Oh no, you’ve let your creative mind go cold again. It’s like the Arctic reached your creative brain and you’re stepping over the muse corpse for a revive. For most of us, starting to write again after a hiatus is like tracking through snow and dodging a yeti. Wouldn’t it be nice to find a hot spring to thaw out?
Good news — you can!
When I joined Medium nearly 3 months ago (jeepers, where does the time go?) I decided to take a month-long hiatus from novel writing so I could give my all to the platform. Mission accomplished. I joined the cult. The support from wonderful writer-readers and pocket money encourages me like a woman possessed by a blogging god. Posting stayed my primary focus. “I’ll return to novel shiz once I am established,” I kept telling myself. Another month or so flew by.
Enough is enough. Life is about balance and juggling.
If I’m honest, some of my procrastination stems from not knowing what to write next. I wrote a detailed post about it here.
I have been trying to jump back into The ImmorTales world. My brain struggles to make the switch. Writing non-fiction (my posts) is vastly different to emerging into a fictional world and letting my mind wander. Non-fiction is easier to write. I’ve been spewing off the top of my head, lame jokes and all. And for the honour of Grayskull, it’s been fun.
For me, the difference between non-fiction writing and fiction writing is like talking vs. meditation. Non-fiction writing is akin to talking and fiction writing is akin to meditation. Changing the mental state is a challenge for many of us.
Rejoice — The breakthrough!
Many writers have their own methods for breaking their funks. I’m sharing what worked for me… this time.
Entice Your Muse: Listen to Music
Crank that stereo. Give your neighbours the shits. For me, I bopped away to 80s rock and relaxed with a couple of drinks. I can’t say the method is productive in a traditional sense. But the music acted like a hot tub for a frosty muse. The music created a mind shift as I forgot about the content writing. I went to bed knowing in the next day I would look at the novel shiz again. And I did. Without bloodshed.
Set a Writing Goal for the Week
After music called The Muse home, I set a goal for the following week. Goals give us direction and set intentions. I can’t stress this enough, keep the goal small or the muse will act in flight or fight if she’s sassy. The word “goal” has become so loaded. Maybe a better term is “tasks”. I’ll stick with “goal” for now.
My goal is to keep the creative wheels turning. Warm up the creative engine. I have the freedom to do whatever as long as I am in The ImmorTales world every day. So far, I have read notes and flung shiz at my screen (brain dumped). I ponder as I go about my day.
Next week, I’ll set a harder goal.
Last week I flopped because I failed to set a goal for myself and found myself in the continuous “tomorrow is good” situation. I have messages to check and stories to read after all. Ah, sweet social media.
Other goals can be a little word count or a decided amount of time for writing, plotting, or world-building. The key is to keep moving. Even if the dose is small.
Write First Thing in the Day (Morning Writing)
Make your writing a priority — work on your story as early as possible in the day. A lot of writers get up a bit earlier to write. Good for them, but I hate the world in the morning. No amount of coffee wakes my brain up to function. The universe only knows, I’ve tried. I misread and misinterpret the written word. Some mornings, a little thing called life gets in the way.
The deal I have with myself is to work on my novels as soon as possible during the day. Even if it’s 10 minutes before I leave the house. Turn those creative engine wheels.
Working on creative projects as soon as possible in the day is a message to the brain that this is your priority. Honestly, I used to scoff at this advice until I tried starting in the morning. At the beginning of the year, I was on fire, pumping out the words. Completed a novel-length draft. So much for my short promo story.
I wrote about psychological hacks for writers here.
Takeaway
✅ Listen to music
✅ Set a small writing goal for the week
✅ Play in your world as early as possible in the day
The Muse is enjoying the warm gentle wake-up. Slowly, the excitement towards our novel world returns. She might be up for writing a snip. You can read all about snips here.
~*~
THE WRITING ASYLUM 
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