099: How to Keep Writing When It Just Feels Hard

 

If you're in a season of life where things feel hard, or even if you're just having a bad day, sometimes taking a break from writing is the best thing you can do. However, if you want to keep writing, here are some tips and tricks to get you through a tough period. 

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How to keep writing when it just feels hard

Hello, and welcome back to the Blank Page to the Book, Blank, Blank Page to Book podcast. Yes, I can say my podcast name. The topic for this episode is one that I've been thinking about, because it's been something that's come up with some of my coaching clients who are just in hard seasons of life and, you know, navigating different things. And it's also something that I was struggling with myself a few months ago, I got back into a draft of something. After spending, I think the last time I really seriously worked on it was maybe like a year ago. I had been focused on my book that's currently on submission, doing rewrites and revising it, editing it just all kinds of work on that book really intensely. And so I put this other book to the side in order to work on that one to make sure that was good. And then once that one was in a good place, it was like, Okay, well, I've got this urge to get back to writing to drafting.

 

So let me pull this up. And it was hard, it was really hard to get back in because I think I have seven or 8000 words written that I started a while ago. And I love what I wrote, I love the foundation, I love the story. It was between this book or another draft that I've started and I made the decision, I felt really good about it. But it was hard. It was hard to get myself to sit down and work on it. So I want to talk about this, because there are times where this shit just feels hard. Writing just feels hard. So I want to talk you through some things to consider some things that might help. But just know, like, you just might be in a season of life where it's just hard. And that's okay. It's not going to last forever. Just know that it might just be a case of like muddling through it and then trusting that you will get to the other side of it because you will.

 

Okay, my first tip and piece of advice for this when you feel like this is hard, is always to get specific, and honest with yourself and see if you can articulate and identify what feels hard. When writing feels hard, it can feel like this big black cloud is hanging over me. And it's like I just, I just feel a lot of resistance. And for me, I can pinpoint where I feel it in my body. I feel it in my chest, it feels like this knot of pressure in my chest. And it also feels like my feet are heavy -- like If I think about, you know, writing, I think about sitting down at my desk making my way over to my computer. It feels like my legs are heavy, and I'm dragging myself there, it feels physically, almost impossible to do it. So there are some physical things that that I notice. But see if you can identify what feels heartburn, like, the physical stuff that I just mentioned in terms of like identifying the feeling is good, but also like, can you pinpoint what exactly feels hard?

 

Is it that you have writer's block and you don't know how to move forward? Is it a decision that you have to make about the plot, you just don't know what to do it you are stuck in this cycle of comparison. And so that makes the the idea of sitting down to write just feel impossibly hard. Is it something outside of writing something in your day to day life, maybe a relationship thing, maybe a work thing that makes that is making, you know, writing feel hard? Because it can be any of those things and all of those things. Those are just some examples. But see if you can get clear on what exactly feels hard. And and if you can identify why it's feeling hard. I think that's important. Just articulating it to yourself. Naming the problem takes it from being this vague black cloud that's hanging over us to something more concrete. It's like it distills it down into something real something that you can look at, and possibly find a solution to.

 

For me, when I did this a couple of months ago, I realized that what was feeling hard about this, for me is that I still had not decided if I wanted to have two point of view characters, or three point of view characters. This is a thriller. It's a psychological thriller. And initially, I had it set up. And I thought about it as three point of view characters. And it takes place over the course of like five or six days. And these three characters are all, they all kind of have different vantage points into what's going on. And as I was reading over what I had written and thinking about what was coming up next, I doubted if one of the point of view characters needed to be there. I mean, the character needs to be there. But whether we need to have his point of view, maybe it would be better to only have two point of view characters. To be honest, to be totally honest with you, I still have not decided I ended up going back in and doing another rounds, round of edits on my book where I had to rewrite on a different book, write the book that's on submission, where I had to rewrite like, five, six chapters and do a lot of revision.

 

So writing that new stuff, editing, that stuff kind of took priority. So I ended up pushing this draft back to the side. But I know that's something that's going to prevent me from getting back into it is that I have to make a decision about this. And I guess I don't have to make a decision. Like I could just start writing one of the point of view characters that I know is going to be there, no matter what, I could just do that. I guess I shouldn't let that stop me. But for me, when conceptualizing this book and thinking about how I want to position these characters, for me, it does feel like a big deal to have this figured out. Now, at this point before I get too far into the story. So yeah, so that's, once I sat with it, and I thought about, okay, where's this resistance coming from? Why does the idea of sitting down to write feels so hard right now, that was it.

 

The other piece of it, honestly, is that it was in a time where I was not feeling great physically because of being pregnant. I feel like I've really had a roller coaster of a pregnancy where some weeks I feel totally fine and great, and I have energy and everything's wonderful. And then some weeks, it's a struggle, I can do my work I get done what I need to. And then I just basically am on the couch for the rest of the day, once all my work is done. And I don't have energy to do anything else. And I'm having back pain and hip pain and all this stuff. So that was also playing a role into it, where I only had energy to do the bare minimum. And writing wasn't included in the bare minimum. Because it wasn't something that I needed to do. I'm not on a deadline with this book. So it didn't feel necessary. But yeah, see if you can identify what feels hard.

 

Number two, this is related to something I mentioned in step one about if there's something else outside writing that makes it hard. But what you're going to do is essentially something called a self audit. And this has something to do in the moment, like when you are having a day, a moment a morning and evening we're writing feels hard you think about writing, you plan to write you want to write, but it just feels hard. Do an audit of yourself. Things I always go back to, am I hungry? Am I angry? Am I lonely? Am I tired? Another step on there could be am I dehydrated?

 

But H0LT is the acronym. It's kind of handy, hungry, angry, lonely, tired. It's something I learned in recovery. You know, baby, you just need maybe you just have like some physical needs that you need to take care of. And that's why writing is feeling so hard. Like maybe you are starving. Maybe you're have so much anger that you're working through about a situation maybe there's something emotionally going on. So like check in with yourself and see if there's something that you can do to address that feeling. Maybe it's as simple as getting yourself a snack, gulping a big glass of water. Or maybe not, maybe it's going to require a bigger lift, like getting a really good night's sleep, talking to someone about the situation that you're angry about. But doing that self audit is important because that might be that might not be the only thing making it feel hard, but it's not going to make it feel any easier. When I was having those weeks where I was feeling really exhausted and just had no energy beyond the bare minimum. I knew that that was playing into why it felt so much harder than it had in the past.

 

Okay, number three is to skip forward in the book. A lot of writers write chronologically right we start with Chapter One. We move forward in the book, we finish up with the end, some writers do jump around. And that's great and fine. But if you're not one of those writers, if you are a writer who writes chronologically, and you are, you've discovered the writing feels hard because you're stuck on a particular plot point or scene or character, something, just skip it, come back to it, you can skip forward three chapters, if you want, you can skip forward to write the midpoint, you can skip forward to write the ending, just try going out of order. And believe me, I'm a chronological writer, this, this feels unnatural for me to do. But sometimes it's what I need to do to just keep moving forward. So what this what I'll do is I'll put a bunch of Asterix in this thing, like in the on the page, I will just say, Finish scene or put transition here and then just keep going. Sometimes it's as simple as that. And that can lower the resistance because you're not fixated and stuck on that particular thing that you are stuck on.

 

Next up, is to do something to get you feeling inspired about writing, generally, like the writing process, the craft of writing, whatever it might be. You know, we talk a lot on this podcast about motivation, and how it's not enough to always rely on motivation, because some days, you're just not going to feel like writing and you're gonna have to write anyways -- if you're on a deadline, if you want to get you know, you have a goal that you're working towards. Sometimes you just have to write when you don't feel like it. But I do think there are things you can do to help it feel easier. And to to get to that point where you're sitting now to write. So this can be listening to a podcast like this one or another podcast that talks that is related to writing. Or maybe there's a podcast that has like author interviews that you love. watching some YouTube videos or some Tik Tok content that just helps you remember why you want to do this in the first place, why you're writing this book, why you're telling this particular story. Maybe it's rereading a favorite book, going to to a book signing at a bookstore, talking to some writer, friends, whatever just to help you get you plugged back in to the writing world. And remember why you're doing this in the first place. And that can make it feel easier to actually sit down and write.

 

My last tip is, you know, sometimes a break is the best thing that you can do. But this episode is specifically how to keep writing when it just feels hard. So if a break isn't the right decision for you, and you want to keep moving despite it feeling hard. This is the three minute writing sprint, or the five minute writing sprint, this is this is when you get to implement those. When I talk about writing sprints, which is where you set a timer for a period of whatever, usually, I recommend 15 to 30 minutes. And all you are doing when that timer is running is you are writing you are not multitasking, you are not you don't have anything else open on your computer, your phone is out of sight, you are just writing and you are writing as quickly as you can, you're not going back to edit, you are just getting as many words out as you possibly can. In that time, that's the sprint part of it right, you're just moving quickly trying to get as many words in as you can.

 

15 to 30 minutes can feel like a long time if you're in one of these seasons, where writing just feels hard. This is where a five minute writing sprint can come in help. Even if I mentioned a three minute writing sprint, if all you have energy for is opening up your document, literally setting a timer for three minutes. And just getting down a couple of sentences, a couple of paragraphs, maybe even just some bullet points about what the scene is going to be. And then exiting the draft. As soon as that timer goes off. Guess what, you're still making progress, you are still writing and moving forward. Even if it's only in these tiny, tiny, tiny little bursts. Okay?

 

So when all else fails, and you want to keep moving forward, whether it's just internal motivation or it's something external like a deadline. Do a three to five minute sprint. If you if you get into it and you discover Oh actually, this isn't so bad. Like once I started writing it, the resistance lowered and it doesn't feel as hard. Then great. Keep moving. You can turn it into a, I don't know 20 or 30 minutes sprint. But if you hate every second of it and you're still it still feels really hard. Then just give yourself permission to To stop after those three to five minutes, that's fine. Again, you're still making progress. It's not going to feel like this forever. So this is just you doing what you can to get yourself through this period. This is especially important when I mean, again, I'm just thinking of some coaching clients who are going through tough life things right now. And having to get having to step back a little bit on the amount of writing that they're doing, like maybe they were in a really good flow before.

 

And now it's like, oh, wait a second shit hit the fan in my life. So I've got to, like, you know, kind of focus on what I need focus on in the short term. And maybe that means I'm not writing as much as I want to be, or I should be. And that's fine. Like, I don't think it's helpful to beat ourselves up for not meeting some, you know, deadline or not deadline, sorry, not needing some version of a writing routine that we've created in our minds, or whatever. I mean, I mentioned deadline, I mean, it does get tricky when you have a deadline. Like if you have if you're self publishing something, or you have to get it back to someone by certain date, like this can be tricky. But again, try all of these hacks, try all of these things in this episode that we discussed. And see if there's a way to lower some of that resistance, so that you just get through this period, where it feels hard. And trust that you will come out on the other side of it again, said it a lot in this episode, but this will not last forever.

 

So just take some comfort in that. And also take some comfort in the fact that all writers feel this way. At some point. It gets hard for everyone, for whatever reason. It just does. It's it's part of being human. It's part of being a creative is that some days, it just feels hard. And it doesn't mean you don't love it, it doesn't mean you're not passionate about it. And it doesn't mean that your book isn't right or good or whatever. It's just part of the process. It's just part of the of the experience. So hang in there. It's gonna get better, I promise. But have compassion for yourself along the way in this period, too. Okay. All right. See you next week. Thank you so much for tuning in.

Katie Wolf