Find the motivation to work on your manuscript.
So you got this great book idea! You’re excited to write it! (Maybe you even tell others about it.) You start planning it out (or not), you get your butt in the chair, and the words start flowing.
Until they don’t.
All writers have been there. It’s only natural to occasionally lose interest or motivation for a manuscript you’re working on. This can happen during the first draft if we get stuck on a plot point, or it can happen during a round of revisions when it feels like so much work to go back and rewrite entire sections.
I’ve had many conversations about this with other writers over the years, and the good news is there are lots of ways to find the motivation to get working on a manuscript again. I’ve compiled these tips for you here.about finding the motivation to get working on a manuscript again. I’ve compiled these tips for you here.
Ways to get writing again:
Give the manuscript some space.
The simple act of taking some time off from a story can work wonders. If working on a piece has become drudgery for you, and you have the luxury of time, then step away from it for a while. I would even encourage you to work on something else for a bit, something short that lets you continue to exercise your creative muscles, but that gives your brain a break from the story world you had become frustrated with.
Tell someone about your story.
The simple act of telling someone about your story can reinvigorate your own enthusiasm for it. This really only works if the person you’re talking to is also excited (or can at least pretend to be excited) about your piece. Encourage them to ask you questions about the characters and the story world as much as possible. This process can help you discover a detail that may help you get unstuck. More than likely, it will get you excited all over again with the story idea you fell in love with in the first place.
Create a Pinterest board.
Pinterest is a GREAT source of inspiration. It provides a fun way to play with your creative energy and design the mood and ambiance of your story world. You can create boards for each of your main characters, which is a fun way to spend time with them and get to know them better. You can also create boards representative of the setting. The sky, or your imagination, really is the limit with Pinterest. You can keep these boards for your eyes only by making them secret boards. Or you can keep them public so others interested in your vibe can discover them. If you’re working on a series, these boards are a great thing to share in your newsletter, so your readers can spend more time in your story world.
Interview your antagonist.
The process of questioning your antagonist (and coming up with the answers) can help you dive into your story on a deeper level. If you’ve been stuck on some problem in your plot, this exercise just might give you the aha moment you need to get unstuck. This exercise only works if your antagonist is a person/being who can be interviewed. If society is the antagonist of your novel, you can still perform an interview if you imagine you’re questioning a council that is representative of the society. This process can help fill in backstory and enrich your world building. In the process, you will likely become motivated to continue working on your manuscript (at least certain sections of it).
Create a map.
Forget about your characters and plot for a moment. Just spend some time in the setting of your story. If you don’t yet have a map of the world of your book, now is the time to step back from the manuscript and create one. Even if you’re writing contemporary fiction, it’s still important to have a clear visual of where your story takes place. If you’re writing middle grade for example, what is the layout of the protagonist’s house or classroom (Or wherever they spend most of their time)?
Or maybe you’ve already sketched out a rough map of your setting. Great! But if you find you’re stuck or temporarily unmotivated to write, spend some time being creative with your story world so you can get excited all over again. Can you take one portion of your existing map and make an enlarged exceedingly detailed version of it? What surprises will you discover as you walk around in your story world for a while? These surprises can sometimes be enough to motivate you to continue writing your story.
Give yourself a deadline.
Sometimes the only way to get writing again is to be forced to. Often times, just getting started is the hardest part. Once you’re in the chair and have opened the Word document (or notebook), every word you write can motivate you to write another, even if you’re leaving a lot of blanks that have to be filled in later. So find something that will force you to get into that chair and open up the manuscript.
Sometimes an upcoming critique group meeting is enough to get me writing when I don’t feel like it. If you don’t have an agent yet, keep an eye out for conferences and webinars where agents will be open to submissions after their presentations, and use those dates as deadlines. Or you can look for awards that your manuscript could be a contender for (if you finish the revisions in time). Maybe you’ve received some fan mail asking when your next book will be released. Use that as motivation to get your butt in the chair and power through feelings of drudgery. Write for your readers.
If you need extra motivation sticking to a deadline, consider finding an accountability partner. This could be a friend, fellow writer, or a professional book coach. Read more about my affordable book coaching Accountability Partner Package.
Write for carrots.
Maybe you’re someone who loves the feeling that comes from crossing something off your list. That rewarding feeling can be a powerful motivator to do the thing on the list. Add “write X number of words” to your to-do list. And if it’ll help, give yourself a carrot to chase. Maybe you earn a piece of fancy chocolate just for opening the manuscript. And maybe you get another reward for achieving your word count goal for the day. I love the digital rewards offered by 750Words.com.
The point of this article is to help you get excited about writing your story again. Sometimes we have to enter the manuscript from a side path. Do something creative tangentially with your story and see if it doesn’t get you motivated to write once more.