How to Warm Up when You're Stucker than Stuck

Let’s face it, sometimes just sitting DOWN to write can be a challenge. When life gets crazy (and when doesn’t it?) and things like kids, school, or work seem to sap away all of your time and energy, writing can start to seem like a chore, even if it is something that we all “love.”

And then there are the other things that keep us from our writing. Doubt, worry that we won’t meet even our own expectations (much less those of others!), and that one problem (scene/plothole/whatever) in your manuscript that you just can’t figure out.

Sometimes we just don’t feel “inspired.”

Still, we know that the only way to ever get anything accomplished in the writing world is to keep going no matter what. Whatever’s halting you from getting words down on the page, we have to face the fact that we all want to be professional writers someday, and professional writers WRITE.

So how can you get in the mood to write, when you just kicking-and-screaming don’t want to? Well, ninja to ninja, here are my two biggest pieces of advice:

#1 DON’T BEAT YOURSELF UP

Ninjas have enough fighting to do without fighting ourselves. Maybe you’ve fallen off the wagon a bit. Maybe you haven’t written a single word in a couple of days. Or weeks! My number one piece of advice is DON’T GIVE IN TO GUILT. Guilt is the all-time discourager, my fellow ninjas. Don’t let what you haven’t done keep you from getting things done now!

#2 TAKE A BREATHER

As our Dojo master could tell you, sometimes the best thing to help you get writing is a little bit of meditation. Whether you do this best by shutting the door and sitting in quiet, or by taking a walk outside in the sunshine, figure out what quiets your mind and do it. Let your other distractions fall away. Clear out your brain so that it can be filled up with STORY.

IF YOU’RE STILL HAVING TROUBLE finding that spark, don’t get discouraged! There are a lot of other things that you can do to jump-start your muse, and here are some of my favorites:

☼ Music. I had a professor tell me that every writing project should have a soundtrack to it. Consider this even if you don’t like writing to music—you can always listen to your soundtrack before you get down to the writing itself.

☼ Talk to your characters. Take them out of the story for a bit and imagine interviewing them. What do they want/need/fear RIGHT NOW? This helps if you’re stuck. If you understand what’s in your characters’ heads, you’ll know where you need to go.

☼ Re-read a bit of your story. Not just any bit. You know which part. That part that made your soul sing when you wrote it. Let yourself fall in love with your characters all over again, and words won’t be so hard to find.

And again, DON’T GET DISCOURAGED. Sometimes the best thing you can do is decide to be positive about writing. Focus on what you excel at. Everything else can be fixed when you edit. Seriously. You just have to get the writing done first!

Lisa Asanuma graduated with a Literature degree from the College of Creative Studies at UC Santa Barbara. She has worked as a freelance writer and as an editor for Drollerie Press, and she is the co-founder of Type Set, Inc, an editing and formatting service. She’s currently working on a YA fantasy novel, but in the meantime she publishes a new short story for free every other Friday at Tales From the Hollow Tree, a fiction blog she shares with author Isabelle Santiago.

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