How hard is it to write when you’re not ‘in the mood’?

It’s terrible. It’s non-productive. It’s debilitating … No - it’s your chance!

They do say “The bad events in life come to you because you can handle them.”  I hate that saying, I think it sucks. But there might be a bit of truth in it (she yielded).

Do you have a deadline?  An edit that has to be with your publisher by a certain date, or the first fifteen pages of your manuscript that has to be polished by the end of the month so you can enter it in a competition?

What’s making you tick-on regardless of your feelings of doubt or what’s happening around you in the real world? What makes you write when you don’t want to?  I’m not an advocate of ‘Writers Block’ techniques at all, because life interferes with the writer and the writer has to write anyway (by choice, demand from publisher, or sheer love - perhaps all three - probably just the last).

Things I’ve noticed when this block-thing happens to me:

I hate what I’ve written and have no enthusiasm to make it better  - but I can’t stop editing the odd sentence or paragraph in order to attempt to make my story better.

I have no idea where the plot is going - but I can’t help but add to my notes about          where I think it might or might not go, and I change the odd sentence  or paragraph in        order to attempt to make my story better.

It’s just that I’ve lost perseverance … or have I?

The answer:

Well, for me - it’s to choose a few books from my bookshelf and flick through the pages (sorry, Kindle people - this is a real ‘book in my hands’ moment but I’m sure you can make it work for you via Kindle/Adobe/all the rest … I do, when I have to).         

What do I look for?

How do my favourite authors write?  What do I like about the way they write?  I see such paradoxical styles: first person; third person; multi POV - and I enjoy what they write, whichever style they write in. They have a ‘voice’ and I hear it as I’m reading. I live the story. I follow the characters as though I were they.

The result:

I go back to my manuscript and remember my intent: to tell a story my kind of reader would want to read; to craft a story in the best way possible at this stage of my learning; to write a story of fiction; to learn, learn, learn how to keep going (which is the only way, I believe, we will learn how to do what we love to do and cannot stop doing).

Write, write, write … even if it’s only one paragraph, an edit of one chapter, or one big note of plot points.

Write, write, write is the hardest to do and the easiest way forwards … what a dilemma!

Or is it?