About two and a half months ago, I was stuck in a writer’s block from hell. Ironically, it was just during NaNoWriMo, the first one that happened while I knew what NaNoWriMowas was and during which I was finally writing after years of telling myself I couldn’t. I even set myself a goal for that month, one much much lower than the traditional 50k, just in an attempt to create some consistency with the habit and meet a word goal for the first time in my life. I downloaded an app, set my goal and end date, got a daily quota to reach and was all ready to start.
Except, I quickly fell behind. I couldn’t bring myself to open my work, and even when I did, I’d just sit there and stare at it. I had a story I hit a major block with, two ideas I wasn’t quite sure how to develop, and almost no words to show. It wasn’t hard to tell I would never reach the goal I set myself, and I hated knowing I just couldn’t make it happen.
Then, towards the end of the month (on a pretty personally low day at that), the idea of 30k to 30 gently knocked on my mind’s door. Wouldn’t it be nice, it asked, if I could reach that goal by my birthday? Wouldn’t it be a pretty good way to end one decade and start a new one?
So that’s what I did. On a random day towards the end of November, with what turned out to be 68 days left, I decided to write 30 thousand words by my 30th birthday. From then on, I’ve been through 2 months of ups and downs you probably don’t want to hear about, but the one thing I can tell about them is that they’ve helped me discover writing and my love for it again.
This was largely thanks to the things I learned along the way. While they’re nothing new, and I’m still learning them every day, I figured maybe someone out here could use the reminder. I know I often did.
So here are 10 things I learned and helped me to keep going (and even have fun!):
Motivation doesn’t precede writing. I feel like a lot of the time we wait for motivation or inspiration to hit, and feel like we can’t write without it – but often it’s actually the other way around! You start writing feeling completely unmotivated, you drag your feet for a while, then, before you know it, you’re writing a hilarious piece of dialogue or an epic scene that makes you excited about the story and coming back to it the next day. Though, even then, motivation might decrease, or even disappear. We won’t always feel like writing, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t.
Listen to your mind/body and take breaks. This might sound like I’m contradicting myself, but while I think writing even when you don’t feel like it is important, I think recognizing when you simply can’t or shouldn’t is just as important. Some days are just not meant for writing, and that’s ok. Learn to recognize when you should make the effort and sit down to write and when you should take the day off. It’s not always super clear, but does get easier with time.
Writing progress is made in inches, not miles (or centimeters not meters, if you’re from a part of the world that uses the metric system like me). I know you heard this one before, but it’s just true. Those 50 words that seem insignificant alone really add up. Remember that.
When counting, everything counts. Continuing that last point, if you decide to measure your progress by something countable (be it words, pages or chapters), count everything. Did some free writing to figure out a character? An overview of a scene to help flesh out your story? Great! You did work that advances your story. It counts!
Find a measurable goal that motivates you. I know the last point said if, but I really can’t stress enough how keeping track of my writing in a quantifiable way helped me. It’s been a few days without a daily word goal and I can already see myself struggling again. It really helps see the bigger picture and the progress you make (plus, it’s so satisfying to hit or surpass that number).
Stop self-editing! For me, this has been and still is, one of the biggest obstacles to getting actual writing done. Seriously. It took me a long time to even notice that voice in my head that edited my thoughts even before I put them on paper, and I’m still learning to say ‘thank you for your input’ and doing it anyway. When we’re both the writers and editors of our work it can be hard to separate the two voices, but it’s essential for us to be able to create.
Allow yourself to be bad. This sounds like it should be a part of the previous point, but I think it’s too important to not get one of its own. Let yourself write bad stuff. Drop the notion of quality and expectation when you first draft. It’ll allow you to make progress and write the good stuff (if you don’t write at all, you’ll never get to it).
Give yourself some grace. There’s a good chance you are in fact your own worst critic. Your 2 biggest helpers here are an objective reader who’s opinion and honesty you trust, and distance. I’ve already come back to scenes I was sure were horrible from start to finish after a few days or weeks away only to find out that I had maybe a few paragraphs that weren’t working – and that I was able to identify the problem as well and fix it.
Set attainable goals. I think this one is pretty self-explanatory. If it’s something you can’t reach, you’ll quickly fall behind and get discouraged. Challenging yourself is great, but also take into account your abilities, limitations and other responsibilities, and go for something that’s doable. You’ll get more done like this than if you’ll give up altogether once you realize you can’t achieve what you set out to achieve.
Change things up. A change in scenery can make such a huge difference. You don’t have to get on a plane or get lost in some unknown adventure. Sometimes just sitting at a cute cafe, outside (if the weather allows it) or even moving from your desk to the living room can really boost your productivity and creativity and get you writing much easier than you think.
Like I’ve said, this is still a learning journey for me. I’m still trying to internalize and practice all those things, and I’ll be lying if I said it was all easy and effortless. Still, understanding and reminding myself of those things helped a lot. It reminded me that writing can be fun and exciting, and if it can do the same for even one more person out there, writing this wasn’t a waste.
Also, it seems like a good opportunity to share some tips, so if you have any favorite pieces of advice that make writing easier or more fun I’d love to hear them!.
As always, happy writing 
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Feb '23last reply
Mar '23- 13
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Best of luck with all your writing endeavours; it sounds like you've really internalised some great lessons from this experience.
