What do you do when you don't feel motivated?

We've all had those moments when we feel like we're dragging, or we're not in the mood to write- even though we know we should. Those novels are not going to write themselves, at least not without our help.

I've been dealing with heartbreak this past month, my motivation meter has dropped to zero. I have a list of projects to work on and feeling like I'm adrift, untethered. No matter what I do, I can't get motivated to work on my projects. So, I'm asking what others do to get self-motivated.

 

What do you love about writing? Is it only the act of typing and envisioning your plot/characters? If it is, you're limiting yourself. There's so much more about writing than words on screen. I love sitting on the balcony in rain or sun, the quiet at night when I can hear foxes yipping from a mile away. I love my writing music, and that I'm up and in distant lands when the rest of the world is oblivious asleep.

But routine helps: For me, it's my music. I always listen to the same tracks (they kinda belong with my story) when writing, and by now after a few years my brain automatically switches over to thinking about writing. Then it's only a small step to sitting down and writing

 

Stephen King and Dean Koontz and other prolific writers are held up on this pedestal. “Look! Here lies a true writer, who gets up early in the AM, puts pen to paper, religiously getting to work, paying no mind to the absence of a muse.”

“I only write when I am inspired. Fortunately I am inspired at nine o’clock every morning.” -attributed to Faulkner

Hemingway was pretty famous for his discipline if I recall.

Of course, us mere mortals hit the snooze button, and we let a day pass without writing because we don’t feel it, and then the next day the dog gets hurt and has to go to the vet, and then the day after someone calls off work, so we work overtime and are exhausted, and before we know it it’s been a week, no writing has been done, and we look back to the pedestal and realize we don’t belong there, we clearly don’t have the innate drive. We aren’t real writers.

Hogwash. Okay, chances are, we don’t belong in the same company as Koontz, King, or Faulkner. Of course, more writing is better than less, consistency is better than incongruity, motivation is better than apathy. The more the fire burns within, the likelier success is to be found.

But there are many writers who have found success with only a handful, or even one, novel. Their contributions are not diminished. Ideals are great to strive for. Less good when they loom over us, unachievable, taunting us with our failure.

To answer your question, when I get stuck writing, I read more. Reading is the writers calories, fuel for the road. If that doesn’t work, I try a prompt, and I pick some tropes off the shelf to help get going.

But I have often gone long periods between writing sessions, so I don’t have the antidote you seek.

- MC

 

I understand where you're coming from @MzSnowleopard - and every day after I finish work, the last thing I want to do is stay sitting at my computer screen to do even more typing, especially if there are several projects on the go with no end in sight for any of them and a lot of doubt in my mind about their quality.

I find sitting down and reading helps. Just pick up a book and dive right in and try to forget about everything going on in your life. A) it will help distract you from all those worries, and B) it will help you get back into writing - nothing inspires me to write more than dropping back into a great story. It might be what helps pull you back to earth and discover what it is you want to write about and tell the world.

 

I understand how you are feeling, in the past few months I have had one bad thing happen to me after another. I am not motivated to keep writing either, and like you said novels are not going to write themselves.

What I do is listen to my favorite songs (and sing along). I notice that I am able to focus better and I can usually write a whole page without realizing that I am. It helps, but it's just a suggestion. Sometimes, I like to sit with my journal and sketch out my ideas (jotting them down and drawing them). this helps me as well.

 

As others have mentioned above, a lot depends on why you're not motivated. If it's caused by factors in your life in general, it may be time to focus on those things for awhile. But keep your writer's brain attuned to what you're experiencing. It may feel a bit cold-hearted at times, but store it up for later, when you do get back to creative work. Everything is grist for the mill.

If it's an issue with the writing itself, sometimes you just have to give yourself permission to write drivel and trash. That's why God gave us word processing programs: so we can come back later and make it better when the enthusiasm is high.

Me, I've had to take most of the fall off from writing due to some home improvement projects that needed doing before the cold weather sets in. It was easy to do because I've hit a draggy stretch in my W.I.P. and I'd rather avoid facing it. But the past couple of days I've got the corrective drivel down on the page, and maybe now I can go on.

 

Student painters often go to museums and replicate great works of art. Writers can do the same. Prop open a favorite book, open up a text editor, and begin transcribing. You'll begin to feel the rhythm the other author achieved, understand the word choices, the modifying phrases, and internalize how it all comes together. Then simply close the file without saving.

The best thing, it's writer's block proof.

- MC

 

heartbreak and finding motivation are different things for me.

Whenever I went through heartbreak, i'd watch tv dramas in a dark room (original, i know, ha!). sometimes i'd use the heartbreak to write depressing poetry. sometimes even paint. but I never really worked on my WIPs while i was depressed in that way. I dont think I could have represented my characters fairly if I had decided to write while in that state. Watching cheesy dramas is the right thing for me to do when experiencing heartbreak.

to get motivated to write? I look at pictures. I've checked out a bunch of Nat Geo landscape books out from the library. I've checked out floral books and tribal books. I like going to the AI painting website to look at the creepy painting that the AIs generate. normally, i gravitate toward things that will make me think, not to make me write. it can be hit or miss. Sometimes i'll think too much and write nothing (i'll go down the rabbit hole of "but what does this mean?" or click link after link after link on wikipedia when looking up stuff). Sometimes i'll think about the picture and what people could be doing in the picture and come up with something. those somethings almost always end in scenes which i may be able to use in my WIPs. if i cant use them, i dont stop. i finish it out and then file them away for later

 

I like to put some distance between whatever I am unmotivated with and myself. I have to do this with relationships as well. I find it healthy and refreshing.

 

Thank you everyone. It's going to take time to process all of this. I do appreciate the suggestions and advice.

 

I still work on writing stuff but only the more routine tasks such as critiquing my partners' works, minor revisions, synopses/queries, website, etc.

 

When I took a creative writing course back in college, one of the things the professor had us do was keep a notebook and write down something everyday. It could be anything. Random thoughts, musings, snippets of pieces you're working on, analysis of a book you're reading. This forced us to get into the habit of writing. So even if I didn't feel motivated to work on a poem or story on a particular day or week, writing down random stuff in the notebook kept my writing skills sharp at the very least. Another good thing about this is that sometimes the random things I jotted down in the notebook turned into poems and stories. So my recommendation is to try keeping a notebook. It might help you.

 

I've got one, two actually, one to hand write the other is on my computer. Lots and lots of notes in both of them.

 

Invite motivation and inspiration. You do that by sitting down and starting to write.

 

I did try that, all I could think about was the hurt, the heartbreak and being abandoned two weeks after he called me "the one I love".

It's been a month to the day. My friends who know the details have been supportive. Tomorrow I am going to force myself to complete at least one project. Whatever it is, I want to get one project done.

Thank you for all of the suggestions.

 

Generally I find that when faced with no motivation you have to force yourself to do the things you would if you were feeling 100%, rather than wait to feel better before doing them. Doing things leads to feeling better, not the other way around. And if you do try and fail, you'll have achieved no less than you would have done doing nothing, and you might be in a better place emotionally for at least trying to be productive.

Of course, if all else fails, I don't think there's anything wrong with taking a break. I've had gaps like that with writing and music, where I have had a number of months off, and come back with a fresh perspective. That can help in the long term.

 

You put your butt in a chair and do it anyway. This isn't about motivation, it's about dedication. You either want to be a writer or you don't. If you do, you'll treat it like a job and do it whether you feel like it or not, if not, you'll fail.

Make a choice.

 

Write the heartbreak down and print it (if you typed it). Then set it on fire. Preferably in a safe way to set something on fire. You'll have acknowledged the heartbreak, gotten it out of you, and then destroyed it.

I'm not saying it will take it away completely, but it's a physical manifestation of what you're going through and if you can kind of flip the switch on it, potentially it will allow you to move forward.

Other than that, I echo what others have said. It's completely fine to take some time away from writing. I know if I try to force it when I'm upset about something, I end up hating it.

 

Fixed that for you

 

I find automatic writing extremely helpful in getting me through blocks, and in fact I often like the results better than my more consciously directed efforts. Below I provide excerpts from two classic guides to automatic writing.

The first is from Benjamin Peret:

"Take a hand, paper, ink, and a pen with a new nib, and settle yourself comfortably at your table. Now forget all your worries, forget that you are married, that your child has whooping-cough, that you are Catholic, that you are a senator, that you are a disciple of Auguste Comte or of Schopenhauer, forget antiquity, the literature of all countries at all times. You no longer want to know what is logical and what is not, you no longer want to know anything except what you are going to be told. Write as fast as possible so as not to lose any of the secrets that are made known to you about yourself, and above all do not re-read yourself. You will soon notice that, little by little as you write, the sentences become faster, stronger, more alive. And if, by chance, you find that you stop suddenly, don't hesitate, force the door of the unconscious and write the first letter of the alphabet, for example. The letter A is as good as any other. Ariadne's thread will return by itself. Having said that, I begin.

"A bunch of asparagus that is not quite seven leagues long is exhausting itself cutting out a rainbow in a box of shoe polish. The rainbow runs along the beach looking for a pipe made of foam. It hears the sea in the hollow of its hand and becomes, after thirty years of study on an island of shifting sands, a ship's captain. It is then that the king of a commonplace country gives him a soup tureen as a present. He puts some tortoise eggs in it, and when the moon changes the soup tureen flies off like the last sigh of a consumptive. Yet it was a very beautiful night and the stars, after having lost at baccarat, had gone off to fish for trout with cars' headlights..."

The second from Andre Breton's first Manifesto of Surrealism:

"Having settled down in some spot most conducive to the mind's concentration upon itself, order writing
material to be brought to you. Let your state of mind be as passive and receptive as possible. Forget
your genius, talents, as well as the genius and talents of others. Repeat to yourself that literature is pretty
well the sorriest road that leads to everywhere. Write quickly without any previously chosen subject,
quickly enough not to dwell on, and not to be tempted to read over, what you have written. The first
sentence will come of itself; and this is self-evidently true, because there is never a moment but some
sentence alien to our conscious thought clamours for outward expression. It is rather difficult to speak
of the sentence to follow, since it doubtless comes in for a share of our conscious activity and so the
other sentences, if it is conceded that the writing of the first sentence must have involved even a
minimum of consciousness. But that should in the long run matter little, because therein precisely lies the
greatest interest in the surrealist exercise. Punctuation of course necessarily hinders the stream of
absolute continuity which preoccupies us. But you should particularly distrust the prompting whisper. If
through a fault ever so trifling there is a forewarning of silence to come, a fault let us say, of inattention,
break off unhesitatingly the line that has become too lucid. After the word whose origin seems suspect
you should place a letter, any letter, l for example, always the letter l, and restore the arbitrary flux by
making that letter the initial of the word to follow."

 

I mean, that's another thing, sure.

 

I find brainstorming to be very motivating. In the moments when I don't really have much else to do with my brain, I brainstorm. Often this happens in the shower or when I'm out walking my dog. When I walk the dog, I either listen to music or spend the whole time brainstorming. I get thoughts which lead to other thoughts and then inspiration strikes. When I get home from walking the dog, that's when I get the most writing done. Try to find some moments like these in your own life and see if it's helpful. Times like when you're doing the dishes or folding laundry and you can really let your thoughts wander and you know you'll have a spare few minutes after the fact in which you can vomit it all out onto the page.

 

For a recently heartbroken writer filled with a number of emotions at any given moment, I can suggest one of the following.

• Don't write. Talk it out with friends and family. Keep this up until you can focus on other things for more than an hour before thinking about this terrible thing that has happened to you.
  
• Channel your feelings into an essay or journal, and write about the heartbreak. Let it loose!
  
• Create a MC similar to yourself (and an antagonist) and write a 3rd person POV short story about the heartbreak (before, during, and after). Change names to protect the guilty. Write a believable resolution for your MC that you might be able to emulate.

If you really want to get back onto one of your projects, then I suggest this.

• Pick a project that is awaiting an emotional chapter. It's possible to channel your emotions into your characters.
• Write in short fifteen-minute sprint (use a timer or Discord write-in bot). Do it again.
  
• My personal preference when I'm not writing, is to pace around my house for several minutes. I imagine my next scene/sequel/chapter. I talk out loud and say the character's lines, describe what I'm seeing, build tension, and establish a purpose. No writing. This often motivates me to sit down and write something.

I wish you the best.