How To Stay Motivated As A Writer

how to stay motivated as a writer

Reread your old writing, especially those scenes you’re most proud of

Write something silly. It doesn’t need to be logical, consistent or included in your story. Write something dumb

Compare your old writing to your new writing. Seeing how much you’ve improved can be very motivating

Explore different storylines, those type of storylines that would never make it into your story, but you’d still like to play around with. Create AUs!

Choose one of your least favorite scenes and rewrite it

Act out your scenes

Read old comments from people praising your work

Create a playlist that reminds you of your wip

Team up with a friend, write AUs for each other's characters

Create playlists for your characters

Draw your ocs/make memes of your ocs

Draw/make memes of your friend's ocs

Don’t push yourself to get back into writing the thing that made you stop writing in the first place, try writing something else!

Write what you wanna write, no matter how cliché it might be. If you want to write it, write it

Take a break, focus on another hobby of yours. Consume other pieces of media, take a walk to clear your head

You don’t have to write in chronological order if it isn’t working for you! Sometimes a scene you aren’t interested in writing can become interesting after you’ve explored other scenes in the story

Read bad reviews of books or TV-shows. You’ll unlock appreciation and motivation for your own writing

Create a new storyline, or a new character! Anything that helps bring something fresh into your story. Could even be a completely new wip!

Not writing every day doesn’t make you a bad writer. Take a break if you feel like you need one

Remind yourself to have fun. Start writing and don’t focus all your attention on following “the rules.” You can get into the nitty-gritty when you’ve familiarized yourself with writing as an art. Or don’t. It’s fiction, you make your own rules

Go to sleep, or take a nap. Sleep deprivation and writing does not go hand in hand

Listen to music that reminds you of your characters/wip

Remember why you started. Know that you deserve to tell the story you want to tell regardless of the skill you possess

Why do you study history

since nanowrimo starts tomorrow and I haven't seen that much about it on my dash, let's talk! who's participating and what are you excited about? ✨

Ilya Kaminsky, “Still Dancing: An Interview with Ilya Kaminsky”

Variations on a Theme - Gabrial Urbina / Near to the Wild Heart - Clarice Lispector / Still Unbeaten Life - Gang of Youghts / Saturn - Sleeping at Last

on living just for the sake of being alive

x / here, there are blueberries - mary szybist / invitation - mary oliver / walt whitman / to the young who want to die - gwendolyn brooks / madness: a bipolar life - marya hornbacher / thanksgiving 2006 - ocean vuong / the brothers karamazov - fyodor dostoyevsky / the bell jar - sylvia plath

Thank you for doing this. You are seen. You are loved.

This is just the sweetest thing. Thank you so much for using your time to make a stranger's day a little brighter. <3