Writing With No Motivation

I wrote my first draft in three months. All 110,000 words of it. I have ADHD, so concentration isn’t easy for me and during this time I was working a full time job. I wrote in evenings and on weekends, and you can bet I didn’t feel motivated to write every single day, but I did and I’m here so tell you how.

1. Have a set time to write.

I committed myself to an hour of writing daily in which I would bash out 1,000 words. Getting into a routine helped me write even when I didn’t really feel like it, I just became used to writing at this time every day. If you can’t do 1,000 words in an hour, that’s okay. Set a time goal instead of a word count goal, I find that allows me to put extra energy into concentrating as I know when it will end.

2. Remove distractions from sight.

Object permanence is a myth. Put your phone in the next room, or under your pillow when you’re at your desk, put it on absolute silent. Get noise-cancelling headphones to block out kids/siblings. If you get an impulse to do something, write it down and do it after. Turn your wifi off and only turn it back on for research purposes.

3. 20 minute sprints

On days when you really don’t feel like writing, set a 20 minute timer and a minimum word count of 200 words. Bash that out and if you’re not in the flow after 20 minutes, stop, but you might find you are, so carry on until it ends! Remember, any no. of words a day is better than 0.

4. Get a Concentration Candle

The candle is only allowed to be lit while you’re concentrating. If you get distracted, you have to blow it out and that’s kinda sad. Also if it’s scented you’ll start to associate the smell with concentrating and writing and that will help you feel ventured and focused. Idk why this works so well, but it really does, trust me.

5. Work out where the scene/chapter/act/story is going.

One of my biggest deterrents for writing is not knowing what to put on the page next. I struggle to do both pretty words and developing a good plot at the same time. So I block out the scene, I plot, I get excited about the rest of the book, I make sure this scene or chapter is important! This never fails to motivate me.

I hope this has helped! Feel free to add to this!

[if reposting to Instagram please credit @isabellestonebooks]

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ok are u all ready

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#231: Is It Really That Bad?

Resistance, as Steven Pressfield describes it, is the bane of my existence. For some reason, my brain keeps looking for ways to distract itself from the task at hand. This happens even when I know what’s the most important task to finish. Sometimes, it happens even when I know that there’s no avoiding it. That I will have to do said task sooner or later.

As it turns out, many writers struggle with the same thing. It’s a weird, irrational phenomenon that probably has something to do with the fact that our stone-age ancestors spent a lot less time contemplating the human condition and focused on getting something to eat.

A thousand years spans about 30 generations on average. If you do the math, you’re only about 150 people away from your stone-age grandparents that lived on the savannah in 3000 B.C.

Although the symptom is the same, many different things can trigger resistance. The most common include self-doubt, fear, ego, laziness, indecisiveness.

Instead of getting to work, your brain comes up with an elaborate theory to justify why it’s not the right time yet. Recently, I’ve been avoiding this one task. I didn’t know how long it would take. In my mind, potentially weeks of work. And because of that, I always justified postponing it again and again for years.

Over time, the thing grew into almost mythical proportions. I developed this narrative in my mind that it would be too difficult and time-consuming.

This Friday, I had a bit of time in the evening. I finally decided to get this thing started. Two hours later, I finished it. I couldn’t believe it. The whole thing was done.

I’d spent hours agonising about the task over the past year — all of them a complete waste of time. If I got over the initial resistance and sorted it out right away, I could’ve saved myself a lot of time and anxiety.

Sometimes, the narratives we create about ourselves and about what we want to achieve are the problem. When you start working on the thing, you might find that it’s nowhere near as bad as you thought it would be.

Particularly when it comes to writing stories, there’s no downside to starting before you feel ready. Dive right in! Worst case, you’ll have to start over. You can always fix things later.

About the Author

Hi, I’m Radek 👋. I’m a writer, software engineer and the founder of Writing Analytics — an editor and writing tracker designed to help you beat writer’s block and create a sustainable writing routine.

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