Thoughts From Reverb10

Over on my personal online journal, I'm taking part in a challenge called Reverb10. Essentially, it is a 31-day challenge, involving a prompt each day designed to reflect on the past year and think ahead to the next. It's been interesting and fun so far - it's certainly making me think.

Anyway, I found December 2nd's prompt particularly interesting, and it seems relevant to this blog, so I thought I'd share some of my thoughts here. (Copied from my personal journal and edited.)

"December 2: Writing
What do you do each day that doesn't contribute to your writing - and can you eliminate it?"

I've been thinking a lot recently about how to be more productive with my writing, and the reasons behind it when I go through phases of not feeling as focussed or creative as I would like to be.

So what is it that gets in the way? I've thought about it extensively and I think it mostly comes down to just a few things.

I guess the first and most obvious thing is simply that life often gets in the way. Other responsibilities, other commitments often have to come first. Time is always a factor.

I absolutely loved NaNoWriMo for exactly this reason. It forced me to focus and meant that I really had to schedule writing time into every day in order to meet the challenge. Knowing that thousands of other writers out there were doing the same things, and being able to communicate with some of them about it, was very helpful as well.

Right now, I'm trying to continue with the momentum I built up during NaNo by immediately jumping into editing the novel I wrote in November as well as starting new projects.

And then, of course, there's the dreaded writer's block. That feeling of staring at a blank screen, willing the words to come to you, but your mind just staying stubbornly empty. Not much is more frustrating than this! I've learned to just step away from the computer, do something else for fifteen minutes, and then try again. Often, this works. Sometimes it doesn't. Some days, I guess, are just not meant to be greatly productive ones.

And then, of course, there's good old self-doubt. I have low self-confidence and self-belief anyway, and I do sometimes find the voice I like to call Brain Demon telling me that I am useless at writing. And then I start thinking, well, what's the point? I've found that one possible way to fight this is to read back something I've written that I am proud of, to remind myself that, yes, I can do it!

They say the first step to success is to imagine it. So close your eyes for a moment, and visualise your name in print, writing the final line of that novel, whatever it is you're trying to achieve. It will make you want to continue, believe me.

And, finally, one of the things that keeps me motivated is talking about writing with people who are likely to be supportive. Of course, talking to other writers is always fantastic and something I can't recommend enough! But any support from those around you is more valuable than I can easily say. One of the things that really kept me motivated during NaNo was the people who celebrated every significant word count milestone with me, and kept saying that they couldn't wait to read the finished product.

So, my fellow writers, I'd be interested to know your thoughts. What prevents you from writing as much as you'd like, and what motivates you to keep going?