How To Maintain Motivation As A Writer

Motivation is one of the hardest things to maintain as a writer.

I personally feel like motivation and inspiration are the same thing. When we feel inspired, our brains are on fire with ideas, and we can write furiously without pause.

But that feeling wears off. This is where the name “dragging middle syndrome” comes from.

We’ve written all that we could think of, and then we’re stuck at the turning point, raising conflict, building tension bit. We hadn’t thought about any of this.

And our motivation/inspiration fades.

Here are some practical tips to help you get through the hard bits and keep that motivation up:

1. Take a break. Sometimes you just need it. Creating something out of nothing is exhausting. We’re pulling ideas from the backs of our brains and turning them into a product that wasn’t in existence before. Give yourself a break and do something different. Take 10minutes, 10 hours, 10 days or 10 years. It’s up to you. Take a break where you don’t think about writing and enjoy yourself. It might be just the thing you need.

2. Set up a writing routine. This doesn’t mean your entire day needs to be planned minute to minute. This just means when you sit down to write, you have a habit that you always do before writing, you know what you're working on and in what order, and a habit you do to snap your brain out of writing mode. You could do five star-jumps to signal to your brain that the writing time is starting. Or, my personal favourite, take your first sip of coffee. And I like to slam my laptop down to signal to my brain that the writing time is over.

3. Time yourself. Set up a timer for a reasonable amount of time - 5 minutes or less to start - and you don’t stop writing until the timer goes off. This technique helps your brain feel like (and understand) that you won’t be working on this project for very long. So instead of stressing out for two hours and feeling bad, you only wrote two sentences, you write two sentences in 5 minutes, and then you do no more. As you get used to it, you can increase the time. And yes, I am 100% confident you will write two sentences in this time. They might be crappy sentences, but they’ll be sentences.

4. Read. Read like your life depends on it. Pause the writing for now and pick up a book, a blog post, or a newsletter. Whatever you choose to read, read it, and then read another thing. Not only will this be enjoyable (hopefully), but the work of others may spark an idea in you. Usually, this helps me with blogging. I’ll read someone else’s blog post and go, ‘that has sparked an emotion or idea in me, I’ll write about what came up.’ And you can do the same.

5. Leave your house. We writers love to bundle up in our homes at our desks. But I’m here to tell you, staring at a wall will not bring inspiration. I know, I wish it did too. Go outside for a walk or a drive, see a friend or family member etc. Do something that’s not with the four walls of your home. At the very least, write about what you saw or did. Turn yourself into a fictional character. If this has nothing to do with what you’re writing, then you’ve practised. Which means you’ve improved.

What are your top tips for when motivation runs out?

Want to connect on a deeper level?

Website: https://www.livvyskeltonprice.com/Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/livvy-skelton-price-b8a4b970/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LivvyskeltonpriceTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@livvyskeltonpriceauthorInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/livvyskeltonpriceauthor/Upwork: https://www.upwork.com/freelancers/~01385367645f3d4d12?mp_source=shareMedium: https://medium.com/@livvyskeltonYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@livvyskelton-price8136Spotify:

Substack: https://livvyskeltonprice.substack.com/