Stuck on writing? Here's five things I do!

Writing can be quite tricky for all those involved, especially creative writing. As much as I love it, I can't tell you its very easy. Sometimes, and there are hundred different things going on and I don't have time or the motivation or just have a hard time getting started with writing. Some of the things I love doing to help this are in this blog post.

Using Timers

I've used timers a lot to do writing sprints and sometimes to start a long writing session I find these really useful. Just writing is really useful and means that i can just get started writing a bunch of words and then sculping them into something polished and publishable later. Having a time limit (15 mins normally) allows me to focus. Whilst writing this blog post, I have a timer going for 15 munities. This doesn't mean that you need to stop after the time period you set, but do the exercise many times to find where you loose focus and set it up there, take a break and then try again. feel free to make the timer longer or shorter depending if you feel like you can focus for longer or not that day, there is no shame in altering the exersise to what you feel you can take. if you can write in 15 minutes per week, depending on your word count, there is a chance you could have a novel or even half a novel written in a year.

Also if you feel like your phone is going to distract you, there are many apps you can download to help you with this and a simply google or search on the Apple store will give you so many to choose from. For example, one I quite like is Forest, but also using an online timer from google searches work quite well.

Used music

Music in writing can be quite hard and weird for some people. Personally, for me, I go through stages of needing music to work and not depending on the day. When writing longer pieces like my novels I need it. Writing long form gets lonely and is very boring whrn you're just hearing your keys, so what I love to do is put some ambient music or sound at the very least on and write to it. Another activity you could try is writing to the emotions of music or views from a Youtube video. It works quite well for poetry I find, some pieces I've written are based on it. You can make sure that there is something to write before, or you could set a "write to five songs" goal, for example depending on how you work.

Prompt Generator

Prompt generators can be quite hard to use in the sense of getting a good idea out of them. Sometimes I have used prompt generators for my writing and have never gotten a single one there, but it's fun to press buttons. Who doesn't like pressing buttons and having a new prompt come out? Just me? Okay. You should consider Redsey Prompt Generator and their contests, too. These allow you to write to a specific prompt and I have loved doing a few of them. Some of my Short stories have come from there and it's a lifesaver.

Used theme writing

Theme writing must seem like a lot of work but it really isn't. Writing a little peice on a theme that you've noticed in your life, in the media you watch, from a word generator can be really helpful to kickstart your writing. Maybe writing a story based on the theme of revenge could be right up your street? Consider writing anything as a theme - but the largest themes are ones which unite human experiences and know this when you're picking something to write about - or let a random theme generator do it for you. Its up to you.

Used freewriting techniques

Using freewriting can be quite relieving and you should know that theme writing is different compared to freewriting, where you don't write about a theme, you just write a project, or even randomness on a blank document can work really well. you need to set a timer and use/don't use music with this depending on how you feel. this can help show you that writing can be utter crap and be okay. you're just warming your creative muscles.