I know a lot of creatives with full-time jobs, families, and other responsibilities. Writers can be really hard on themselves (and others), and a lot of common writing advice is unsympathetic to the struggles of busy writers, with an unhelpful get-through-it mentality that doesn’t address the issue at hand. “Write every day”- and “ass in chair”-style advice isn’t harmful in itself, but like all advice, it shouldn’t be applied universally or without a handy saltshaker nearby. And it can become part of toxic positivity culture when used to determine who is and is not a real writer, or who truly cares about their craft.

To make matters worse, the response of other writers to this advice can be equally shame-inducing for writers who wish they were writing, but can’t due to their circumstances. It typically takes the form of “Well, I love writing. It comes effortlessly for me. Why would you want to pour your time into a hobby that makes you miserable? Something that you have to struggle to get through? Maybe you’re not cut out for this, and you should just stop.” To give the benefit of the doubt, there are circumstances where this advice could be helpful—perhaps if you started writing when you were younger, and in the process of figuring yourself out, you’ve grown away from it. It’s been part of your identity for so long, but it feels like it no longer fits you, and you need to give yourself permission to move on and explore newer, more compelling interests. 

That advice, however, is truly limited in its scope, and it is often incorrectly applied to writers who are exhausted and burned out. These writers are not made miserable by the act of writing itself; they are emotionally drained by the demands of their other responsibilities, and the problem is compounded by the shame and anxiety they experience when they struggle to write because they’re exhausted. They will likely be able to recover their love of writing when their circumstances improve.

I think the intent of both pieces of advice is important to consider, because they’re essentially doing the same thing—“protecting” the writing community from posers. Personally, I question this practice. I question how many of these posers actually exist, and whether such a person would even have enough self-awareness to be swayed by shaming. I also question whether defending the community from this nebulous threat is more important than the collateral damage caused by gatekeeping. I strongly suspect that many of us love writing and yet are not writing, for reasons besides personal failings. 

To address the problem of not writing due to other stressors, first we need to understand certain things about how the creative process actually works. There is a cross-disciplinary concept called “flow,” which is important to creative fields as diverse as writing, music, visual art, business, science, and sport. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXIeFJCqsPs) as ‘An almost automatic, effortless, yet highly focused state of consciousness.’ People who experience flow describe a sense of ease, pleasure, and heightened productivity, and they may even lose track of time. They are fully immersed in their activity. 

Imagine that (literally) euphoric process being interrupted.

There are conditions that must be met to be creative, and one of those conditions is an uninterrupted block of time. For many writers, “I don’t have the time to write because of all my responsibilities,” is met with the unsympathetic “I’m sure you have five minutes tucked into the day somewhere,” which may be technically true, but it sounds like a miserable way to write to me. 

How many of us actually want to write sentence by sentence in five-minute pockets throughout the day? Every time, you’d have to remember what you were doing before, get into the mindset, and write feverishly for five minutes only to be immediately interrupted. Perhaps that works for some writers. Personally, I too would skip writing rather than do the mental equivalent of dumping a bucket of ice water over myself multiple times a day.

Another condition that creativity requires is a baseline level of mental energy. For some who say, “I don’t have time to write,” they may not be talking about the literal minutes and seconds available in their day. What they mean is, “I don’t have time to work, recover from working, and then also write in addition to working again tomorrow.” That is a tricky situation, and requires a more nuanced response than, “well, you have time to watch Netflix, don’t you?” 

It’s important to understand that writing is not a restorative or even an energy-neutral act. Can it feel good and improve your mental state? Absolutely, the same way that running does. But like running, it requires a certain amount of energy to get started. This is why writing does not count as relaxing, and relaxing is not a waste of time—in fact, it is crucial to the creative process. 

Not having the time or energy to be creative can lead to feelings of shame, anxiety, and lack of agency, which exacerbates the existing problem by adding to the writer’s mental load. In order to recover their creativity, the writer may need to retrain their brain to associate writing with pleasurable emotions and sensations, rather than painful ones. Practical advice toward this end will be listed below.

Now, the state of creative flow is not strictly necessary to produce a novel, but it does significantly improve the experience for the writer. For writers who are already overworked, the last thing they need is a painful writing experience on top of their other life stressors. Even if you don’t achieve a state of flow, creating the circumstances that allow it will undoubtedly benefit you. 

I hope that I have convinced you that the issues facing writers are significant, and not likely due to personal failings such as laziness, lack of discipline, etc. We do not all have the same starting place. Some of our jobs are more demanding, some of our children are younger or need more attention than others, and some of us have mental illness, but we are all writers. The challenges that many of us face are not insignificant and deserve more respect than accusatory, flippant responses. If you don’t have the answer to a problem, it’s okay to say “I don’t know.”

These are substantial, multi-faceted problems, and I am not suggesting that they are easily solved, or that there is a one-size-fits-all solution. However, the conditions causing these problems may be mitigated if the writer takes an analytical look at their unique circumstances to identify problems and potential solutions. This should be done in a problem-solving state of mind, without self-castigation.

Here are a few of my suggestions to start, with the caveat that not all of this advice will suit every lifestyle. Please take what you can use, and leave what you can’t.

 

1. If you have absorbed the tenets of toxic positivity, release them

Release self-blame and anxiety. If you begin to spiral, pause, acknowledge the emotion, self-soothe, and replace the thought with something else. Examples might include “I have to write” “I’m not writing fast enough,” “I’m too lazy,” “If I can’t finish this novel, I’m never going to have a writing career.”

You might instead think “I’m doing the best I can, and I will get where I’m going at the right time for me. Instead of worrying, I’m going to think about xyz.” Xyz should be something that is neutral or positive. One possibility would be living in the present as you perform a ritualistic task with several steps, like making a cup of tea or a baked good, that requires your attention. You might also try incorporating repetitive motions such as sweeping the floor or going for a walk. Focusing on the sensations of sight, sound, and touch that you experience will be important. Listen to and try to identify the minor sounds around you, like the clatter of your fingers against the keyboard, or the hum of the air conditioning, or rasping of broom bristles against the floor. Perhaps there’s a breeze on your face.

If living in the moment is unsuccessful, perhaps leaving too much time for your thoughts to race, try changing one obsessive train of thought for another. If you can successfully release the painful emotions and write without pain, that would be ideal. However, that may be putting too much pressure on yourself, at least initially. You don’t want to write while your brain is attacking you, because that will associate the feeling of pain with writing, making it harder and harder to start writing over time. If the emotions linger, consider instead researching a planned purchase, or creating an itinerary for a real or imaginary vacation. If you had three days in the setting of your favorite fantasy or science fiction novel, where would you stay, eat, and see? In what order? You might even pull out the book and take notes to create a physical itinerary.

Changing your thought patterns will take time and practice. If you experience obsessive thinking, anxiety, self-loathing, and/or depression, I recommend seeking treatment if possible. If not possible, researching coping skills and mechanisms for your disorder from reputable sources may improve your quality of life.

2. Reorganize your schedule

If you have overscheduled yourself to avoid “wasting time,” then Marie Kondo your schedule. If you’re burned out, let go of all activities that aren’t absolutely critical to survival, including writing. Spend a few months recovering from your previous hectic pace. When you feel ready (bored, restless, seeking more mental stimulation), examine your calendar for opportunities to write. They may not come every day, which is fine.

If you are not overscheduled by choice, ask for help from the people around you. If you have a spouse, ask for a block of child-free time or arrange for a sitter or play-dates. If you have a demanding job, set limits on your availability with your boss or coworkers, reduce your hours (if financially feasible), or schedule a vacation day in the near future. If none of these are possible, put out your resume and seek better working conditions elsewhere. In order to recapture a sense of agency, it’s important to take an action and create an effect. 

3. Add low-stimulus activity

Not all downtime is equal. Engaging in media by scrolling, watching, or reading is beneficial, and consumes less mental energy than producing it, but it isn’t the most effective way to recover from a high-stress day. Short-form content is particularly overstimulating. If you scroll or watch media for hours after work but still feel exhausted, you may benefit from adding a less stimulating regular activity such as meditation, journaling, going for a walk or nature walk, caring for houseplants, spiritual rituals or prayer, showering, exercise, or coloring.

4. Take the time pressure off your writing

Feeling like you’re constantly behind in an arbitrary life or career schedule will not help you catch up, it will only associate writing with pain. The truth is, writing is timeless. The audience will always be there, and so will your stories and your skills. There’s no need to rush. If you have to stop writing for a period, your abilities and craft knowledge won’t evaporate. There may be an adjustment period when you take it back up, but it’s like riding a bike. You may need to rebuild your stamina, but your body remembers what to do.

5. Make your goals too easy to fail 

Setting achievable goals is important generally, but for now, set goals that are even smaller. The goal should be so easy that it is actually harder to fail and feel guilty about it than it is to accomplish it. If your goal is to write for a minimum of five minutes or one sentence per day, set your benchmark there. If you keep going, great! If you don’t, you accomplished what you set out to do, and you should be proud of yourself.

Give yourself a lot of small wins and successes early on, to associate writing with positive feelings. You should leave the session with a feeling of “that wasn’t so bad, after all,” or “I could do that again, no problem,” and looking forward to another round tomorrow. Don’t worry about how much you wrote or how long it took—the priority is not your output, it is the way you feel during and after the session.

You might gradually increase your goal if you feel impatient with it, to a paragraph or a page and so on, but you should always make sure that it is something that you can do on your worst, low-energy days, not your high-flying, king-of-the-world days. And if you do miss a day, or several days, or there are certain weekdays that you know you can’t write, don’t hold it against yourself or try to make it up. Start fresh the next day.

6. Separate the stages of writing 

Don’t criticize the quality of your work in the drafting stage. In the drafting stage, the writing’s only job is to exist. If it’s doing that, it’s good enough. Mistakes will be fixed in editing. If the idea of leaving a mistake behind is distracting, highlight the section or make a note to yourself in the text and move on as if you have already corrected it.

7. Get yourself writing toys

Experiment with new writing methods and purchase items that make you excited to write again. If you write by hand, these would be notebooks, pens, fancy inks, and stickers or stamps that you can use for chapter or scene breaks. If you like vintage machinery, buy a typewriter. If you prefer electronics, consider software like Scrivener or Write or Die, a word processor to reduce your distractions, or a digital voice recorder if you’re interested in dictation. The benefit of many of these methods is that it makes it pretty difficult to go back and edit the same sentence for twenty minutes, which means the draft gets done faster.

What I’m trying to say is, if you put on a sorcerer’s robe and write with a peacock feather by candlelight, no one is going to stop you. Have fun. Recover a sense of play.

8. Create a ritual for transitioning into your writing session

It’s important to be physically comfortable while you’re writing, and also to create a mental transition from your previous activity into writing. Why not combine these two needs? Make a cup of tea, light a scented candle, and/or put on a pair of sweatpants before you start writing. Use the time to encourage yourself by thinking things like “I’ve been looking forward to this all day,” “I’m really excited to write xyz in the next scene,” or “this is going to be fun.” Try to build a sense of anticipation.

9. Try a change of scenery

If you’re feeling a little stir-crazy or unmotivated at home, go to the library, the park, or your favorite coffee shop. The idea here is to stimulate yourself, get some sunlight, provide yourself something to look forward to, and reduce distractions. If circumstances allow or there’s a dire need, book yourself a nearby Airbnb for a weekend writing retreat.

10. Write socially

Writing doesn’t have to be a solitary art. If you have writing friends, see if anyone wants to partner up for a writing session. Look for a local writing group that you can join. If you’re on social media, look for writing sprint groups on Twitter or Instagram.

11. Recapture a sense of control

Consider how you can make your job serve your writing goals. Can your job fund a cup of coffee at a cafe for your writing time? Can it fund a weekend writing retreat at an Airbnb or hotel? Can it purchase tools that make you excited to write, such as notebooks, fancy pens, or a digital voice recorder? Can it provide health insurance and rent money, so that you are healthy enough to write? Does it take the financial pressure off your writing, so that you have complete creative freedom instead of having to write to the market?

Perhaps your job does not offer these benefits, or the cost/benefit ratio is not favorable. In that case, please refer to the following step.

12. Change your circumstances, or wait for them to change

The only constant in life is change. Children get older and more independent. Your work responsibilities change, you grow adapted to them, or you find a new job. Your health may improve if you seek treatment. Just because you are currently unable to write does not mean that you always will be. In the meantime, you’re still a writer. Your ideas and skills will be there for you when you’re ready to use them. Choosing to release your guilt and wait through a difficult time may be the best thing for you, and in the end, you are what’s most important.

 

Further Reading: For further reading, I highly recommend this blog post by Rachel Aaron, which contains practical information about the writing process and advice on how to increase your output during writing sessions, so that you can make the most of what time you find.

If you do more research into flow state and how to achieve it, please be advised that this is an area of ongoing research. You may find questionable statements from self-help gurus and disagreement among psychology professionals, so look for reputable sources and use your best judgment.