Forcing yourself to sit and write when you don’t feel the energy can make you resentful and not very creative. Writing should be something you enjoy, something that you feel a need to do, something that you can do without using “toothpicks” to keep your eyes open.
Believe it or not, good nutrition and taking care of yourself will help to energize you and feed your creative mind. High protein meals – starting with breakfast – will help to get you through your hectic day much more effectively than snacking on junk food and sugary treats will. When a writer is energetic it comes through in his writing and the enthusiasm the writer feels will keep him motivated until he types the words “The End”.
After all of you “chores” are done – and don’t hesitate to recruit the rest of your family members into helping, after all, they live there too – your mind will feel much more relaxed. Now I am not saying scrub your house from top to bottom on a nightly basis; when you feel the weight of unfinished business hanging over you, it cuts into your ability to feel productive. Prioritize – get the tasks out of the way that absolutely have to be done and learn to delegate or even ignore.
There are many writers who will gleefully boast that they get up an hour early just to have some quiet time to write – if you are like me, you don’t want to crawl out of bed any sooner than necessary. Learn to substitute time. Is it really important to watch reruns of your favorite sitcoms? Maybe a quick 15-minute shower instead of an hour long soak in the tub is worth it to gain 45-minutes to write. And trust me, once you experience the euphoria of writing and seeing your words become stories and worlds, you will find the desire to get out of bed early, or go to bed later.
Find a comfortable place to work – it can be in a fully equipped home office where you can block out everything else, or it can be sitting in your favorite living room chair with a laptop while your family watches TV. Take a deep cleansing breath and let it out. Envision the words you want to see on paper. Let your mind wander and free write. Your busy life can provide all of the material that you need.
Did your boss hand you an impossible task and you swallowed the words you really wanted to say? Think about what would have happened if you had said them. Put those words on paper, tell the story as if you really had uttered those words and tell us what happened (what you imagine would have happened) after you loosened your tongue. Did the boss gain sudden respect, did the boss fear you, or did the boss fire you? Did this lead to a promotion, a job search, unemployment and unpaid bills? Did you have the support of your family? Just free-write and you have a short story, editing to come later.
Carry a small memo pad with you during the day, or night depending on your shift, to jot ideas down as they occur to you. When you are sitting at your keyboard and wondering what comes next to keep the story flowing, this memo book will help to feed your creativity. Develop a pattern, something to condition your responses and help you write; you might listen to a mournful ballad, or sink into your favorite chair or even stare at a beloved photo. You will find that these habits will help you get past the dreaded “writer’s block”.
Writing Exercise: You have just entered a hallway when you spy two people together, really together, and you know these two have no business being together. Suddenly they notice you there. Embarrassing, isn’t it? What do you think the conversation would be? Would the couple be angry or would they be chagrined and scared that their secret has come out? What will you say to them and what will the results be if you do expose them? Use your imagination and free write.
Writing Prompt: - Write any 10 words on a paper – you can choose them randomly from a book or they can be every other word from a news commentator’s report. Use the first word in a sentence. Use the second word in a sentence that continues the same thought/story as the first sentence. Do this with each word until you have a 10-sentence “story”.
Challenge Exercise: Make a list of (up to) 10 questions asking for advice about streamlining your life and making it easier to feel creative. Now change roles, pretend those questions were asked by a new wanna-be writer and compose a realistic answer to each question just as if you were an advice columnist.
