Welcome (or welcome back) to my writing journey!
How are you all doing?
This post is part of my series “The Writer's Survival Kit“ and you can find the other post in the series here:
The Writer's Survival Kit #1 — Protecting your confidence
The Writer's Survival Kit #2 — How to write when you’re exhausted
The Writer's Survival Kit #4 — How to find (and keep) joy in writing
Every writer has times in their life when they write more and times when they write less. This is very natural. Creativity ebbs and flows, and ideas come and go. Sometimes, life takes over for a while and you don’t have time or energy to write because it’s all being spent doing something else. This isn’t wrong or bad, it’s just a part of life.
One of the problems writers often run into, however, is not being able to start writing again after taking a break from it. It’s much easier to continue something than to start it, and with writing especially — it’s hard to get back into that creative headspace once you leave it. Writing and storytelling have very unique requirements from your brain, and the more you do it the easier it will be to get into that headspace. After you’ve taken a break from writing, though, you’re going to need some time to shake the dust off and ease back into the right mindset.
The time it will take you to get back to feeling as comfortable with writing as you did before can be very frustrating. Writing won’t feel as comfortable and smooth as you remember it being, and a lot of people quit before they ever get back to the point where they feel comfortable again. The best advice I can give is simply to be kind to yourself. You can’t expect everything to be perfect from the get-go, so have compassion for yourself, and give yourself the space to stretch your writing muscles until you feel comfortable writing once more.
That advice is very general though (and you should probably take it regardless of whether you’re trying to come back from a break or not), so I’m also going to offer some other, more practical solutions and strategies you can use to try and get back to feeling comfortable. Hopefully they’ll also help you get back to that point more quickly than if you were just writing and hoping.
Sometimes, you just need to start a new project. If you’re trying to get back into writing a project you already started and it’s just not working, sometimes the right course of action is to drop it and work on something else. This doesn’t mean you have to drop it forever, far from that, but it does mean that maybe your troubles stem from the particular project you’re trying to work on and not from writing itself. A fresh start is a great way to wipe your slate clean and write without any of the additional pressure that comes from trying to continue writing something that is already half written.
In the case that you really want to keep working on an existing project, though, here are some pieces of advice that will hopefully help you do that. Let’s say that you were working on the first draft of a novel and you stopped writing it for whatever reason, and that your break from writing lasted six months. That’s a long time, and when you sit down, finally, to continue writing, the next chapter doesn’t flow from your fingertips. In fact, you can’t seem to even get one word on the page. What do you do?
The first, and most obvious step is to read what you’ve already written. This will help get you back into the world of the story, and refresh the plot and characters in your mind. Even if you only have a few pages written, reading them back will allow you to reconnect with the story. Not only that, it’ll help you slide back into the headspace you were in when you were writing those pages, which will help you write the next ones.
Reading what you’ve already written can also help remind you how much you love writing and how excited you were about that specific story idea. I started working on a sci-fi novel just about a year ago, and I took a break from writing it because university got insane and I had no time for anything but school. A few months ago I wanted to start working on it again, so I read what I’d written so far, and I had such a good time reading it that I kind of forgot that it was me who wrote it. It was a really surreal experience. I finished reading it and just sat there for a moment thinking “Wow, that sounds exactly like a book I’d love to read. I wish there was more of it.“ It was so crazy.
I immediately wanted to write new words for that project, and I was caught up in a wave of joy that swept over me at reading what I’d written and loving it. However, I didn’t. And I didn’t the next day either, or the day after that. I couldn’t get past reading and rereading what I’d written, and I couldn’t seem to add anything new or make any sort of progress.
So I moved on to replotting that project. It needed it, so that felt like the logical next step, and one I hoped would help me actually move forward with the writing part. Spoiler: it didn’t. I read and watched things about plotting, replotted, got some feedback, and replotted again. Even after all that I still couldn’t write, so I decided to enroll in a writing course on how to properly develop a book. The course was amazing, and it really helped me iron out some problems I’d been having with my story and my characters, and it got me to the point where I was the most excited about, and engaged with, my story that I’d ever been. Despite all that, I still wasn’t writing.
So what was going on? Clearly, this wasn’t a mechanical issue with my story, because even after doing all the things I was supposed to, I still couldn’t continue writing. I decided to take a deep dive into what was going on inside my head when I thought of continuing to write that story. Maybe that would tell me what was causing this. That introspection helped me identify a few potential causes.
I’ve talked a lot about overwhelm, and I believe that it’s the cause of so many of the issues I’ve had with writing. Overwhelm generally leads to avoidance and procrastination, and because writing a book is such a long process it’s really easy to become overwhelmed by it. When I wasn’t actively writing my book, despite still technically being in the middle of writing it, I didn’t feel like I was, because I wasn’t engaging with it regularly. I didn’t feel overwhelmed by it because I wasn’t actually working on it. Starting to work on it again would have thrust me back into that very overwhelming world, and so I procrastinated so I wouldn’t have to feel any of that.
Another reason is that I was worried I wouldn’t be able to continue writing in the same way. I’m not the same person I was when I started writing that story a year ago. I’m also not the same writer. I have a lot more experience under my belt and I’ve learned a ton about the craft of writing since then. Neither of these are bad things. In fact, me being a better writer now is a good thing! Also, I’m going to edit all of my writing anyway, so that would allow me to bring everything I’d written previously up to par with what I write now.
Me being a different person, however, may cause some problems. Because I’m not the same, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to write using the same tone as I had been a year ago. I was worried that my mindset wouldn’t be the same, and so the characters would feel different to a reader. These are valid concerns, but in practice they’re not something I needed to have worried about. Yes, I changed over the course of the year, but it wasn’t some sort of drastic change. At my core I’m still the same, and a year isn’t actually that much time. I still remember writing the characters, so I can continue to write them like I had when I started working on the story. Any issues or discrepancies will be solved by editing.
This worry proved to be something that wasn’t actually a problem, but the worry about the possibility of it being a problem kept me from writing. If I’d just written I would’ve seen very quickly that I was worried for nothing. This happens to me a lot. I tend to psych myself out and worry about things that, if I just tried, I would see were fine. I’m definitely not alone in this, and I’m working on it.
The key worry, I think, that kept me from writing, was the worry that I’d be disappointed in what I wrote. I was so in love with what I’d already written, and so happy with it, that I was really worried that what I wrote now wouldn’t live up to it, and that it would ruin what I’d already written. That worry was paralyzing. I was so scared that I wouldn’t be able to create on the level of what I’d written, that I couldn’t even try.
I ended up writing lots of different things instead of continuing to work on my story. I wrote standalone scenes (but none that had to do with my story), I came up with ideas for new projects to write, I wrote here on Substack, but I never wrote things for my novel. I just couldn’t get myself to overcome the fear that I wouldn’t be able to do it justice. This was the story idea I was most excited about. I’ve never loved an idea more, and I was so scared I’d mess it up.
The thing that helped me break out of that fear was, actually, writing this post. It made me express my fears, which in turn helped me come to terms with them. I love this project. I want to see it out in the world. I want to share it with people. To do that, I need to actually write it. So I will. We’ve ended up once again at my one core principle — just write anyway.
If it doesn’t live up to what I wrote before, I’ll edit it until it does. I still have the ideas, I still love the story, and I still know who my characters are. I really improved the story when I replotted it, so that’s extra proof that I’m still capable of doing the story justice, and I am determined to keep writing it and working on it until it’s done. That’s really all I need, and this post has made me realize that all of that was true.
So, instead of using the word “hopefully” I am going to say these things as certainties. I will continue writing my novel. I will work on it until the writing is done. I will spend time and effort in order to bring my vision to life.
My advice for you is to articulate your fears. Truly face what is holding you back. When you acknowledge it and understand how it impacts you, you’ll drain most of its power. Do what you have to do to overcome it. You have the ability to finish what you’re working on. When you internalize that and really believe it yourself, you’ll be able to push through whatever’s stopping you, and see your project through.
What’s the number one thing stopping you from writing? What would help you get past it?
Talk soon :)
Shira
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Ugh I wish I'd read this when I was starting up again! I guess my instance was a bit different. Much longer break and I was starting from scratch. For me, it's been more about getting back into a comfortable cadence. Life's gotten in the way with work and kids, but I'm tapping back in comfortably so far.
I'm... not so keen on reading my old work. I'm afraid it will be a bit too cringe. I'm articulating this fear and am fine on not acting on it, hahaha.
This post was helpful to me. I’m currently still putting off edits for book 3, and I’m not sure why. I need to do some introspection!