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Writer’s Willpower: Motivating Yourself to Continue Your Writing

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As much as we’d like to admit it or not, writing is mostly a labor of love. It takes you a lot of thinking, researching, typing, and editing before you can even consider getting an income from or even recognition for it. And it applies even more so to the people who work on major writing projects such as books and academic papers. Because of this, it’s easier to lose your motivation than keep it. Here are some simple actions that you can take so you can keep on writing.

Don’t Worry, Just Write

While thinking of writing can get someone pumped and excited to do so, it doesn’t always mean that they will actually start. And the beginning is always the hard part for people, especially when the task at hand seems large. Sometimes, the best way for you to do so is to just let go of all your worries and just type or write a letter, a word, all the way to a paragraph. Are you thinking that you might not get picked up by a publisher for your little tale for kids? Just get to writing it first. After all, there’s also self-publishing for children’s books, collection of short stories, and even full-fledged novels.

Make Time for It

For some people, the problem lies with their schedule. You might find that you’re too busy to even sit down and get to writing. In this case, you have to make time for it, just like you would any other activity that you need to do for the day. Set even a short duration, like 15 to 30 minutes, every day. It can be hard to stick to it at first, but once you get used to it, you’ll find that you can soon write for longer.

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Break It Down Into Chunks

Many find it hard to start since they already view the task as gargantuan and they feel that it will take them forever to finish. But how do you think those successful writers ever get to completing their work? One technique is to break the task down into smaller parts, or setting achievable goals for each day that will count towards your ultimate target. For example, if you’re working on a novel, you can focus on writing a chapter or at least a set number of pages per day. This will make it less intimidating for you.

Take an Inspirational Break

There will be times or days when you will feel that you don’t have any juice left in you. In that case, the best thing to do is simply to take a break. Think about it: all your creative output has to come from somewhere or something. Just like how your body needs food in order to be able to work, your brain sometimes needs to take in inspiration or ideas from outside. Read another person’s book, listen to music, or talk to someone. You can also take a shower or sleep on it. When you get back, you’re sure to have something new on hand.

There is much you can do in order to help motivate yourself to write whatever you want. However, these won’t amount to anything if you don’t decide to actually write. Be sure that that’s what you want to do before you even start.

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