Staying Motivated When Writing

This blog post is based on Writer's Connect newsletter Issue 57. It expands on this week's top tip, which encouraged writers to think about the reason they started their current writing project. It's no secret that writing is not always fun. Sometimes, sitting at your desk and trying to wring the words out of you verges on physically painful. In those moments, connecting with the reason you started in the first place can help with staying motivated when writing.

If you're having trouble identifying that for yourself, or it isn't feeling like it's enough, here are some (other) very good reasons to keep at it!

Pot plant, notebook and mug - Staying Motivated When Writing

Connecting With People As Weird As You

There are certain emotions and events in our lives we think are so specific to us that we'll never be able to share them with another person ... right up until the day we open that one special book and see all that we are writ large. That, or just confirmation that someone else is as into turtles as you are.

Whether we intend for it to or not, our writing often ends up being filled with large, steaming piles of who we are and what we like. No matter what that is, or how alone you feel in it, without exception, someone has already anthropomorphised it and put it on a motorcycle.

Helping someone out there feel a little less strange or alone is a noble reason for staying motivated when writing.

No Longer Having To Add "... But I've Never Finished One"

Researchers somewhere have probably published statistics showing that a high percentage of people who write manuscripts never actually finish one. After telling someone you're a writer, it's bad enough having to add 'but I've never been published' without the added shame of 'because I've never actually finished anything'.

Be the three percent! Or the five percent! Whatever the percentage is, be it!

Being It

Unfortunately, there are many more potential barriers to being it than just staying motivated when writing. Some of them include lost confidence, writers block, and various other self-imposed hurdles.

If you feel that any of these may apply to you, check out the blog posts associated with each of them (linked above)!

Word of the Day

egregious (adj.)

/ɪˈɡriːdʒəs/

This indecisive word once used to signify that something was exceptionally good, but has since come to mean the exact opposite—that something is appalling, even horrific! People began to use it in the negative sense ironically in the late sixteenth century, and over time, this usage came to replace the original meaning entirely.

The conflict resulted in an egregious loss of human life.

Quotidian Quote

"You don't write because you want to say something ... you write because you have something to say."
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

Get Competitive!

A selection of current writing competitions YOU can enter!

Aurora Prize for Writing

Format: Short fiction / Poetry
Theme: Any
Word Count: 2,000 / 60 lines
Entry Fee: £9
Prize: $500 plus membership to Society of Authors & editorial advice
Closes: 14/06/2022

Click here for more details

 

Aurora Short Fiction Prize - Staying Motivated When Writing

The Bureau Dispatch Writing Competition

Format: Short story
Theme: Epistolary or 'found things'
Word Count: 500 - 1,500
Entry Fee: Free
Prize: $50 (plus publication)
Closes: 17/06/2022

Click here for more details

The Bureau Dispatch Writing Competition - Staying Motivated When Writing

Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize

Format: Fiction / Poetry / Life writing
Theme: Any
Word Count: 3,000
Entry Fee: £10
Prize: £1,000 (plus publication)
Closes: 30/06/2022

Click here for more details

Queen Mary Wasafiri Prize

The Moth Short Story Prize

Format: Short story
Theme: Any
Word Count: 4,000
Entry Fee: €15
Prize: £3,000
Closes: 30/06/2022

Click here for more details

The Moth Short Story Prize

Photo credit Kyle Glen, Unsplash

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