Hi Y’all,
Does anybody have tips/tricks for pushing through a lack of motivation to write combined with writer’s block on certain difficult scenes? I was writing consistently almost a month and half even prior to the 90-day-novel, making steady progress on my WIP. Now, I catching myself searching for every little excuse (many of which are very legit) to neglect my writing and when I do sit down, I don’t make much progress due to being left to write the big, complicated scenes… which only compounds my lack of motivation, LOL.
Thanks so much!
I can totally relate Jaela! After many years wrestling with those types of feelings, I’ve determined that they’re usually a symptom of fear.
- Why am I doing this? If I can get clear on why I’m doing this hard thing, oftentimes I won’t run into those emotional blocks. What’s my mission? What am I hoping to achieve? What’s the minimum I’m hoping to achieve? In the case of a project like this, am I trying to write a bestseller or is it enough to just finish the project? If I can get clear on that, suddenly I’m able to plug in.
- Is there something I don’t feel sure about how to do? A lot of times those feelings, for me, are fear of incompetence. Sometimes that means I need to get more competent! Is there something that I need to learn how to do, or something that I just need to verify I know how to do so that I can proceed with confidence? Oftentimes solving my competency will put me in a position to move forward.
Sometimes those feelings are solved by just buckling down and doing the work. But when I find that there’s just something I can’t do, one of these two guys is often to blame. It’s not a motivation or discipline issue. If I can get real and solve these two things, then that insecurity will lift and I can get back to work.
Powering through might not work. You might need to take an afternoon with your journal and do a little self-work. Invite the Holy Spirit to help you with that, and see if the joy returns to the project.
Don’t feel like you’re wasting time, working on yourself is sometimes the work of writing a novel! 🙂
