When Motivation to Write is Gone

Or, as I like to think of it, that irrational, motivational miasma that occasionally slaps you around like a pre-pubescent school yard bully. Regardless of how or when it hits you…it’s all in your head. That’s right, I said it. IT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD! This horrible slump, this unfortunate malaise that stalls the swiftness of you fingers, is…All. Your. Own. Doing. So snap out of it already.

But…why?

Well, I can’t really answer that. Not definitively, of course. We’re all different people. With our own styles, likes, dislikes, and ways of reacting to the world. Maybe we’re tired. Mentally exhausted. Maybe we’re bored? I don’t know. Bottom’s your limit.

What to do about it:

Now here’s a good question. What DO you do about it? The most obvious piece of advice is: Keep writing. Write anyway. Real writers get words to paper no matter what. They don’t wait for inspiration, for the good feels or the muse. They make it happen on their own time and in their own way. There’s merit to this, obviously. And this is probably the best advice I can give (even if it can be incredibly hard to follow at times). In fact, I’ve let myself fall prey to the motivation vampire as I’ve awaited word on publishing interest in one of my books. But it was, and is, a huge mistake we’re all capable of making. Time is not our friend as writers. We need to work. We need to blast words onto paper, and pretend like, above all else, that we know what the hell we are doing.

Visualize:

This one might seem odd. It is a bit esoteric. But visualization is one of the best ways I’ve found to break myself out of a mental funk. What I mean by this is putting yourself into your character’s head and allowing yourself to react to specific situations in the same way your character would. So sit back, think about that character, and really get into how they would react in that instance. Play the scene out in your mind. Don’t think about it too hard, just let it unfold as if you are this character. I think you’ll be surprised at the new ideas that come up, and the fun and interesting ways it can change or open up the story.

Get excited:

Here’s something you probably haven’t considered (and I mean really emotionally considered) in quite a long time: You’re writing that story for a reason. Something about it, the characters, the situation, the underlying idea, or the motivation behind your drive to write it. Something about that story is so AWESOME!!! (note the triple exclamations) that you just had to get it on paper. This is something we often forget after we’ve spent long and often torturous hours slaving over the same things, the same ideas, the same characters and situations…over and over, and yes, over again. We forget that there was something so cool and exciting about these characters or ideas that made them worth putting out there for other people to read and invest themselves in. So recapture that! Sit down and ruminate about what makes your story special. What idea, what character, what situation? Really dig into it and remind yourself just how amazing these ideas are, and (here’s the key) let yourself get excited about it again! Get back into those ideas and investigate them because they’re worth investigating. And this will lead directly into the next point…

Generate new ideas for your story:

Similar to the visualize option above, when you get excited about a story again after you’ve carefully gone through and thought about some of its elements in a different way from their original conception, you’ll surprise yourself by starting to come up with new ideas. These can be simple additions to the direction you’re already taking the story, or they can be wholly new and interesting navigational changes, seeing things from the eyes of different characters or entire groups of people. Use these ideas! Write them down. Stay excited about them, and let them pull you back into that story so you can do what you need to do: WRITE!

You know what to do.