Since taking my writing freelance a few months ago, I’ve found that motivation is the most important thing to harness as my own boss. It’s the same for the novel I’m writing. But it’s always easier said than done, right? Motivation is that elusive word that combines all sorts of meanings – it can mean keeping an interest in something, pushing yourself forward to finish something, or simply keeping up a consistent momentum.

First of all, think about what motivation means to you.

Personally, I need to summon motivation when I’ve lost interest in something or have hit a stumbling block. When I’m sitting at my desk with my head in my hands and the dregs of my fifth morning coffee at my side – that’s when I need motivation. I find I rarely need to find motivation to whack out a blog post that I’ve been inspired to write that morning (like this one), but I’ll need it for a piece of work I’m doing for a client that has started to get monotonous, or to start the next chapter of my novel when I’m struggling to write coherent sentences (let alone chapters).

Motivation for me is the energy to push forwards, regardless of whether you’re enjoying something or not (it certainly helps if you do enjoy it!).

So this is for all of you that need and want to stay motivated – whether you’re a blogger, writing a novel, an e-book, or a paper for college. I’ve tried and tested these tips over the past couple of months and can safely say that most of them have worked for me. That’s not to say they’ll instantly work for you – learning how to summon motivation and to keep it around is a serious case of trial and error and not every method will work for every writer.

On this note, I’d love to hear how you stay motivated whilst writing in the comments at the bottom!

Now, let’s get motivated shall we?

Work in short, sharp bursts

If you’re anything like me you get easily distracted, whether it’s by the shiny orb we call the internet and all the fun pictures of cats that we simply must see, or the latest TV show, or even an annoying fly that has somehow made it into the room.

I’ve realised that my attention span for writing isn’t actually that long and, whilst I can keep going for hours on end if I’m in the right mood, I find it takes away a slice of my soul when I’m hammering away at the keyboard but not really getting anywhere. Not conducive to staying motivated.

I’ve found that if I work in bursts of half an hour or an hour, or even ten or fifteen minutes, I’m more likely to stay focused because there is a time limit set on the task.

There’s an end point in sight and that makes everything much more bearable.

If I’m struggling to get some words of my novel down, I’ll tell myself I have half an hour to write out as much as I can. When the half an hour is up, I’ll stop and move onto something else or, if I’m getting into the swing of things (which often happens – see point 5), I’ll continue until I run out of steam.

If I can’t find the energy to finish a piece for a client, I’ll set myself a challenge to get as much done as I can in twenty minutes or an hour or whatever. Because I’ve set myself an end time, I’m not panicking that I’ll be writing this particular piece for the rest of my life (a valid panic for any writer).

Reward yourself

This point goes hand in hand with the previous one. If you set yourself a time limit to finish a piece and you manage to do it, remember to reward yourself! Say, for example, you might treat yourself to an episode of your favourite show, or ten minutes on Facebook, or a chocolate, or whatever tickles your fancy.

It’s a bit like the donkey and the carrot, really. Tempt yourself forwards with a treat that you enjoy and you’re more likely to crack on and get it done (who knew that Netflix would be my biggest cheerleader?). Remember, if you’re rewarding yourself with food or wine (both very valid rewards), don’t set yourself half an hour limits that need a treat at the end of them… You know where that leads.

Sometimes I’ll be itching to get away from the computer and do something else, but I’ll promise myself that I’ll do the work I need to do first and then I’ll go and do what I want to do. The treat always feels more deserved, too, when you’ve worked for it – don’t you think?

Take some time away

Sometimes, when I can’t sleep I’ll lie there for ages getting angry that I can’t sleep, which only makes it more difficult for me to drift off. Other times, I’ll get up, have a drink and a walk around, maybe have a read and – guess what – when I get back into bed I fall asleep pretty much straight away. You can see where this is going, right?

Sitting in front of a blank page all day is probably the least motivating thing in the world.

I find that the longer I’m sat looking at a page, the less I feel inclined to write and the further I get from actually finishing said page. Whereas, like when I can’t get to sleep, if I get up and take some time away from the screen (this can be metaphorically getting up and moving onto a different project), then I come back with a fresh dose of motivation and new ideas to top it off.

Obviously, if you have a tight deadline don’t take too long away from it. Sometimes a short walk is all you need. If I’ve hit a real stumbling block with my novel, I might put it away for the night and come back to it the next morning after a good night’s sleep and hopefully with some fresh inspiration (thank you dreams).

Find inspiration elsewhere

Talking of inspiration. Staring at a computer screen all day (and ergo a potential blank page) isn’t going to get the creative juices flowing. If you’re writing about travel, you need subjects to write about – so get out there and find stories!

It’s the same if you’re writing a novel. Inspiration comes in all shapes and sizes, whether it’s the person in front of you in the queue at the shop, or the street you accidentally got lost down that one time. Ideas are all around us, but we have to look for them and seek them out if we’re to use them to their full advantage.

Here’s a tip for you to action today if you’re in need of a hearty dose of motivation – get out of the house and do something different. Anything. Go grab a coffee from a shop you’ve never been to before. Take a left turn instead of the right you always take when you leave your house. Go and see that play your best friend has been pestering you to see with them. And, whilst you’re doing said activity, use all your senses to experience it. Inspired yet?

Just start writing

Getting started is pretty much one of the hardest things as a writer. Whether it’s your first piece of the day or a new chapter of your novel, those first few words are like getting blood from a stone – am I right?

For ages I put off writing if I couldn’t get the first few sentences down, telling myself I’d come back to it later when I knew how to begin whatever it was I was writing. Since then, I’ve discovered a new tactic that works pretty well for me. I just start writing. I don’t pay close attention to the words I’m using, I’m just trying to get the cursor to move across the page and fill up the blank space.

Sometimes, when I start like this I find it’s difficult to stop. The creative juices are usually well and truly flowing at this point and my hands are mere blurs across the keyboard. I’ve done it now, in fact, with this very blog post. I put off starting it for at least a week because there is such a wealth of information I want and need to include – but I told myself I couldn’t put it off any longer. I’d planned it out, structured it, formed a title, and chosen the subheadings. All that was left to do was the writing, so unless I started it, it would never be written.

I had some spare time this evening so I just started writing. It really is that simple. They’re just words. Words that might not make sense in the first instance, but that’s what editing is for, right?

Try this tip – have you got a blog post or chapter or piece of writing you need to do but can’t bring yourself to start it? Open up a new document now and literally just start writing (combine this with point 9). You might be surprised how easy it is!

Set small goals

When I started out freelance writing, I used to write up a weekly plan of the work I needed and wanted to do. But because it was a weekly to-do list, there was plenty of time for me to defer tasks until tomorrow (isn’t that always the way). By the end of the week, I’d have very few tasks ticked off because I’d have saved most of them for another day.

These days, I write a to-do list for half a day. From morning until lunch, and then from lunch until I finish. This gives me very little time to move things back and, because the goals are in bite sized chunks, they seem a lot more reachable.

For example, if you look at a weekly to-do list it’s going to be pretty overwhelming, whereas if you have a four-hour to-do list it’ll look much more manageable. Most mornings I’ll sit down and say, right, by lunchtime, I’ll have written two pieces for this client and a blog post. It’s much easier to say that than to say, right, by the end of this week I want to have written ten pieces for this client, four pieces for that client, six pieces for the other client, two blog posts, and 3,000 words of my novel. Nope, that will more than likely send me into a spiralling panic.

Remember to reward yourself once you’ve reached a goal – bring on the chocolate!

Learn from criticism

As a freelance writer, my work is under scrutiny every day by my clients. They’re the ones who choose whether I’m good enough or not and it’s sometimes hard to take when they send back a piece because it’s not right or it’s absolutely terrible. It’s similar for bloggers too – your readers will be reading your posts every day, deciding if they like the post or, more importantly, if they like you.

The first few times I had pieces sent back I felt like a complete failure and didn’t want to continue. I got angry, thinking that if they didn’t like my work then why did they hire me in the first place? Then I reminded myself that everyone has different tastes and they are just doing their job and, really, that sentence was actually a bit garbled and difficult to understand.

It’s easy to take criticism to heart because writing is such a personal endeavour. It’s basically your soul pouring out (okay, maybe not that extreme). So, when someone sends back a piece you spent hours crafting with a flippant comment, it’s sometimes hard to swallow. I somehow managed to change my outlook on the whole process. Think of it as guidance instead of criticism, something you can learn from.

For example, I’ve received a few similar comments about certain aspects of my writing from different clients, so I’ve altered the way I do that particular thing because, evidently, it’s not working.

Once you see criticisms as a learning curve rather than a sign that you’re a complete failure, you’ll feel much more motivated to continue. I promise.

Strive to become better, always

Which leads me onto bettering yourself as a writer. Whatever kind of wordsmith you are, whether you’re a novelist, blogger, or medical writer or whatever, it’s important to keep bettering your game so you don’t become stagnant – ergo, unmotivated.

There’s been a number of occasions where I’ve looked over a few pieces of work for clients and it reads like a stuck tape. I’ve used pretty much the same descriptions and structured it in completely the same way. Then I struggle to write the next piece because my mind has gone blank on how I can make it different, or better, or just not as similar.

When this happens I head out into the big wide world of the web and I read and read and read until I’m sick of reading. I’ll read work by my favourite writers, I’ll read pieces by people I’ve never heard of before – anything and everything. I’ll internally make notes about sentence structures they’ve used, adjectives they’ve included, and the likes.

I’ll go back to my work with new tools under my belt ready to action.

It’s easy to reach a plateau with your writing and continue on as you always have, but I guarantee this is the number one thing that will rid you of your motivation. Strive to be better, strive to mix things up and do things differently, strive to climb the hill from the plateau and watch your motivation increase as you do so.

Don’t think too much about it

This ties in neatly with point five. I’ve spent hours looking at a sentence before, cursing myself because I just can’t get it right. When I was writing my dissertation I fell apart on the introduction because I couldn’t get it perfect. It lost me hours and even days on the rest of the project because I just couldn’t move past those first few paragraphs.

Do you know why? It’s because I was thinking about it too much. Perfect doesn’t exist and as soon as you start to realise that, writing gets a whole lot easier. Sure, there’s probably a better word you could use, but does it really matter? Is the world going to fall apart because you can’t find that pivotal word?

If you’re stuck on a sentence or paragraph just move past it, you can always come back to it. Don’t bog yourself down with the details as that strips all the fun out of writing. It should be fluid and flowing, not stilted, so feel free to write BLANK when you can’t think of the right word and move along. You’re holding up the queue!

If you’re motivation is still a little lacklustre, check out these posts for more inspiration and ideas:

• What I learned about motivation from writing a book – Ben Fanning 
• The different kinds of self-motivation – Skills You Need
• 8 writing tools to keep words flowing – DIY MFA
• 4 easy ways to stay motivated whilst writing – Diana Urban
• How I stay motivated to travel and write – Shawn Voyage
• 7 ways to overcome your lack of motivation – Live Bold & Bloom

I hope you feel a little more motivated whilst writing now. I know that I set myself a limit of half an hour to write as much of this post as I could and I’m now 2,500 words in almost an hour later. And guess what? I’ve had fun. Plus, I might just move onto something else after this whilst the creative juices are flowing!

Tell me, how do you stay motivated? Do you have any techniques to share or do you struggle with one aspect of writing in particular? I’d love to hear and try to help!