Is your writing on life support? It happens to the best of us. It usually occurs when you’ve written too much, too fast. But don’t worry, you can get your writing and your writing career back into the pink quickly.
Here are 10 tips to get your writing back on track.
1. Take a day off, if you haven’t had one in a while, but don’t stay away too long. And if you’ve had some time off recently, start to come to work early. Just shake up your schedule.
2. Write something not-for-publication. Go crazy. Write something wild or incendiary or highly opinionated. Stay away from documents that could get you in serious trouble, but try to be goofy or bold or feisty. This will help you start to use different writing muscles.
3. Go back and review some of your old writing. It’s best if this is old stuff you mostly forgot. You may be mildly amused (and vastly relieved) at how incredibly insightful and clever you were.
4. Set a schedule and write. Generally, a two-hour block of time is most practical and efficient. Just sit down and make yourself write. You don’t have to write well, but you have to write something.
5. Surf the Internet and read some sites that you normally would never visit. Stay in the G-rated zone but try to find out about organic gardening or camping or baking cookies or clean water programs for the Third World. Most people derail their writing because they are bored; get un-bored by expanding your mind.
6. Read a really great novel, you know, the kind that makes you wish you wrote it.
7. Get some exercise. A lot of bad writing comes from unhealthy writers. Writing is an inherently dangerous profession: too much sitting, opportunities for bad posture, risk of carpal tunnel, and diabetes (from eating all that sugar to wash down your daily caffeine). So fight that risk by going out for a walk or a swim. More workouts will at least improve your circulation and that has to help your brain.
8. Call up your funniest friend(s) and have a few good laughs. It does not matter what you laugh about as long as you get beyond your doldrums.
9. Pick some writing that you’re unhappy with and polish it. Just sit down and work like a diamond-cutter. A diamond cutter does not get to pick the stones; he has to work with the rocks that nature provides. The trick is in his skill at polishing. Think of yourself that way and repair some of your last writings.
10. Read the want ads. It will make you realize you have a pretty great gig.
