“If you dig in the right place, an idea will come to the surface. Sometimes it’s born from the union of two completely dissimilar things. You might catch one of them in a dream. But that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to grasp its meaning in the morning. Make a trap. Wait patiently. Something big will come sooner or later. An idea may strike you in a moment of desperation.
No wonder we started one of our most interesting and challenging articles with such an inspiring epigraph. After all, we all know how important, useful, interesting, exciting, cool (underline as necessary) it is to write your own book. But here sometimes all these reasonable and emotional arguments are not enough at all. So where and how then to find the strength to start, to continue writing?
A little bit, but every day
This is the most effective way of creativity, which has already successfully tried before us Jack London, Kurt Vonnegut, Stephen King, Haruki Murakami, Ernest Hemingway and Ray Bradbury. Want to not just start but finish a book? Then form the habit of writing every day from the very beginning. Even if you don’t feel like it at all! You don’t have to force yourself to produce a whole chapter every day. One page a day is enough – and in a year you’ll have a 365-page book ready. Great? And to thoroughly consolidate this habit, it is better to accustom yourself to sit down for a manuscript at the same hour, to give it every day about the same amount of time.
Make a promise. In front of everyone!
Once you have a deadline, make sure you tell everyone about it. For example, make a prominent announcement to your blog readers. When you know that readers are waiting for your book, social responsibility simply won’t allow you to put your work on the piece into a far corner day after day.
Write first and edit later!
Don’t make the most bitter mistake of all newbies! Don’t engage in editing your book while you’re writing. You don’t want to stretch the process out for years, so leave the error work for later! Writers confess: nothing ruins inspiration like switching between the creative process and editing.
Get rid of things that distract you
It’s not the writing of a book that we get more tired of, but the multitude of things that distract us from it. With the internet, social media and YouTube, there are even more such distractions. So they need to be dealt with before they completely take away the enthusiasm to create. Try to work alone or at least in a locked room. Buy noise-canceling headphones. And be sure to turn off the internet on your laptop and put your phone in airplane mode.
Pump your writing muscle every day
Make time not only to create, but also to prevent a writer’s crisis! How do you prevent it? Write down ideas. The whole stream of consciousness, including what doesn’t make sense. Practice associative thinking. To do this, just open any book on a random page, write out the first word – and make it the subject of your new short story. Write about your emotions, feelings, memories of everything you see around you.
Don’t make comparisons. Never
You don’t need to remember what famous writers achieved at your age! This is the surest way to get “creative paralysis”. The only person you should compare yourself to is you in the past.
Exhale!
Don’t be afraid to rest. Set aside things that you can’t do well in any way. Take a break when you really need it. However, it’s important to set clear deadlines for yourself to rest. A change of scenery helps a lot to find inspiration. And getting to know the biographies of writers who really inspire you!