How to stay motivated to write

How do you stay motivated to write?

Whether you’re writing a book, maintaining your blog, or doing some other writing project, motivation is key to finishing. It can be hard to return to your writing session after session, day after day. So, how do you maintain your motivation?

Use rewards to motivate you to write

I’ve long advocated rewarding yourself for writing. And not just for the big things like finishing a draft or making it to publication day. Reward yourself for all the little steps you had to take to get there.

As I explain in a blog post from 2019 called ‘Reward Yourself for Writing’, humans respond well to positive feedback. Since most of the writing process is solitary, it’s hard to get feedback, positive or otherwise, from anyone else.

What’s a writer to do? Plan your own rewards. Provide your own positive feedback.

In ‘Reward Yourself for Writing’ I give you several suggestions and recommend planning your rewards. While I still think you should plan when you’ll get a reward, I’m no longer convinced you should plan what the rewards will be in advance. It might be better to surprise yourself.

Surprise rewards may be more motivating

I’m reading a book by Arthur Plotnik called Spunk & Bite: A writer’s guide to punchier, more engaging language & style (Random House Reference, 2005). I’ll wait a minute while my British readers giggle over the title and remind you that for speakers of American English (like Plotnik), spunk means, according to the OED, ‘Spirit, mettle; courage, pluck’. Incidentally, this is how it was used in UK English in the eighteenth century. That all changed by the late nineteenth century.

That’s enough of a history of English diversion. Back to surprising rewards. In his book, Plotnik discusses some research into how primates, including humans, respond to rewards.

I suspect most adults know that humans respond well to rewards of sugar, drugs/alcohol, treats, and money. What’s new to me in the research Plotnik discusses is that we respond even better when the reward is unexpected. Scientists studied this by observing the level of excitement in the nucleus accumbens, ‘a center of pleasure in humans’, when test subjects were given either predictable or randomised rewards (Plotnik, 12).

The results show that humans like rewards, but love surprise rewards.

Surprise yourself to stay motivated

Now we know surprises are motivating, how can you surprise yourself? One low-tech option springs to mind:

• Write potential rewards on small strips of paper

• Fold these strips

• Put them in a bowl, jar, hat, etc.

• When it’s reward time, draw one - that’s your surprise reward!

This method is well-suited to your small, regular rewards for doing things like keeping a single writing appointment.

Another option is to ask someone close to you (partner, child, best friend, etc.) to choose a treat for the two of you to share. This one’s probably best suited for bigger rewards like finishing a draft or keeping your regular writing appointments for a week/month.

I know that you, my readers, are a creative lot. What other options can you come up with? How do you stay motivated to write? I’d love you share them with me - either in the comments or by replying to the email where you’re reading this post.