How To Motivate Yourself To Start Writing
I’ve talked a bit about making yourself sit down and write, but I haven’t spoken as much about how to make yourself write when you just don’t fancy it, so let’s get into that now
1. Set easy goals. Let me be clear; goals and challenges aren’t mutually inclusive. The goal doesn’t have to challenge you, it just has to get you to write even a single word. Hopefully the mindset of “Heh, a baby could do that, you really think I can’t do it?” can get you motivated enough to reach that goal, and then you’ve done infinitely more than if you hadn’t done anything
2. Make deals. Tell yourself “Okay, just five minutes of writing, and if you still don’t want to keep going, you don’t have to. Deal?” and if the answer is still no, honour the deal and don’t force yourself to keep writing. You can’t make deals with yourself if you know you’re full of shit
3. Try a new angle. So you don’t wanna be writing, but maybe you wanna worldbuilding, or plot, or designing characters, or filling out their character sheets? Maybe you wanna write something different than just your WIP? All of this can still have a positive impact on your writing, so don’t force yourself to do something that doesn’t interest you today when you can still be productive in other ways
4. How did we get here? Tell yourself “I’m not going to write my WIP, I’m just going to do X thing I always like to do before I start writing”. Keep going until your usual routine is all sorted. Even play any videos or music you usually have on. Sit down like you’re going to write. Keep telling yourself “I’m not writing, I’m just doing X”. Only when you’re sat there in front of the page do you say “Well while I’m here, I might as well do some writing, right?” and fingers crossed your brain will respond with “Yeah that makes sense”
5. Turn on a write with me video, even if you don’t have your writing things ready yet. Sometimes just having someone there, even just a stranger on a screen, encouraging you to keep up and follow the timers can be a good prompt to get going
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