How to Motivate Yourself to Write

Last updated on March 17th, 2023 at 07:14 am

I’ve had several conversations about this in the last month or so. Despite how much many of us love writing, pushing out the words can be a struggle. I offer you my top three tips to help you motivate yourself to write.

Accept that Your Work Won’t Be Perfect

You might hear this one frequently, but it’s absolutely true. No first draft is perfect. In fact, your first draft will be bad. It will be riddled with errors, inconsistencies, and bad adverbs. Accept it. Revel in it. Allow yourself to let go and write whatever words come to you. You might be surprised how much you love the freedom of it.

Commit to a Daily or Weekly Goal

Currently, my goal is fifteen minutes a day. I write for fifteen minutes every day. But some days, when I’m really tired or overwhelmed, I change that goal to write a single sentence. Sometimes I keep going, and sometimes I don’t. Often it’s a bad sentence. But at least I wrote. Pick what your daily goal is, even if it’s a sentence a day.

If you can’t commit to a daily goal, have a weekly one. Decide how many words you’ll write or how many days you’ll write.

Having a consistent goal helps you to stay focused. It gives you something to strive for.

Write Even if You Aren’t Sure You’ll Keep It

Sometimes, I experiment with a scene. Recently, I was trying to figure out what I wanted the setting for a specific scene to be. So, I wrote it a few different ways. I wrote one setting and then another. It helped me to decide what I really wanted the scene to be.

Sometimes a scene comes to us, but we’re not sure if it’s important or if it fits neatly into our story. Write that scene anyway. Write whatever comes to you and worry about how or if it fits later. For now, just write.

It’s important to get into the habit of writing. A habit allows you to push out work steadily and keep your momentum. It also helps to avoid that feeling that comes when you haven’t done anything in weeks, and you know that shouldn’t be the case. Keep up your pace, and keep in mind my tips on how to motivate yourself to write.

You might also come up with your own writing plan.

Need some help? Unsure if you’re going in the right direction with your story, and you want someone who knows their stuff to look at it? Reach out to me. I would love to help.