If you’re a keen writer, you’ll already know how hard it can be to keep at the craft, especially when things get tough, life gets in the way, or you start to feel that you might be falling out of love with the art of writing. The truth is that you know whether you’re a writer or not, even if you’ve not been doing much actual writing recently. You need to do all you can to keep writing, and that means discovering how to stay inspired to write. Let’s take a look at four ways to help you do just that.
Read Widely
The most important thing a writer can do, apart from writing itself, is to read. The more fiction you read, for example, the more you’ll understand about story structure, and what makes dialogue engaging, and how to create memorable characters etc. The more nonfiction you read, the more you’ll understand how to write to inform, or to entertain, or how to effectively guide a reader etc. Reading widely will give you a better grasp on how to use different methods and writing techniques, and the more you’ll just get a feel for how to write well. Aiming to read a variety of literary works, including things you would never normally pick up, will ensure you expand your bookish horizons and expose yourself to new inspirations too.
Keep Motivated
Sometimes the main reason you’re struggling to write is that you have lost or forgotten your motivation to write. Why are you doing it in the first place, and how can you make sure that you remember that? If you struggle with motivation generally, some Wednesday motivation quotes delivered to your inbox is a great way to improve it. If you need to remember your motivation to write specifically, sit down and think about what it is that you get out of it. How will you feel when you finally publish that blog series, or type ‘The End’ after finishing your novel, or hold your own book in your hands? Keep reminding yourself of your end goal(s) and your motivation should resurface in no time.
Get Some Experience
It’s hard to write without any new ideas or fresh perspectives, so make sure you’re spending some time gaining more life experiences. The more experiences you can get, the more likely it is that you’ll find what you really want and/or love to write about, and the better you’ll be able to express it too. So, if you feel you need to, it is often worth putting the pen down or switching off the laptop for a while and just going out to live your life. If you never do that, you’ll never have anything new to write about!
Set A Daily Schedule
On the other hand, if you know what you want or need to write, but you just can’t seem to get going, you might want to set yourself a daily schedule – perhaps a word count or a set timeframe – and do it that way. Maybe begin each day with writing so you feel an immediate sense of accomplishment and it’s done before all other tasks get in the way. Making writing a priority and sticking to a schedule will mean that you’re much more likely to write frequently, and the words will build up, bit by bit. This is a simple but effective means of staying inspired, and the more you write, the more inspired you’ll feel!
If you’ve found ‘How to Stay Inspired to Write’, check out these other writing related posts:
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6 thoughts on “How to Stay Inspired to Write”
I really enjoyed going through this at a time when staying motivated is turning out to be quite difficult for me. I have written over 1 million words, including 9 unpublished novels, more than 500 stories, both short and long; poems; articles, essays and what not.
Yet, I can’t look upon myself as an author. How can I when I haven’t earned a penny yet, writing?
Anyway, this is a handy article. I would have really appreciated it had there been some writing topics, or prompts or something similar for keeping us motivated for the matter.
Thanks to Penning and Planning.
Thank you for your comments and feedback! And I think you should definitely look upon yourself as an author (and a highly motivated one at that!) considering how much you have written, whether you have made a penny or not! I hope you decide to publish your novels and/or other works someday soon – share them with the world!
Thank you very much. You have really motivated me with your kind and encouraging words.
For your information, I decided to publish my works with the world long time back. Problem is – publishing these days in India is not an easy job. Some publishers have contacted me no doubt, but they want to publish my books without even looking at the manuscripts! What is even more surprising is that almost all of them want ME to pay from my own pockets for the publication!
I am not rich. So, I think that I had better forget about my long-cherished dream of being a world famous author one day.
Anyway, thank you once again for the article to help me stay motivated.
Stay blessed. All the very best wishes.
Reputable publishers would never ask you to pay them to publish your work – only vanity publishers do that so well done you for not agreeing! And once again, you are very welcome and I’m so pleased this blog post helped you. 😀