Five Ways to Rediscover Your Writing Joy

You started writing because you loved writing, right? The power to make something from nothing, to create, to bring characters and events into being and take readers along with you on an emotional journey. It was heady. Powerful. Do you remember that feeling?

Now: years later, do you still have that feeling? Every time you write? Even sometimes? For many of us, even though it started out so fun, the act of writing can become downright unpleasant. It’s work. Some days that work feels like a grind. Especially if you’ve professionalized it, entered the world of publishing and contracts and deadlines, want to can get smothered under have to.

There’s nothing wrong with professionalizing your writing. If you want to write productively, most of us need to do that to some degree. We have to sit down to write on days that we don’t feel like it, produce text that doesn’t make our heart sing. Writing is work, and sometimes it’ll feel like work.

But that doesn’t mean it can’t sometimes feel like play, too.

Here are five what-if questions you can ask yourself that might help bring joy back into your writing process. Not all of these will likely work for you; in writing, one size pretty much never fits all. But you deserve a little joy, no matter where you are in your writing process or career. So let’s take a shot at having some fun.

What if you didn’t write today? If you have a daily writing process, you’re likely committed to it, which is great. When I’m under a tight deadline, I set myself a daily writing goal. But sometimes, when I sit down to write, I ask myself this question. Ugh, I don’t want to write. So… what if I didn’t? Much of the time, the reminder of what I’m working toward is enough to re-energize me. If I didn’t write today, I’d have to write more tomorrow, so I’m better off putting words down now — I chose this pace on purpose. Sometimes the question reminds me that writing is one of the activities I enjoy most in my life, and it’s a reward, not a punishment. And yes, sometimes asking the question leads to not writing that day, and that’s fine too. Some days are like that! So far it hasn’t caused me major career trauma!

What if you wrote out of order? I am a lifelong draft-in-whatever-order writer, but a lot of people aren’t. And your process is your process; I respect that. But… if you haven’t tried jumping ahead, maybe give it a shot. If you’re ground to a halt on Chapter 3 and the joy is gone, maybe try writing another scene you know you need, no matter where in the manuscript it’ll end up. What about the big emotional climax? What about–gasp–the ending? Maybe it works for you, maybe it doesn’t, but you’ll never know until you try.

What if you make a bad choice? The fear of going down the wrong path in your writing can be paralyzing. So if you’re working on a scene and it feels like torture, go ahead and mess it up. Make bad choices over and over on purpose. Write the clunky prose. Let your characters act completely out of character. Write the dialogue where people say what they’re thinking in the baldest, starkest terms. Throw totally out of left field twists (guy with a gun! long-lost baby! evil twin! surprise earthquake!) in there. You can delete it tomorrow, but today, take joy in making the whole thing all wrong.

What if productivity is joy? A lot of suggestions for making your writing fun involve doing exercises that aren’t intended to directly move your manuscript forward (like, well, the suggestion I just made two sentences ago.) But that may not be for you. For some of us, part of our joy in writing comes from making measurable progress. I find that the easiest goal to set is word count, because it’s purely quantitative and easily measured. Maybe I say, OK, I’m writing 500 words, and then I do. Are those words bad? Sure, they might be! But they exist, which makes them superior to words that don’t! Set yourself a modest goal and achieve it, and see how that makes you feel.

What if you wrote somewhere you’ve never written before? You can shake it up by writing something different, as we’ve covered, but you could also try writing somewhere different. Again, this may or may not work for you, but it’s probably worth a try. If you’re stuck at home and you’re usually a dining room table writer, how about the couch? Bed? Facing the room instead of the window, or the window instead of the room? If you’ve got more flexibility, a coffee shop? Outdoors? In your car (driver’s seat or passenger side)? Some writers, get this, type their work into their phones on the subway or bus. Writing can happen anywhere. See where else it might happen for you.

Q: What other recommendations do you have for fellow writers who want to recapture joy in their writing process?

Greer Macallister

Raised in the Midwest, Greer Macallister earned her MFA in creative writing from American University. Her historical novels have been named Book of the Month, Indie Next, LibraryReads, Target Book Club, and Amazon Best Book of the Month picks and optioned for film and television. Her latest novel, The Thirteenth Husband, is inspired by Aimee Crocker, the Paris Hilton of the Gilded Age. Macallister also writes the ongoing Five Queendoms epic fantasy series as G.R. Macallister. A regular contributor to Writer Unboxed and the Chicago Review of Books, she lives with her family in Boston, MA. www.greermacallister.com

www.greermacallister.com/