Reading On A Star

Hello, Bookworms! Writing slumps are something that many writers including myself experience. It can be very frustrating and can suck out all your creative energy. This post is about tips and tricks on how to overcome those writing slumps, and how to stay motivated.

1. Change the environment – This will encourage writing by allowing the new change of scenery to get your creative juices flowing, and ready to write!
2. Setting goals – Making goals for yourself will help you accomplish them. For example, a writing goal could be to  finish a story by the end of the week.
3. Ask for encouragement
4. Recycle – take an old story, or piece of writing and add new things to it.
5. Stop negative self-talk
6. Listen to music – Something soothing like classical or jazz could help minimize distractions while writing.
7. Eliminate distractions – Clear your workspace, and only focus on the task at hand.
8. Don’t burn yourself out – Make a writing schedule, and stick to it.
9. Free write first – If you write for fun 10 minutes before a writing session, you can “dump” all the bad ideas out.

Here are how some famous writers overcome writing slumps : 

Maya Angelou says in the book Writers Dreaming : “I suppose I do get ‘blocked’ sometimes but I don’t like to call it that. That seems to give it more power than I want it to have. What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat,’ you know. And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.’”

Ernest Hemingway explained: “The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day … you will never be stuck. Always stop while you are going good and don’t think about it or worry about it until you start to write the next day. That way your subconscious will work on it all the time. But if you think about it consciously or worry about it you will kill it and your brain will be tired before you start.”

Mark Twain said :“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”

Margaret Atwood : “If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.”