Motivation to Start Writing Again
“It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.” — Steven Pressfield
Are you feeling bad about not writing for the past few weeks or months? This post is for you and me.
You start with a sentence. One good sentence is all you need today. Tomorrow, make them two. Next thing you know you’re writing more than you thought possible.
There’s no such thing as having the perfect circumstances to write. Treat your writing like eating and sleeping. You may miss a few meals but you’ve got to eat. You may stay up all night but you will sleep, even if it’s just a few hours the next day. You can eat while you’re on the move, and sleep while commuting, so why do you need the ideal environment to write a few words?
Writing is never easy, and no one said it was. But writing without writing is impossible. Take 10 minutes today to get the bad words out, the bad sentences out. It’s not your job to be perfect. Today, just write anything. It may make sense, and it may not.
One thing is certain; you’re not getting anywhere by not writing. Stephen King, the “King of Horror,” was terrified of writing after taking five weeks to recover from a near-death experience.
“And the first five hundred words were uniquely terrifying– it was as if I’d never written anything before them in my life. All my old tricks seemed to have deserted me. I stepped from one word to the next like a very old man finding his way across a stream on a zigzag line of wet stones. There was no inspiration that first afternoon, only a kind of stubborn determination and the hope that things would get better if I kept at it.” — Stephen King
King had a tough time after taking just five weeks. How do you expect to make it writing once every few months?
Just start.
You can start by commenting on this post. Write me your one sentence.
“You may delay, but time will not.” — Benjamin Franklin