Why to Write When You Don't Want to Write
Time, Mindset, and Other Writerly Challenges
Full disclosure: I had a hard week. So this has not been my typical Sunday morning where I wake up excited to come to the page, looking forward to my Substack practice. I keep a list of ideas for future Substacks on a Stickie note on my desk, but this morning they just stared back at me, none of them wanting to be written.
Meeting creative deadlines when you’re going through it is challenging. I see this with my students all the time. Life throws everyday softballs, and sometimes hardballs. Writers get derailed from what they say they want to do (commitments) due to outside forces.
And yet, whatever it is that’s derailing us, big or small, permanent or temporary, we’re still at choice when it comes to getting the work done. Time and mindset—these are two of the bigger forces we have to wrangle, on the days when it’s flowing and on the days when we’re not feeling it.
On Time
What time we have ebbs and flows with phases of life, our commitments, our other priorities. When it comes to writing, time exists to be managed. Few writers I’ve worked with, even retirees, have “all the time in the world.” Over the course of these twelve-plus years that I’ve considered myself a real writer, I’ve had to claw for time, block time off in my calendar, and justify to myself that my time spent writing wasn’t selfish when I click-clacked away at my computer when my son was young and hanging out with his other mom or a babysitter in the other room. More recently, I created a yearlong accountability group to keep me on track for my book-in-progress. I’ve hired coaches and editors to keep me on deadlines.
During inspired times, periods or eras when any one of us is in flow, time can be easy to carve out. You may look forward to your writing time. I know writers who write every day. I’ve worked with writers for whom writing is a practice, like yoga, who can’t get on with their day without it. Substack has given me a weekly writing practice. Every Sunday morning I write, even on the hard weeks, even on the uninspired weeks. And so here I am.
On Mindset
Here’s where we have to tap into commitment, inspiration, and even passion. What keeps you going? What keeps you coming back? One of the reasons I love the weekly Substack practice is that I’ve made a commitment to myself and my readers that I’ll be here once a week. The work of building a readership involves showing up when you say you’re going to. We can show up for the writing of our books in the same way, of course, but for long-form, long-term projects you answer to a single master—yourself—for months on end.
Today, I’m uninspired and a little tired. I’ve had a week where I’ve felt equally tested and championed by my author community as we’ve hit up against some hard moments in our transition to Simon & Schuster for distribution. As such, it’s all I can really think about. Our writing often gets hijacked by the goings-on in our lives. I have a friend on a book deadline who’s in the middle of buying a house and feeling stressed by how much of a psychic drain the house thing is, how much it’s carving not just into her time, but her mindset. Time is easier to manage than mindset. To pull yourself out of and away from what’s eating you or obsessing your mind is not just about discipline. You have to write your way to another place, to carve out spaciousness inside your mind and step into it and away from whatever the pressures may be in your life off the page.
Oftentimes I come to these weekly posts with the fire of my idea burning bright. On days when the fire is dim, however, the writing itself turns the dial. The more I write, the stronger the flame. They say writing begets writing, and if you’ve ever sat to write on an uninspired day, you know it’s true.
How do you write when you don’t have the time?
How do you write when you’re feeling uninspired?
And what other things do you find—beyond time and mindset—pose challenges to your writing practice?
To my Substack community, thanks for being here. To my author community, thanks for reminding me that what we do matters so much—even on the hard weeks.
I so feel you, Brooke. Sometimes writing is immersive and absolutely wonderful, other times, it's like pulling teeth, often because of other life stuff. People have asked me for years how I'm able to write so much, and across genres without using any formulas. I write when it's hard. I'll share one of my biggest tips. Schedule writing time as a part of a writing discipline. Do not set word count goals. They are akin to dieting and exercising to lose "x" pounds. Each day you get on that scale, you're more likely to feel like you've failed than succeeded. A health and wellness plan is far more likely to be effective long run if you schedule a certain amount of time on certain days for exercise. Bit by bit, you get there. To me, it's the same with writing. So I set an amount of time to write, with no expectation of how many words that will amount to. A writing session might yield many pages or just a few sentences. If I put in the time, it was a success. I think putting in the time when it's hard, leads to a lot more days when you're inspired and in flow. Hope your week improves!
I appreciate this, Brooke. (And kudos on the S&S coup. I'm sorry it's so hard right now.) If the goal is to show up on the page, my weekly blog post does that. And provides gratification as it's read, liked, commented on. However, writing it and my monthly newsletter post and responding to comments, distracts me from working on my memoir. I'm tired of words, tired of the keyboard, tired of the desk. Sometimes I think I need to take a blogging break (and I'm not on Substack, because I need freedom from the pressure to post) and make myself work on the memoir that no one will read for years (or at all if I don't write it). Mostly, I just tell myself winter is coming; I'm more productive then, there is less to blog about, I'll buckle down then. It may be a lie.