How To Write When Life Gets Rough

There are times when the wilds of life drag you down. When you feel as if you cannot rise. When you are trodden on by work, bills, raising children, and/or maintaining relationships. When you feel as if creating or writing is the antithesis of what you should be doing. Overwhelm, business, and exhaustion do not make for a creative mind. Here are some tips on how to write when you don’t feel like it.

1. Ask yourself: Do you have to create right now? Are you on a deadline? Is there something else to do with your project, like administrative tasks, that you can work on instead? If no, proceed to the points below. If yes, take some time. Allow yourself the space to breathe, to think, to rest. So many things in your life demand attention. It is alright if you need to calm your nervous system by taking some time away and centering yourself. Take a walk, eat a good meal, and get some sleep.

2. Put down your phone. Take time away from the news and social media. At this point in history, your attention is a commodity. Ensure that you are directing it where you want it to go.

3. Set a timer. Make it short. Bite-sized pieces of creativity are better than a whole day. I mean, yes, a whole day to write a story would be great, but most people don’t have that kind of time. What folks underestimate are the 20-minute sprints you can sneak throughout the day to complete pieces of your project. Smaller time frames also equal less pressure. Instead of thinking, “I have to complete three chapters in three hours,” reframe that to “complete the first portion of my next scene” or “I am going to write as many words as I can in twenty minutes.”

4. Fall back on your beat sheet or plot framework. If you are a pantser and not a plotter, that’s fine! Read back the last few pages of what you wrote to see if that inspires you. If you’re a plotter, look back on those notes! It is hard for your brain to constantly be doing the mental lifting. Decision fatigue is real. Lucky you, you’ve already planned out what happens next.

5. Get moving. Open the notes app on your phone, hit the little microphone icon, and dictate while you walk. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Unless you are well-versed in it, dictation can have spelling errors, and character names will be misspelled, but you can copy and paste the note into your document and fix it later. Moving your body sometimes helps clear your mind.

6. Let yourself write badly. Sometimes you have to draft a few chapters of garbage before you find your groove again. Know that it is okay. Much of what you write is fluid. It can be edited, moved around, or cut. Allow yourself the freedom to write something you know you won’t keep. It’s freeing. And, who knows? Maybe it won’t turn out to be garbage after all. Regardless, it will help you push through.

7. Do it when you don’t feel like it. This is the hard truth of being a creative. Yes, give yourself time. Do small things to get back into writing. But if you’re still frustrated or sad or overwhelmed, sometimes the best thing to do is just do it. Lock yourself away and hit those keys. Even when you don’t feel like it. Keep showing up, because you need your work, and others need to read your work. What inspires you will inspire other people to act, or create, or feel. Even when it’s hard. Even when it feels impossible. You can do it.