Having fun and being creative in the writing process

I think so many of us go into the writing process super excited and inspired. Things start out great and we outline or do a draft and everything’s so exciting… and then you read the draft. That’s where it all starts going and suddenly it’s not so much fun anymore. I think the minute we decide to take something seriously and make a commitment to it, it’s probably not going to be as much fun as before. If you’re writing for fun, you’re gonna have a lot of fun. But if you’re writing to get published, that’s a lot of pressure and goals to hit. Maybe not so much fun anymore.

And really after all the outlines and rewrites and new drafts, you’re probably not feeling as creative anymore. You’re tired and maybe this writing thing’s not as fun as you thought it’d be.

And that’s what we’re going to be talking about in today’s post—staying committed to your writing and meeting all your goals while also feeling creative and good about it. Let’s get started.

1. Identify the problem

The problem here may not always be regular burnout. It could just be your wip. It’s completely normal if writing is feeling like a drag, maybe consider why? Is it the story idea? If this isn’t an idea you can work on at the moment, maybe consider shelving It for now. Or if the story feels too boring, maybe you need to spice it up. Write what you are passionate about. If you’re passionate about your story but something’s missing, fill in the blanks. What issues are you passionate about? What kind of characters do you feel most connected to? And what kinds of stories do you love to read?

Maybe you need to add another perspective to your story, or maybe another subplot. Identify the problem and fix it. I know it sounds so much easier than it is. But if you don’t make a change, you’ll just be writing something that goes nowhere, and really if you’re going to put in so much effort into something, it might as well be worth it.

2. Change your surroundings

Maybe try writing somewhere else. If you always write in your room, try writing outside or in bed or something. Writing in the same places every day might make it feel so much more monotone and boring. So, try writing in bed for a change if you always write on a desk. Maybe even write with another person so you’d hold yourself more accountable.

3. Don’t keep taking breaks

Do you do the thing where writing gets boring and tiring so you just stop? It’s important to know when you need a break and when to step away from something for your own good, but that isn’t always the case. If you take a break every time you feel uninspired then you are literally never going to finish writing. Next time you’re feeling uninspired sit-down and write. It’ll take you a lot more time to write and the writing may not be as good but at the end of the day, you’ll have a few words down. Writing just to hit your goals isn’t always the best but do what you have to do to finish the damn book.

If you literally can’t get down a single word, write something else. Write a song, a short story of flash fiction. Or you can just write something for your wip that you’re good at. If you are good at writing dialogue just write the dialogue of a scene. You can write it like a script or however you want. You can go in and add dialogue tags and descriptions to it later.

4. Don’t rush it

Don’t take a break, but don’t rush it because it’s too tiring. If you start skipping over stuff and glossing over details because you want to finish the book, you’re just going to have to do that part all over again.

If you’re only in your first draft, skip scenes and details and use placeholders which you can fill in later. But if you are editing or rewriting, try to do this less. If you’ve read through your draft and noted down everything you need to fix, you don’t have to do it chronologically. But in developmental edits, you tend to have a domino effect that affects the next scenes and chapters, so keep that in mind.

But yea I guess the point is to slow down and have fun in the smaller things. It’s not always about your word count goals.

5. Write something else

You know starting a new wip isn’t always a bad thing. I prefer to work on one big thing at one time, but you don’t have to do that. Actually working on a couple of novels at once might even help you out. One can be a serious wip you maybe want to publish and the other can be something refreshing and fun. If you learn to manage your time well having two wips might even work better for you creatively.

But it doesn’t have to be another novel because writing one novel is a lot in itself. You can try working on short stories or flash fiction. Try different things out even if you think they won’t work out. Sometimes I find poetry or shorter writings easier to work on. I don’t get caught up in the details and it’s easier to write and it helps me feel a little accomplished at the end of the day.

So, write music, write poems or short stories, or whatever you want. See what helps you feel creative and good once you're done. and which process you are able to enjoy the most.

That’s it for today’s post! The bottom line is just that you need to feel good and happy about what you write and it’s going to get hard and tedious sometimes but it shouldn’t always be that way. Just take breaks, enjoy the process and remember that you don’t always have to be writing a novel or doing the next best thing. It’s okay to just take a break and do stuff. Anyway, don’t forget to comment If you enjoyed this post, leave a like and maybe subscribe if you want to be notified when I post next!