Not in the Mood to Write? Tough!

When you’re in a (somewhat) artsy world like that of creative writing, you’re often not expected to have the hard and fast respect for deadlines that other disciplines have. An engineer has to hand in the plans on the day they’re needed, but in a writing workshop, someone can say, “I just wasn’t inspired this week.” I’ve seen plenty of students get a pass with a line like that, and I admit I used it once to get an extension on a story that I just felt I couldn’t finish in time. I understand it if you really don’t have the time (like when you’re a college student and have other papers due), but all too often, this feeling turns into “I wasn’t in the mood to write.”

We’ve all felt it: that creeping laziness, that feeling of nervousness or reluctance that makes writing creatively just too hard. We think about opening that scary blank word document and quail. “I’m just not ready today,” we tell ourselves. “I’ll try again later in the week.” The days pass, and no writing gets done as we get more and more out of that delicate mood that we need to begin.

Well, no more! Sometimes there’s no cure for the creeping laziness but to stamp it out, vigorously. It’s time for a zero-tolerance policy toward writer’s block!

After the jump: how to say no more Mr. nice guy to yourself.

When it comes to artistic disciplines like writing, no one else is going to whip us into shape, so we have to do it ourselves. So plant your bottom in the chair! No checking email or Twitter! And there’s no leaving this spot until you have an entire page or an entire scene written!

There are a thousand excuses you could give to avoid this tough activity. And believe me, I know how tough getting into writing mode can be. It’s very paralyzing to sit staring at that blank screen or blank page. You start to form a sentence in your head, and it sounds stupid, absurd, clumsy. So you don’t write it down. But if you don’t start getting those down, nothing else is going to come out. Think of those first clumsy sentences as bridges to smoother, more warmed-up writing. And you’re not going to get those pretty sentences without pain! So quit what you’re doing — quit reading this blog, even! It’ll be here when you get back. But in this solitary discipline, you have to be your own coach. Get out there and prove to yourself that you can write!