Writing When You Don’t Feel Like Writing
By Amrit Hallan

This article is sort of a soliloquy because of late I have been doing exactly what I say, in this article, a writer shouldn’t be doing. I often find myself groping in the darkness of culpable escapism where I often try to create excuses for not writing. If I could use the same amount of creativity for the actual writing as I do with the sort of explanation I come up with, seriously, I would’ve completed at least two full-length novels. So in between, if I get carried away and sound a bit rude, please excuse my indulgence.

Writers come in many avatars, but the prominent among them are the professionals and the amateurs. Amateur writers have no fixed schedules; they generally spend their time reading "how to write" articles, and they basically write to have fun or to “express” themselves. I won’t comment on how seriously they take their writing because once I met an accomplished writer at a writers’ gathering, and he had opted out of the reading session because he thought his writing was too abstract to be understood by anybody but himself. If I sound a bit condescending, I don’t mean to, because I’ve been an “amateur” writer all my life and it’s only recently when my writing has started fetching me some moolah.

Professional writers, on the other hand, are often accountable for how they write, how much they write, and in what time they write. They constantly have to worry about getting “accepted,” because acceptance often leads to (well, not in all the cases) money, which avoids a writer like rain avoids a desert.

Once you start writing professionally, you can no longer claim to be a victim of your elusive muse. If you really need your muse, then you have to catch hold of it, and tether it to the leg of your table.

But we are humans, emotional humans, moody humans, humans with good attitude and bad attitude. We have our ups and downs, lows and highs, fasts and slows. No matter how hard we try to maneuver our thoughts and emotions, sometimes our mind has its own agenda and refuses to tackle the problem at hand. This is more so with writers, who are extremely sensitive by nature.

During such times, you have to be manipulative – the word is not as bad as it sounds. You have to entice your mind, stimulate it, arouse it, feed it with something it craves for, or pester it till the end of time. We mostly have to focus on the last option – pester – because not always the mind can be stimulated. Here are a few points that always bring my mind back to the desired track.

== DETERMINATION AND PERSEVERANCE ==

Believe me, they do work, old-fashioned however much they sound. If you feel your brain has turned into a stone and your imagination has turned into a viscous clot, keep writing. You may feel like passing out, you may feel like throwing up, you may even feel like wowing never to write again, but don’t give up. I do that, and it hundred per cent gives me good result and I can vouch for it. Keep writing gibberish if that is what that comes out. Tell yourself there is nothing you can do but write even if that writing is the clumsiest of writings you’ve come across or hope to come across, because you have to meet a deadline. Telling yourself there’s no escape works wonders sometimes. Avoid procrastination like plague if you ever want to be a successful professional writer. Something is always better than nothing.

To add on to this, I just received a quotation from Confucius where he says, "It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop."

Tell yourself once and for all that there is no escape. Writing is no fun; it is as hard an occupation as any other. You need to be devoted to your writing like a disciple is devoted to his or her deity.

== HAVE A PROFESSIONAL’S ATTITUDE ==

I was writing weekly articles for an online management portal when Suzy, my dog, died. Although the articles used to be technical, what differentiated them from other articles was that they used to be humorous. Being very close to her, I went into deep mourning. I didn’t utter a single word for two days and my family got alarmed. On the third day I had to send my article because its link was to be included in that week’s newsletter. My first instinct was to write them an e-mail and tell them that I wouldn’t be able to send the article – especially a humorous article. But somewhere, something told me I would be able to do it, and if I could do it then, I could do it any time. So I wrote the article and it was well-received.

== READ ABOUT SUCCESSFUL WRITERS ==

I often visit www.nytimes.com (this might not be the only site to visit, it’s just that I have it bookmarked) to check out the latest books that are being published. There are hordes of writers getting published every week and they write so well! To tell you the truth I grew desperate. Ever since I’ve started going through their books section, my writing has intensified.

== SELF-MOTIVATE==

I have many ways of getting myself to writing. First of all, I don’t believe that you can only write when you’re hit by the rays of inspiration. If that was the case, the guys who have to write everyday must be really lucky to be bombarded continuously by a cornucopia of inspiration! If you read about successful people, a common thread is that they are so motivated and self-assured. They don’t wait for the opportunity, they look for it, and if they don’t find it, they create it. Same goes for inspiration and motivation. If you’re an intelligent person like I am (grin-grin-grin), you know that nothing can motivate you but yourself. It has to come from within. You know you can write. So write.

== WRITER’S BLOCK? BULLSH*T! ==

There is no thing as writer’s block. It’s an excuse perpetrated by lazy writers who want to explain why they can’t write. When I’m not writing, I’m not suffering from writer’s block-- I’m simply not writing, I’m simply wasting my time doing things I shouldn’t be doing and I’m very well aware of that.

I’m often awed by the classics I read – by Garcia, by Tolstoy, and others – does it seem these guys ever suffered from writer’s block? Could they afford to suffer from writer’s block? Just imagine the quantity of work they had to do while writing and re-writing drafts of hundred and hundreds of pages, dipping the wooden pen into the ink pot again and again. Today we have the most sophisticated word-processors; we can organize a-few-hundred-pages of manuscript with a few clicks and we have all the information available to us. If we still can’t write, well, too bad. But please don’t talk about writer’s block. It’s just a moniker for not-writing.

== READ GOOD BOOKS AND TAKE NOTES ==

I have a collection of some really great books. Now something great to me could be trite to you, so let us say books that I like a lot. These books are my treasure-troves of inspiration, and I call them triggers. If I really want to get into the mood, I start reading. Mind you, I never read to avoid writing, as I used to do a few years ago. Back then, whenever I couldn’t write, I used to get hold of some books and read for weeks. I wouldn’t write a single word, always telling myself, “Let me finish this first, then I’ll write.” By the time I finished one book, I found another. This went on until I realized the overall nihility behind the whole affair.

Take down notes. I assume you read a lot. Reading not only keeps you in touch with your inner writer and other writers, it keeps you in a flow. I was pleasantly surprised recently when my fiancée’s brother-in-law showed me a notebook where he had jotted down his favorite lines from various books he has read, and he never plans to be a writer.

Reading also teaches you how to form expressions. So whenever you come across something that really catches your fancy, note it down. The intention is not plagiarism; it is simply to stimulate your taste buds when your tongue is feeling bland.

== GET DISCONNECTED FOR A WHILE ==

The Net is both a boon and a bane for today’s writer. I myself ended up spending half of my time browsing web sites and skimming through email – and there are so many of them! Not any more. Every week I try to spend a few days disconnected from the Internet. Since my earnings come from the Internet, it becomes difficult to stay away, but if it is not critical to your everyday sustenance, try to keep away from the cyber-world occasionally.

== GET SOME PAYING WORK ==

Finally, if you really want to write something serious, write for money. Believe me, once you begin to get paid for your work, your writing can improve manifolds simply because you’re not going to get paid if you don’t write well. It also renders your writing a sense of urgency and you learn to write under pressure.

Amrit Hallan is a copywriter and a writer. He writes content for web sites, articles for various publications and he writes search engine friendly, customized web page content. You can check out his web site at http://www.amrithallan.com. If you want to read weekly, thought-provoking essays and articles with a tinge of humor, you can subscribe to his column at http://www.amrithallan.com/column.

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