What to do when you're just not feeling it

Getting yourself into the chair

When asked whether I enjoy writing, I often reply that no, I don’t, but I enjoy having written. It’s a joke (and not even one of mine, I’m pretty sure I nicked it) but with a morsel of truth. I have good days and bad days. Sometimes my target is 1500 words and I drag myself to the finish line, stopping at 1507. Occasionally I soar past my goal without even really noticing, and look up at the end of the working day to see I’ve written closer to 3000.

But virtually every day, as I approach my laptop, I don’t want to do it. There’s a David Bowie quote I’m reminded of. He said,

“Always go a little further into the water than you feel you're capable of being. Go a little bit out of your depth and when you don't feel your feet are quite touching the bottom, you're just about in the right place to do something exciting.”

I think it’s great advice, but being out of your depth, while exhilarating, is scary. And though writing a novel — unlike fighting fires, or working in the mines, or any number of other activities — isn’t actually dangerous, it can feel it. We might be baring our soul, or we might just be worrying about spending hour after hour on a project that might not see the light of day, when we could be doing other, more fun, things. It can feel like we’re wasting out time, even before we’ve really started.

But (for me, anyway), starting to write is like jumping into an ice-cold pool. I stand on the edge. I don’t want to jump in. I want to turn around and do almost anything else. But, and this has taken me a while to realise, I know that once I’m in and the initial shock (which is never as painful as the anticipation of it) has worn off, I’ll have a perfectly nice time swimming around in the water. I’ll probably even enjoy it, and may not want to get out again for hours.

It’s the getting in that hurts, getting over that initial resistance. So how do we do it? Here’re some things to try.

• Set yourself a timer. Freewrite for 5 minutes, about anything. Why not write about why you don’t want to write today? Or a person you met yesterday, or what’s happening in your life or on the news? Don’t edit. Don’t censor.

• Following on from the above, why not keep a writing journal? Add a few lines every time you sit down to write. About what you hope to achieve today perhaps, or (and this is what I do) about how your last writing session went. The latter has the advantage of reminding you that yesterday you ended up enjoying it, or failing that, at least it didn’t kill you.

• If you really don’t want to write today, try to work out why. Is your target too high? Why not lower your goal, from 1000 words to 500, for example. Sometimes I will go lower. I’ve been known to set myself a 50 word target. Even if this is all I do, it still keeps my mind in the world of the book. And usually I’ll surpass my target anyway. I might not hit 1000, but I’ll get a lot closer than if I’d just walked away.

• Try starting off by lightly editing what you did last time. You’ll find yourself adding bits here and there, changing words, and inevitably you’ll reach the point you stopped last time and want to carry on.

• A good trick to make all this easier is to finish each writing session in the middle of something. A chapter, a scene, even a line. That way, the starting off is smoother. The water is warmer. You know what comes next. Sitting down to start writing a chapter can feel daunting. Sitting down to finish a line of dialogue? Less so.

• Sometimes the resistance to write is the work telling you something — you need to take a step back. This can be hard to identify, but if that’s the case, maybe look at your plan again, if you have one. Or read what you have so far. Try to hear what the work is telling you. Some days not writing is actually the best way of moving the project forward, but learn to tell the difference between adjustment and procrastination.

• If all else fails, remind yourself why you want to write. Remind yourself you might not love writing (or not today, anyway), but you do love the feeling of having written. And there's only one way to get that feeling, right? So, some days we just have to quit whining, and just f**king do it.