Some days you just don’t feel like writing. This doesn’t arise from writer’s block or being overwhelmed by life’s many responsibilities. Instead, you obsess about how much there is left to write and find the amount numbing. You’ve already written a lot and yet have so far to go.
When your motivation nosedives, your inner critic has taken the controls. It’s saying, “You’re not a writer. You’re wasting your time writing. You’re not creative enough to fill those pages. C’mon, let’s go eat a bucket of ice cream in front of the television together – you’ll feel so much better!”
Push your inner critic out of the cockpit. Yes, writing is a lot of hard work and doesn’t always go as planned. But you have a vision, one of yourself as a published writer whose books are loved by readers and snatched up by eager fans. Keep a clear vision of what awaits you, and your motivation levels will rise.
After all, your inner critic is wrong. You are a writer, and you haven’t wasted your time. Rather than count the number of pages you have left to go (a glass half-empty type of attitude), think of how much you’ve written (a glass half-full type of attitude).
You’ve also grown as a writer. With each passage or chapter you’ve penned, your level of talent rose. Maybe the change was incremental and barely noticeable. But you improved. And as you edit and revise your piece later in the writing process, your talent suddenly will jump, like a jet soaring into the sky.
Accept that reaching your destination never is instantaneous. Each moment spent in flight – and each word committed to the page – always will bring you closer to your goal. Your endpoint, your dream, only becomes impossible to reach when you stop moving toward it.
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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 300 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.