Writing Woes

[TravellerTerrace]

Writing is my passion. It's something I love to do and something I hope to share with others, but something's holding me back and I don't know what.

 

A lot of times, I feel like writing is the only thing that I'm good at, so I sit down, and when I write, people love it. People come up to me and tell me just how much they loved what I wrote.

 

But lately, I've felt myself unable to even come to write, even though I know I want to. I find myself unable to focus at all, to the point where it actually hurts my head to focus. I'm not sure what I can do about this.

 

Does anybody else know this feeling, or know how to help?

[Ratynda]

Aaaah, the writer's block. I know the feeling. What distractions are you facing? Are you in your ideal working environment? There may be some environmental things getting in the way of you being able to focus. I know for me when I get into this cycle, it's often caused by me associating the gross unmotivated feeling with the hobby itself. In those cases, I usually do my best to dissociate that feeling from what I do by just taking small steps and giving myself small victories. Even if it's just a paragraph, it's a paragraph that you successfully wrote.

[Haloquin]

I know this post is from a while ago but... Yep. I find stress makes focus harder and when my brain doesn't want to focus it hurts to make it, so I have to trick myself into doing the things I need to do (wandering from task to task and continually returning to the writing sometimes helps, like gently guiding a child back on track). With writing/painting/creative pursuits I tend to go in phases, about 6-12 months on one medium, then my interest shifts and I start to get really into something different. So I wrote poetry for about a year, and now I'm back to writing non fiction pieces and trying to write poetry makes my head fuzzy... But the poetry will come back round again! Perhaps you need a break, or a different style? If it is for fun, then don't make it a *should*, find how it needs to be expressed *now*. 

 

If, on the other hand, you have a goal that you are driving towards with it (like writing a novel?) then it'll take discipline, for certain! 

 

(Edited to add: I'm a published non fiction author, so some of my writing is just for fun and some is work, and they do require different approaches... But it sounds to me like you're doing it for fun so my main advice is not to put pressure on it!) 

[Haloquin]

Oooh, just saw this (pictured) and wondered if the concept might help? 

 

The basic premise is that Terry Pratchet only wrote 400 words a day, but consistently. If we can write just *200* words a day then we're setting an attainable goal and capable of writing dozens of books over our lifetime, if we choose!