This post is for writers who haven’t been writing—especially those who haven’t worked on a passion project in months or years.
I was in your position for most of the last few years. As an editor and coach, I was surrounded by writing tips and ideas. My world was full of inspiring authors, including my own clients. But tips and inspiration weren’t enough to help me. As cliché as it may sound, I needed a perspective change.
It turns out the obvious obstacles to writing aren’t all that they seem. And if we focus on these surface-level challenges, we can miss the deeper issues.
Four Obstacles to Writing (and the Real Problems They Hide)
The “obstacles” in this list may feel very real—especially if you’ve spent years thinking you’re not motivated enough, you’re lazy, you have no time, or you’d have to turn down too many pleasures to write. I want to affirm that there are real barriers between you and the writing you want to do. They just might not be the barriers you expect. And once you get a clear look at them, it will be easier to find your way around them—or to destroy them with the power of your pen.
Obstacle 1: “I’m not motivated enough to prioritize writing like the ‘real writers.’”
If other writers can write regularly, surely you should be able to. If you don’t, do you not love writing enough? Are you an imposter who should remove “writer” from all your social media bios?
This is really two reasons in one: “I’m not motivated enough” and “I don’t love writing enough to be a ‘real writer.’” But lack of motivation can contribute to imposter syndrome, and imposter syndrome can hamper motivation. So let’s tackle them as a pair.
Motivation deficits
Motivation levels don’t always represent your values. Low motivation sometimes indicates the following:
- Lack of self-confidence. It’s been a while since you last wrote—and perhaps since you met any “significant” goal. It’s hard to believe you could write regularly or write anything of value, so why try?
- Forgetfulness. When you go too long without writing, you might lose touch with the things you like about it. The associated happiness and satisfaction seem less real than the effort it will take to write again.
- Mental health conditions and brain differences. Motivation involves executive function, and executive functioning impairments are connected to conditions like depression and brain differences like ADHD and autism. For example, I have ADHD. When my brain is uncooperative, I can’t “just do” things the way some people seem to—no matter how much I want to. I make accommodations for myself, and that helps, but it isn’t always easy. If you have chronic motivation troubles in multiple areas of your life, it’s not your fault. And it may be worth asking a professional about. At the very least, you may want to look for information and tactics to help you work with your brain instead of against it. (Resources are linked at the bottom of this post.)
Maybe some writers have an impulse they can’t deny. They say writing is their sustenance, their breath, their constant obsession their entire lives. Their motivation may wane a little during the editing process, but they recover with relative ease. Good for them. But that’s not my experience, and it may not be yours. We can still be writers.
Imposter syndrome
If you’ve attached yourself to the word “writer,” but you aren’t motivated to write, it’s easy to feel like an imposter. This is understandable—and unhelpful. Imposter syndrome whispers that your integrity and sense of self are at stake. I’m not sure about you, but I can’t write under that kind of pressure.
Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be this way.
Your perception of “real writers” is only that, your perception. There’s a wide range of writers out there. Some write regularly. Some write in fits and starts. Some have that Writer Aesthetic and post pictures of their cozy writing spaces. Some are happy to manage a few lines on the bathroom floor between caregiving activities.
Remember that no one word sums up who you are. When you write, you’re a writer. When you go without writing for a long time, your past writing experience is still a part of you. You are always you. And you cannot lose that.
That said, if you feel like an imposter, take “writer” out of your social media bios—see if that alleviates the pressure.
Side note: If you truly don’t value writing as much as you used to, is that so bad? Our interests change. Activities we found identity in as teens become less relevant. This post is meant to help you write, but if that will no longer bring you joy, it’s okay to let go. I only ask that you identify what you do value and nurture your passion and motivation for that.
Obstacle 2: “I’m lazy.”
If your identity is on the line when you’re not “motivated enough” to write, then your morality is on the line when you’re “lazy.”
But “lazy” is just a label we slap onto ourselves or others, one that keeps us from investigating the actual obstacles to productivity. It’s not the real problem. I appreciate how Janet Burroway puts it in chapter 1 of Writing Fiction:
Many complain of their own laziness, but laziness, like money, doesn’t really exist except to represent something else—in this case fear, severe self-judgment, or what Natalie Goldberg calls “the cycle of guilt, avoidance, and pressure.”
Sound familiar? It does to me—even now, years after I banished “lazy” from my self-talk.
Our response to “laziness” is often shame. And while shame can motivate us in the short term, it weighs us down in the long term—which leads to more shame. It’s more productive to identify the feelings, thoughts, or mental health struggles behind the “lazy” label. Sometimes, we need a therapist’s help handling these deeper issues—or at least several long journaling sessions. But we can move forward in ways we couldn’t if we were truly “lazy.”
Obstacle 3: “I don’t have time.”
You’re not an imposter. You’re not lazy. But none of that matters if you’re too busy with work, school, family, and other obligations, right? Maybe you should wait until things calm down. Then you can write.
I encourage you to reconsider this idea.
Yes, it’s possible that every minute of your life is stuffed full of obligations you can’t deny. If that’s the case, please make time for yourself before you collapse.
For the rest of us, however, “I don’t have time” isn’t the full story. If it were, we’d never do anything that wasn’t precisely scheduled. A perspective shift is in order.
Sometimes, we think of writing as a sacred activity we must only approach when we have sufficient time, brainpower, and inspiration. I argue that writing is not that big of a deal. It does not require you to schedule large chunks of time for it each day. Nor is it some delicate operation that requires perfect circumstances. So don’t wait until you can give it several hours of focused effort every week. Don’t choose between giving it your best and giving it nothing. It’s okay to give it your leftover time and energy.
Shove writing into the cracks of your week the same way you do mobile games and texts to family. Schedule longer writing sessions as you can, just as you schedule occasional coffee dates with friends. It’s fine.
Alternatively, you can wait for a miraculous opening in your schedule. I don’t recommend this. As Burroway points out, “Obligations and pleasures accumulate, and if you’re lucky, life is always too full. … So it’s not that there will be no better time to develop the writing habit; there will be no other time.”
Side note: Yes, if you can develop a daily or weekly writing routine, that may be best. There’s a reason this approach has so many proponents. But it’s not the only approach that works.
Obstacle 4: “I can’t write without sacrificing my other pleasures, and I don’t want to.”
This one is tough to admit. So I’ll admit it first: I’ve always known if I could give up some easier, less fulfilling pastimes, I could write. But I didn’t have it in me to consistently say no to YouTube, sudoku, word games, and reading marathons. Saying no is hard!
So let’s reframe this. What if it wasn’t about saying no—and instead about saying yes?
Burroway summarizes what makes various pastimes possible even when she “doesn’t have time to write”: “What all those things have in common is that I don’t make myself do them; I allow myself. The lesson is not that I should give up any of those pleasures in order to write. It’s that I should allow myself also to write every day.”
This was the lesson I needed.
My favorite pastimes are neither obligations I must fulfill nor luxuries I must earn. I don’t moralize them or overthink them. I remember the good attached to an activity, and I allow myself to pursue it. On another day or at another hour, a different activity will take priority. No deprivation involved. There’s no reason I can’t think of writing similarly: as one more good thing that enriches my life.
I started small, reading sections of writing-related books at the beginning of my workday—thus using prime focus time for a non-work activity. And now I’m participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). These things take more time than I thought I could spare. But I’m allowing them anyway because I know they’re worth it. I know I am worth it.
You are worth it, too. Allow writing back into your life. Let it take up time, and let it happen imperfectly. It doesn’t matter how. If all you can do is listen to a writing-related podcast on the way to work, then start there and see where it takes you.
Getting Practical
Maybe it’s been years since you last spent much time writing. Perhaps part of you is impatient to take “practical” steps toward writing rather than waste time with all this reflection.
First, I’ll point out that uncovering and confronting obstacles is practical. So go ahead and reflect. Perhaps start with one or two of these questions: What keeps you from writing? Do your initial answers hide deeper struggles? What would it look like if those obstacles were gone? What good things would writing bring to your life? What would it feel like to write again? What would it look like to allow yourself to write?
Second, I promise my next post will get a little more “practical.” Well, as practical as it can get without giving advice that only applies to a small selection of writers. Look for it within a week or so.
Finally, if you’re prone to ruminating for countless weeks or months before acting, I suggest you cut yourself off. Take a step forward this week. Perhaps start small: Find one way to bring writing and related activities into your life, even if it’s just reading a book about storytelling. Or take a big step: Dive straight in via NaNoWriMo—it’s not too late to start, and you’d be welcome in my NaNo-centric Discord server (invite link expires Nov. 15, 2023). Some people are “NaNo Rebels” and use November for their own writing goals, separate from the traditional NaNoWriMo goal (writing 50,000 words of a new novel in a single month). You may find it easier to take the rebel route if you join NaNo mid-month.
You can write again. It’s okay if you need time to work through some obstacles. Eventually, whether today or next year, I believe you will write. Not because you have to. Not because you’re ready. Not because you’re a Writer™. Simply because you can.
Resources:
All quotes are from Janet Burroway’s Writing Fiction, 10th ed. The first chapter, “Whatever Works: The Writing Process,” inspired me in my own writing, which led me to draft this blog post.
Motivation: Whether or not you have ADHD, I recommend checking out the motivation-related YouTube videos from How to ADHD. You might start with her videos about fixing the “motivation bridge” and getting past your “wall of awful.”
Words Unbound 