in a reasonably short period of time, if you're someone who wants to publish, write multiple books, you know, keep publishing, keep writing, like, the reality is that you're going to have to force yourself to do it, you're going to have to rely on the habit of writing on days when you don't want to do it when you don't feel like it. It's kind of like exercising. If you are someone who doesn't exercise and you want to start walking or riding your bike or moving your body in some way, going to the gym, whatever. In the beginning, you might have a ton of motivation and feel really excited about this change that you're making and like looking forward to the gym because it's new, and it's shiny, and it's exciting. But that's not going to last forever. There are going to be days when it's raining outside, it's cloudy, you didn't sleep well the night before you're super busy at work. Like you can't rely on motivation to hold you accountable. You have to just do it, you have to develop a habit.
Now developing habit doesn't mean that it's something you have to do every day no matter what I don't write every day. I don't encourage my clients to coaching clients to write every day. I don't think that's necessary. And I think that any person who's telling people that they have to write every day or they're not a real brighter, like that's bullshit. That's not That's not part of it. A habit just means to me it's more about having a routine or a ritual in place. So that okay, like for me exempt. For example, if I don't want to write if I'm waking up, I'm stressed I'm not feeling it. I'm not inspired. I don't like my story. I don't have any ideas. I still force myself to sit down. I will set a timer for 10 minutes. I will you know just do it. Anyway, in the morning before I start my editing work for the day, because that's the time that I've determined works best for me. Because I've gotten into the habit of writing in the morning, not every morning, but a lot of mornings. When I sit down to do it, my brain is like, oh, okay, I know what's going on, I know what we're doing, we're sitting down to write, I'll just shut up for a bit like, yeah, I don't want to do this. But okay. So I do it for 10 minutes, I move on with my day.
Now, I've experienced this in other areas of my life. So I'm sober I quit drinking eight years ago. And there are things that I have to do for my recovery and for my mental health, that I don't always want to do. Like, if I only did those things, when I was feeling motivated, I would almost never do them. But I know that they're important for me, and they're good for me. And they also help me be the person that I want to be in my life. They're bringing me closer to the the type of person I want to be to my highest self. And the same thing is true with writing, when I don't want to write, I'm like, pissed that I have to sit down and do it. I think about the writer I want to be in the future, I want to be someone who has published multiple books. And the way for me to get there is to sometimes write when I don't want to, because I have to finish a scene, I have to finish a chapter I have to finish a book, right? I have to make progress. And if you're listening to this, and it sounds like I hate writing, and I never want to write, that's certainly not true. I also have a lot of days where I'm excited. And I'm like, eager to get back into my manuscript. But the reality of it is, there are some days when I don't feel like doing it. So that's it doesn't mean that you're not passionate. If you have those days, it doesn't mean that you're doing something wrong, or you're you're not meant to be a writer. It's just kind of part of the process. So anyways, that's a tough love approach is like, just suck it up and write anyway,
The gentler approach, I kind of touched on the idea of a habit of forming a habit or a writing routine, you can also do something that gets you motivated, gets you inspired. Maybe this is listening to writing podcasts like this one, there are tons of good writing podcasts and lots of good book, podcasts too. You can go on YouTube and watch a video you can watch writing videos on tick tock, you can read a book about the craft of writing, or even just a novel that you really like. And you really admire the author's writing style. Anything that gets you excited, talk to other writers go to a book signing, whatever. Those things, for me have the power to get me back into the energy of creating back into the energy of being. It's like I can identify with being a writer, again, if I've sort of lost that lost my connection to the act of writing, or the identity of being a writer. doing one of those things, consuming one of those types of content or talking to other writers or doing some kind of going to some kind of like book event. Taking a writing class that always gets me kind of aligned in feeling like oh, yeah, I'm a writer, I love doing this. Now I'm inspired to get back to my work in progress, right. The other thing for motivation, everyone has different.
Some people have internal motivation, some people need external motivation. So if you are someone who needs external motivation in order to do things, this is where you can enlist the help of other people, this is where you can set a reward for yourself. And if you're really not feeling it, and you're really struggling and dragging your feet on writing it, do five minutes or 10 minutes, you're going to set a timer, and write for five minutes, 10 minutes, whatever. And if you're feeling if it changes, and you're feeling more motivated, once you're done, or as you're writing, then great, keep going. And if not, you only have to do five minutes, and then you get some kind of reward. So maybe this is like not having coffee until your first cup of coffee until you write for five minutes. It's only five minutes or 10 minutes, like it's not, you know, you don't have to delay your morning cup of coffee by like for like two hours. It's five minutes. Maybe this is I don't know just just any kind of like reward that you give yourself for completing it. And this is the case.
A lot of times this has been the case with myself. This was the case with clients where the initial Getting Started part. That's the hardest, like getting your butt in the chair, opening up your laptop or your computer getting prepped to write. That's the hardest part. So if you can get your ass in the chair, if you can pull up your document and start writing. Like that's 90% of it. And then again, you might get to the end of that five minutes or that 10 Minutes and be like I hated every second of that, I'm done then great, you're done. But you also might find that you are really in flow and feeling inspired and motivated about, you know, continuing the scene, then great. You can keep writing, you can keep going. The point is just to make sure that you sit down and do it. I hope that was helpful, whichever approach you needed to hear, whether it's a tough love, like just sit down and do it, or gentler, like here are some ways that you can find motivation if you don't have it. Okay. Good luck with your writing this week. And I'll see you next week.