Have you ever run into a writing wall? Have you felt inspired and written non-stop for months on end only to burn out? I know I have, and it’s hard! I find that writing tends to come in waves for me. I shuffle between times where I can’t turn off the faucet of writing ideas in my brain and times where I’m in a creative drought. It’s especially hard to keep going when I’m in one of those times of writing struggle periods—writing is the thing I love to do and the thing that inspires me, but when I’m searching for inspiration and coming up empty-handed, it’s really hard to keep going!
So if you are like me and cycle in and out of writing periods in your life, and could use some inspiration, here are some ideas to get your creative gears turning again:
1. Write in a different genre than you usually do.
Writing in a different genre for fiction writers can be an amazing tool to get you excited about writing again. Every writing genre has its own quirks and stereotypes. Maybe lean into those as you go along—write a romance that follows all the tropes. Come up with the best meet-cute story you can think of and write an outlandishly by the book romance worthy of Harlequin. While you may not end up finishing the story or writing anything actually worthy of publication, it can get you excited about writing your usual genre again and give inspiration.
2. Write in a completely different format than you usually do.
Try writing a journalistic piece, or some experimental poetry. Write about real life rather than the fantasy world you usually write in. Try a more formulaic concept like writing a villanelle or even a simple haiku.
3. Try journaling.
I’ve mentioned this before, but journaling is the only form of writing that I consistently do—it usually doesn’t end up in a creative landslide of ideas for me, but it can definitely help with weeding through the overgrowth that clogs my brain and stops me from wanting to write. I find that even stream-of-consciousness journaling can lead to some unexpected places and new writing ideas!
4. Keep a list of things you want to write about in the droughts and the downpours.
This is my most useful tip—any time you have an idea or a thought that inspires you to write, take a few minutes to actually write them down! This is the same concept as a writer’s notebook that you keep stashed in your back pocket wherever you go, but for me, it’s a Google doc (many pages long) that has ideas for articles, poems, or stories. Keep a list so that when you get stuck and don’t know where to go next, you have a roadmap, of sorts, to get you back on track with writing something.
5. Take your inspiration from pop culture.
One of the easiest ways to get writing inspiration that can help write you out of a funk is to take it from elsewhere! One of my favorite things to do is to take the headlines from a newspaper or the titles of the shows in your Netflix queue/Spotify playlist and use them to write something new. Take the first three titles you see and roll with it. Or take the longest headline you can find and create a story using every word in it. Make a game for yourself to get going, and pretty soon you’ll be back to writing non-stop.
I hope this list helps you if you are going through a writing drought. Remember that it’s okay and normal to have periods of no writing, but that you don’t have to stay there forever. Write yourself out of that slump and get back to doing what you were meant to do.
