Got Inspiration? Five Inspirational Writing Tips That No One’s Told You

We live in a busy world. All of us, even those with an unusual amount of downtime, find ourselves battling everything from television and social media to friends, jobs and attempts at exercising once in a while. And yet, as writers, sometimes we find that long periods of inactivity are even more destructive for our writing than periods of busyness. Why?

Maybe procrastination is stamped in our genes or maybe we’ve traded the instant pleasures of the internet for the long-reaching joy of writing. Whatever the reason for our self-sabotaging behavior, I’ve compiled a list of helpful inspiration hints for writers who are busy or bored alike.

Writing Is Ritual.

Try to write in the same place as often as possible, whether it’s that hole in the wall coffee shop in Brooklyn with the killer delicious Americanos or your neighborhood Starbucks or your favorite table in the local college library’s literary section or the corner in your kitchen right next to the coffee pot. Returning to the same place again and again for writing will build an instant association between that place and writing. And returning to the same coffee shop again and again may get you a discount. Or some odd inquiries about how someone who looks as shabby as you can afford to ‘never work.’

Some authors have certain objects that they surround themselves with when writing- special pens, a stuffed animal, an inspiration board on the wall. Use these objects as an automatic signal that it’s time to write. If you have a piece of clothing or jewelry that is somehow tied to your story (maybe a character wears a scarf all the time), try wearing it when you sit down to write. If you’re lucky enough to have a sexy muse in real life, ask him or her to sit by while you write. Just try not to get too distracted!

Create a playlist on your computer or on a CD (or on your mp3 player) and fill it with songs that remind you of your current project. Listen to this playlist whenever you sit down to write. Songs carry strong memory signals and will remind you of your project, how you felt when you worked on it last, etc. Sometimes you just need some Radiohead, right?

Create Deadlines For Yourself.

Set a timer or stopwatch for ten minutes at a time, and write as much as you can until the timer goes off. Get up, walk around, return. Set the beeper again. Sometimes deadlines, even self-imposed, can trigger writer-adrenaline and remind you of how important your task is.

If you can, set these ten (or fifteen) minute sprints throughout the day, with other activities in-between. Over time it will become second nature to write in a short period of time, and these sprints can be conducted during commutes, in waiting rooms, before bed or after work. Or while you’re waiting for the cop to write out your speeding ticket.

Re-reading Is Your Friend

I always tell people at my panels… as humans, we are 365 different people in a year. As writers, we are many more than that, even. Think of all of the worlds and universes living your head! It’s easy to find yourself frustrated, confused or just tired after working on a project for a long time. The further you get from the beginning, the harder it is to go on. And many times this means you walk away from your story for longer and longer and longer… and eventually you might lose it all together.

Now, some authors claim to reread their entire piece before starting to write every day. Personally, I could never read that much in one sitting, every day! Instead, I suggest you start your writing session by rereading the beginning chapter of your current project. The beginning chapter is usually the starting point and the spark that first interested you enough that you signed yourself up for… oh, two months, four months, two years, ten years of writing this book.

That first chapter holds your passion, your inspiration, and the person you were on day one of the project. You’ll never be that person again, but if you familiarize yourself with him or her as often as possible, you can still at least imitate them. You can find that smirky sense of humor, that touch of melancholy, that scream of agony you felt when you poured your last breakup into a story.

Recapture that feeling. Use it as fuel. After all, writing about your bad ex is more legal than unleashing a box of hairy spiders into their apartment.

Explain Your Book To A Stranger

One way to kickstart your interest in your own project is to explain it to a stranger. It forces you to boil the essence of your story down, and if you pay attention to the key details that you mention to a stranger, you may discover the aspects of the story that you subconsciously prioritize.

Maybe you say: “This book is about a mother trying to get her crazy children to visit her and then aliens land and the mother has to save all of her children and her oldest son is just such a frustrating little jerk that he doesn’t appreciate when she saves him from the aliens!”

Well, sounds like your book has a lot of mother/child complexity. And maybe you need to focus more on that mother/child relationship and less on the aliens’ planetary politics.

Write With One Person In Mind

I actually learned this tip from something that Coldplay frontman Chris Martin said, and I’ve used it ever since. Write your book or story with one person in mind. Don’t try to picture a slew of people, like fifth-graders or divorced women or Canadians. Narrow it down to one person, maybe a beloved family member or a special friend, a harsh critic or a hero. Or maybe an enemy.

Write for and to them, make them laugh, make them cry, make them want to read a whole series about the characters you’ve created. Doing this will help you to focus in moments where you feel lost, because you can think “What would Suzie want to see happen here?” You know that one person well, so your connection with them can dictate the story you need to tell.

The person you write for can be yourself, of course, but sometimes having it be someone else will help you bypass mental roadblocks.

In conclusion, inspiration can be flighty, so any methods of grounding it are always helpful. Create habits for yourself, learn to write in spurts so that you can write even when you’re away from your special writing haven, familiarize yourself with your work as often as possible, explain your book to strangers and write with one person in mind.

Good luck and happy writing!