3 Tips for Staying Inspired During the Writing Process

Hey Story Crafters,

NaNoWriMo is next month! I’m not planning to participate, but I do plan to use the positive writing vibes from the writers who are participating to influence my own productivity. (In other words, I plan to write more during NaNoWriMo than I currently am. ??)

If you are participating in NaNoWriMo, I’d love to hear about how you’re preparing, and what project(s) you’ll be working on in the comments!

I really admire the writers who participate in NaNoWriMo, and are able to wrap up the month with a good chunk of writing under their belts—or even an entire first draft of a novel! It’s important to stay motivated and inspired when trying to accomplish such an ambitious goal. Here are a few ways to help you stay inspired during the writing process:

1) Take care of yourself.

Sounds obvious, right? But sometimes, when you’ve hit your writing stride, you get sucked into a zone or tunnel-vision that makes you forget (or makes you unwilling) to stop writing and take care of your basic needs. Like eating. Or sleeping. Or staying hydrated.

Though you might, possibly, come up with an amazing scene while sleep-deprived or hungry, your body—and mind—won’t thank you for it. And when you come back to that scene later when you’re not sleep-deprived or hungry, it might not be as amazing as you remember.

Taking care of yourself doesn’t just mean taking care of your basic needs. If you get tired of looking at a screen, or if you get stuck trying to figure out what to write, it might be time to step away from the computer and do another activity. This could mean doing chores, or going outside to walk around the block, or taking a hike.

It’s understandable to get excited about writing. You wouldn’t be a writer if you didn’t! And the desire to want to write hundreds, if not thousands of words within a month is admirable. But if you want to make sure the words you write are ones that matter, that you can use those words in your story, then it’s important to take breaks and take care of yourself.

If you’re worried about losing an idea, write it down in a few sentences and come back to it later.

2) Read.

Some writers don’t like to read books (or short stories) when they’re working on a project. Some don’t want to read in their genre, or only want to read works in their genre.

I would encourage you to read when you’re working on a project. I find doing so helps me discover things about my work—like scenes that are missing, transitions that need to be changed or smoothed out, scenes that need to be reworked or reordered. For me, it doesn’t matter what I’m reading, as long as it keeps me interested and engaged. By reading other writers, by taking in their voice, writing style, storytelling methods, and other details, I’m able to look at my own work with fresh eyes, and keep writing.

3) Write outside of your genre.

When I write for long stretches of time, I fall into certain writing patterns. Sometimes, it’s writing paragraphs of long sentences with lots of commas, or other sentence structure variations. Sometimes it’s repeating a certain word or phrase too many times. And while it’s technically true these are details that can be changed during the editing phase, I believe it’s possible to influence your sentence variation and language during the writing phase by writing outside of your genre.

Poetry, for example, lets you experiment with language and word choice. Poems are snapshots—usually the goal is to make the biggest impression with the least amount of words. I find it helpful for practicing imagery, and being selective with my word choice and phrasing.

Inspiration comes to writers in different ways, at unexpected times. Just like there isn’t “one way” to write a story. These are just three ways I find helpful to stay inspired while I write. Do you have any tips of your own? Feel free to share them!

Happy writing!

Best,

Leah

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