I’ll be honest. I do not feel like writing right now. It probably has something to do with the fact that I’ve got one eye trained on my Twitter feed, hoping for news about the U.S. election. Which is, um, stressful. And despite the fact that I know I can’t make the results come in any faster by watching this pot boil, I still can’t seem to help myself. The worry makes it hard for me to focus on my writing.
Yet, here I am, sitting at my computer and writing this blog post. And I intend to get some work done on my NaNo novel after that.
I have learned, through many years of failure, that waiting until I “feel like writing” means that I will very rarely write. In spite of the fact that I enjoy writing, I rarely feel like doing it. This is probably because there are a lot of other things that I also enjoy doing and most of them are a lot easier to do than writing. So, if I’m going to write consistently, I have to do it even when I’m not in the mood.
How do you write when you don’t feel like it? How do you fill a blank page when it seems that no words come to you? You just do. I wish I had a better answer for this, but honestly that’s what you have to do. You sit down and you start writing whatever comes into your head. And you know what? Nine times out of ten, this works. I’ll sit down feeling like I can’t possibly get any words out, and at the end of the day, I’ve made my word count anyway.
Starting is nearly always the most difficult part. If you can learn how to begin, you’re going to be just fine.
Bonus Writing Prompt: Your character suffers a severe disappointment. What do they do next?
If you’re enjoying my blog, please like, follow and share. If you have your own advice on how to write when you’re not feeling up to the challenge, I’d love to hear about it!
Rambling Robin 