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williamlwolf89 · 4 years

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Writing Inspiration: 99 Ways to Get Inspired to Write in 2020

Need some writing inspiration? You’ve come to the right place.

Ugh, it happened again.

Another week or month has passed, and you’ve made zero progress on your writing goals.

Deep down you know your writing is important, but you can’t take consistent action.

What’s really going on here?

The truth is, you don’t feel inspired.

You can’t help but marvel at other writers who do persist, and have a large body of work you can’t even fathom achieving.

How do you get there?

How do you find the inspiration you need to stay the course long enough to become the prolific, popular, and successful freelance writer you dream of becoming?

The Dirty Little Lie You Tell Yourself About Writing Inspiration

If you’re struggling to find writing inspiration, you might be guilty of “believing in magic” when it comes to your writing process.

People who fail to do the things they say they want to do believe in fairy tales, like this one:

One day, for no reason whatsoever, I will find the ultimate source of inspiration that will carry me through to the end of the writing career rainbow. It will happen in an instant, and I’ll never have to “start over” again.

They believe successful writers have “made it,” and have no problem staying motivated because they’ve “arrived.”

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Regardless of how successful you are, there will be days you feel uninspired. In fact, what once seemed like a passion-filled calling can turn into a bit of a slog after a while.

Professional athletes love the game, but they don’t necessarily want to train their bodies every single day.

Business owners love money and recognition, but they don’t necessarily enjoy the process of getting their business off the ground.

You love expressing yourself with words, but you won’t necessarily enjoy each and every writing session.

You have to learn to inspire yourself every day if you want to turn pro and become a popular author or successful writer. To keep your inspiration fresh, you’ll have to find various unique ways to get inspired.

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing — that’s why we recommend it daily.” — Zig Ziglar

Fortunately, I have 99 different writing ideas — use them whenever you’re struggling to turn intention into action.

So here’s how to get inspired to write:

1. Do the One Thing They Always Tell Writers Not to Do

Watch T.V. Some of the best writing in the world can be seen in the scripts of your favorite shows. Pay attention to the dialogue, listen for the clever storytelling methods, and use them in your own writing.

Use the ideas of the show creator and the personalities of the characters to get inspired. Think about what goes through Don Draper’s mind when he writes an ad on Mad Men or the way Carrie Bradshaw wove her own life into her daily column on Sex and the City.

Once I paid attention to the writing in my favorite shows, I drew inspiration from the stories and turned a seemingly useless activity into creative fuel.

2. Read Your Old Love Letters

If you’ve been writing for a while, you must have gotten a compliment or two about your work. Keep a file with positive comments you’ve received about your writing. Whether they’re emails or blog comments, reading over compliments you received and hearing how you’ve helped people will motivate you.

3. Embrace Your Insignificance

In the grand scheme of things, you’re insignificant. Nothing you do “matters,” except that it matters to you. Go for it, because you have nothing to lose.

4. Make the Subtle Shift from Goal-Setting to Habit-Forming

Goals give you inspiration by providing an end point, but habits weave inspiration into the core of your being and make it automatic.

Instead of saying, “I want to finish my manuscript,” say “I want to write 30 minutes per day.” The second statement comes without the pressure of expectation. You’re just putting yourself in a position for continual inspiration.

Habits trump goals every time. The most prolific writers aren’t the most goal-oriented. They’re built to show up every day and do the work.

5. Tell Yourself You’re Not Good Enough

Try a little reverse psychology on yourself. Try to convince yourself you’re not good enough, and then get offended. Of course you’re good enough! You were born to write. Trick yourself to put a fire in your belly and get inspired.

6. Start a Chain Gang

Buy a calendar. Mark an x on the calendar each time you complete a writing session. When you complete a few days in a row, the x’s start to form a chain. The longer the chain grows, the more inspired you are to keep writing. Picture a calendar with 29 days marked off. You’d almost certainly write on day 30, right?

Visuals and imagery are powerful. Seeing a representation of the work you put in will inspire you to keep working.

7. Become the G.O.A.T.

Focus on becoming so great you can’t be ignored.

Most writers are worried about what the competition is doing and idolize their favorite writers. Instead, you’ll focus on being so good the competition will start to watch you. Embrace the attitude of Michael Jordan in his first few seasons. He knew the league was going to belong to him before it actually did. He put his head down, did the work, and demolished the competition to become the Greatest of All Time. You can be the same.

Put your head down, write, and one day people will say “Who is this?”

8. Take a Dump

Have a bowel movement. I first learned this unusual writing tip from James Altucher. He says if your body isn’t “clear,” your mind won’t be either. You may also come up with some interesting ideas while you’re, erm, indisposed.

9. Embrace Your Inner Hulk

Get angry. Anger is easy to express. When you’re angry you know exactly why something pisses you off. What pisses you off about the world, your niche, or life in general? Vent your frustrations and your powerful words will pour out.

10. Become a Better Writer Without Becoming a Better Writer

Have you ever seen a professional athlete who’s in a slump? Nothing about his routine changes, he plays with the same quality teammates, and the team is run by the same coaching staff. Later, you find out he was having personal issues and that was the source of his decline.

Look at Tiger Woods. He never recovered from his personal scandal. What does that tell you? It tells you life outside your craft is just as important as practicing it, if not more.

Think about how many aspects of your life can affect your writing. Your diet, exercise routine (or lack thereof), relationships with friends and family, and stress level are a few among many factors influencing your writing. When you lack inspiration for writing, look at other areas of your life. If those aren’t going well, your writing will suffer.

11. Make It Impossible to Edit While You Write

Write with the monitor off or with white text. This is the definition of writing a crappy first draft. When you can’t even look at the words on the screen, you won’t be able to enter into self-editing hell while you’re writing. You’ll let loose and write with reckless abandon. Afterward, you can clean up the carnage and make it pretty.

12. Imagine Your Worst-Case Scenario

Think about the worst-case scenario in terms of your writing career and decide you can handle it. Fortunately, the negative consequences are more emotional than tangible or financial in terms of things like writing a book. At the very least, you’re out of a small investment and your ego will get a little dent. You can’t sell negative books. Your worst pain will be the feeling of rejection. Although rejection is a tough pill to swallow, you face bigger dangers in life without fail, like getting in a car and driving it, without batting an eye.

13. Start Acting Like a Child

What advice would a five-year-old give you about your writing? Would they tell you to focus hard, create solid outlines, and hit your daily word count? No. They’d tell you to have fun.

Remember fun? When you were a child, you only cared about exploration. You didn’t waste time worrying about the future. The present was all you knew. I get it. You have “big dreams,” but if you take yourself too seriously, writing will get rote.

If you’re feeling stuck trying to edit your manuscript, write something ridiculous. Write something totally unrelated to your niche for pure fun with no intention of publishing it. Act like a child and watch your curiosity and creativity flourish.

14. Dumb It Down

Stop trying to sound smart. Once you realize you don’t have to write with tons of flowery language and words that could be replaced with simpler words, writing gets easier. People enjoy straightforward writing better anyway.

15. Make Money Your Muse

Take writing jobs as a freelancer if you’re looking to get writing without having to come up with your own blog post ideas. As a freelancer you’ll work within the guidelines of what your client wants. This offers the benefit of making money, plus you’ll develop a writing habit along the way.

16. Use your 9-to-5 to Fuel Your 5-to-9

Scott Adams, most known for his cartoon strip Dilbert, used real-life experiences from his job as inspiration for his work. Charles Bukowski wrote a novel loosely based on his own experiences as a post office employee. Even mundane jobs like these can inspire you to write something interesting about them. Some say you should write what you know. What do you know better than the activity you perform 40 hours per week?

17. Discover the Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

Create an immaculate space for your writing. A cluttered environment clutters the mind. When you’re in a clean space, you can feel it. That feeling can translate into a calm and focused state of mind while writing.

18. Don’t Believe the Myth

Remember this phrase from Jerry Seinfeld: “Writer’s block is just a made-up excuse for not doing your work.”

19. Sign Your Life Away

Create a contract with yourself. Make an actual signed document stating what you’re going to accomplish with your writing and place it somewhere prominent.

Imagine you’re sitting down to write and you look up to see an agreement you made with yourself, not just mentally, but physically. Wouldn’t that inspire you to hold to your commitment?

These little “nudges” might seem trivial on their own, but combining them changes your environment and makes it more conducive to productivity and creativity.

20. Make Your Writing Career a Family Affair

Communicate your goals with your family and friends. Writing takes up time, and if you’re not clear about your intentions, your spouse or loved ones can start to resent and even become jealous of your writing. Let them know it’s important to you, set boundaries for when you’ll write, and when you’re not writing make sure you’re 100 percent off, meaning you’re spending time with the people you love and not in your head.

21. Get Meta

Write about how you feel about your writing. One of the most successful posts I’ve ever written talked about my struggles with writing. It was meant to be a venting session, but I realized it was worth sharing. Like anger, frustration leads to expression.

22. Converse to Create

If you listen carefully, the conversations you have with other people can inspire you to take something they’ve said and run with it. Listen intently, and see if there’s anything in your dialogue that sparks interest or could be used as a writing topic. Cormac McCarthy said he used actual conversations with his son in the bestselling novel The Road.

23. When Inspiration Fails, Try Desperation

Turn your pain into passion. If you feel the dull monotony of sitting in a cubicle every day pushing papers, working in a factory on the assembly line, or any other job that isn’t being a full-time writer, use that desperation as fuel. Sometimes inspiration isn’t enough. Sometimes you have to get fed up to do the work.

24. WWJD

Ask yourself, “What would Jon do?” If you’ve been following Jon Morrow’s work for any amount of time, you know he has a no-excuses attitude and is driven to succeed. Would Jon give up on a writing session if he wasn’t “feeling it?” Would Jon cry in the corner about someone leaving a negative comment on his blog post? When in doubt, do what Jon does and bang out 1,000 words per day no matter what.

25. Create to Connect

Even if you have just a few readers, get to know them. Send out an email to your tribe telling them they can each get 15 minutes on the phone with you to talk shop. Add prompts to your blog posts to encourage readers to share their lives with you.

When you create with the intention of connecting with other human beings, it inspires you to work that much harder, because you can feel the person on the other end of the screen.

26. Become the CEO of You, Inc.

Come up with a name for your publishing company. Perhaps you don’t have to go as far as creating an LLC, but do something to establish what you do as an actual career and not just a hobby. If it means spending $25 to get business cards printed, so be it. Something in your mind has to transition into feeling and acting like a pro.

27. Don’t Follow in the Footsteps of Great Writers

Let go of your need to be the next great author. When you compare yourself to the likes of Hemingway, Plath, or Murakami, it’s hard not to get discouraged about your own writing. Focus on becoming the best writer you can be. There are plenty of successful — and financially independent — writers who aren’t legends, but are pretty damn good. Become pretty damn good.

28. Do the Math

Remind yourself: each time you sit down to write you’re ahead of 99 percent of other aspiring writers. Most people do nothing. They talk, wish, and wonder. The mere fact that your fingers are touching that keyboard makes you special.

Inspire yourself by reminding yourself you’re part of an exclusive club — the doers. I get inspired when I realize the steps I’ve already made go way beyond those of most people. Once your foot is in the door, step all the way through.

29. Answer Random Questions from Total Strangers

Answer questions on Quora. Users on Quora ask questions about topics ranging from personal development to health to what Kim Kardashian’s favorite color is. Other users on Quora answer these questions. Many authors and bloggers use Quora to practice their writing by answering questions. You’re also allowed to leave links in your Quora responses, and many people drive traffic back to their websites through using Quora.

30. Get Zen, Then Pen

I meditate for 20 minutes every morning before I write. When you wake up, you usually start the day feeling anxious. The practice of meditation helps relieve stress and clears your mind of negative thoughts. You’ll feel refreshed before you pen your first word.

The headspace app comes with a series of guided meditations you can use to start fresh every day.

Leo Babauta of Zen Habits has a great introductory post on how to form a daily meditation habit. He also happens to be one of the most prolific and successful bloggers in the world. Coincidence? I think not.

31. Choose Quantity Over Quality

Write ten ideas per day around your writing. They could be ideas for new blog posts, book titles, and book sections or chapters. By the end of the year, you’ll have 3,650 ideas. Most of them will suck, some will be good, and a few will be amazing. Your creative muscles will be strong, and you’ll have endless material to write about.

32. Teach an Old Draft New Tricks

Revise an old piece of writing. This has a two-fold benefit. First, you’ll realize how much you’ve grown since writing that piece, which will give you the confidence to know you’ll improve in the future. Second, if you really add some beef to it, you’ll have a brand new piece of writing to share with the world.

33. Surround Yourself with Great Work

I once visited an art museum that had a photography section. It was filled with famous photos of famous people by famous photographers. I lost complete track of time and was immersed in the photos. When I left the display, I felt almost dizzy. That day, I went home and wrote a couple thousand words in a way that seemed effortless. Seeing great art in other forms can inspire you to create great writing yourself.

Visit a gallery, go to an opera, or watch a play. Feel the passion and inspiration from the artists you just watched, and use it in your own writing.

34. Put a Pot of Gold at the End of Your Rainbow

Setting writing goals doesn’t often work. The reason why they don’t work is because we don’t like to work! We want results. It’s why workout DVDs are called Beach Body or Six Pack Abs in Six Weeks instead of Exercise Regimen for your Core. You know you’ll have to do the work, but the results are what compel you to get started.

Create statements around the rewards you’ll reap from your writing and the results you want, e.g., “Writing my book will give me the money, attention, and sense of accomplishment I’ve always longed for. ” When you think of setting goals and building habits in terms of the rewards they’ll afford you, you’re more likely to follow through.

35. Drink Rocket Fuel to Skyrocket Your Inspiration

Drink coffee. Coffee has fueled the creative inspiration of writers for centuries. I’m not sure if it’s even possible to write well without it.

36. Journey into the Wild

Go for a walk in nature. There’s an odd connection between walking and inspiration. There’s something about wandering about that stirs up random thoughts in your mind. Ideas come to you when you aren’t so focused on them. A walk in nature will distract you with its beauty enough to make room for the muse to sneak up on you.

37. Switch Your Scenery

There has long been a link between travel and writing. Seeing new parts of the world is inspiring in and of itself, plus it will surely give you new material to write about as well. Or, heck, just go to your local coffee shop to switch things up.

Even if you can’t make a physical trip, just spending a few minutes visualizing an exotic destination can provide valuable writing inspiration.

38. Devour People’s Brains

Read. Read. Read. You can’t be a great writer without being a great reader. Read a wide range of material. If you write non-fiction, sprinkle some fiction into your reading and vice versa. Reading widely opens new doors in your brain and helps you make odd connections between ideas.

I just finished my second book. I pulled and wove in ideas from billionaires, dead Roman emperors, and Harvard psychologists. I didn’t go searching for the information. I conjured it from the recesses of my mind while writing, because I’ve read 100 books in the past two years. It’s like Neo in The Matrix where he “downloads” the ability to fight in Kung Fu style.

With reading, you can “download” hundreds or thousands of years of human experience and use it at your disposal.

39. Write in This Insanely Inspiring Environment

Write in a bookstore. Writing in an environment surrounded with words is inspiring. Go to your favorite section and browse the titles. Seeing the names on book covers will cause you to picture your name on your first or next book, and you’ll be ready to pen your masterpiece.

40. Put a Gun to Your Head

I submit guest post pitches to various blogs before I feel ready to write them. Once my pitches get accepted, I can’t quit. As you know, it’s a big no-no to flake on a guest blog owner, and I’d never want to ruin my reputation. Finding situations that force your hand can keep you from sitting on the fence.

41. Search for Instant Inspiration

A quick Google search can give you inspiration by spoon-feeding you endless ideas for your writing. If you’re stuck on a topic to write about, do a search about your subject and run with the results. You don’t have to come up with new ideas by yourself all the time. You don’t even have to use the ideas you find to create a finished result.

The process could serve the purpose of getting your fingers moving, which is the most important step.

42. Chase the Muse

Inspiration can be tricky to capture.

To maximize your chances of spotting the muse, come up with clever writing prompts. For example, you can come up with a writing problem you’re trying to solve right before bed, let it stir in your subconscious mind while you sleep, and wake yourself up in the middle of the night and jot down what comes to mind in your hazy subconscious state. You can set prompts on your phone to randomly write whatever comes to mind at the exact time.

Carry a pen and paper with you everywhere you go to capture ideas as they come. It seems mechanical, but careful planning can inspire you to create more.

43. Star in Your Own Montage

Visualize yourself putting in the work it takes to become a great writer. Visualizing the type of outcome you want is effective, but visualizing becoming the type of person capable of achieving those outcomes is even more powerful. Take a few minutes every day and visualize yourself being in a state of flow and writing effortlessly.

It’s like picturing yourself hitting the game-winning shot. If you can see it, you can believe it.

44. Find a Tango Partner

In a rut? Find a writing partner to keep you accountable. Working with someone who’s “in the trenches” like you will help both of you inspire each other. There’s strength in numbers.

45. Find Inspiration in Your Rear-view Mirror

We’ve all had moments in life we cherish. Why not use those moments as inspiration for your writing? If you’re feeling stuck, try to remember an amazing moment in your life — time spent with your children, a vacation you went on, your wedding day — and write about that. The moment will inspire you to write because the moment itself is inspiring. If it was a pivotal moment in your life, you can recall how you felt and what the atmosphere was like.

46. Eviscerate Your Excuses

Find examples to eliminate your excuses. The undisputed heavyweight champion of blogging, our very own Jon Morrow, isn’t able to use his hands, and has written blog posts read by millions. Stephen Hawking moves his cheek muscles to write. You have writer’s block? Boo hoo.

If seeing examples of people with legitimate obstacles thriving at what you do doesn’t inspire you, I don’t know what will. You’ve been blessed in one way or another. Regardless of what you don’t have, you have something someone else would kill for. Be grateful and use your gratitude as a well of inspiration to create.

47. Join a Local Gang

If one partner isn’t enough, you can join groups of writers to increase the effectiveness of group support. I’m part of a local writers’ club where we meet in person, and I’m a member of an online community of writers. We share insights and tips, and keep each other motivated.

48. Fake Your Own Death

Write your obituary. This exercise provides a two-fold benefit. First, you’re putting words on the page. Second, you’re thinking about the type of legacy you want to leave. My guess is you want “renown writer,” or at least “writer,” somewhere in the description. It will remind you of your ultimate mission and the fact you’ll regret it if you fail to follow through.

As best-selling author Stephen Covey says, “Begin with the end in mind.”

49. Tune In to Tune Out Writer’s Block

Listening to music boosts your effectiveness in many areas such as exercise. It’s also a great tool to inspire your writing, as long as you don’t make it a distraction. Some writers have been known to play the same song on repeat while they write, saying it gives them a calming sense and the music fades to the background while they write.

Music has been known to “set the mood” in more ways than one. Pick an inspiring song and let it inspire you to write.

50. Choose the Opinion You Like Best

Have you ever looked at the same piece of writing at different times and had two different opinions?

It’s okay to toot your own horn (in your mind) when you’ve penned some damn fine words. In fact, you should do it every time you feel good about your writing to keep the inspiration going.

51. Let Your Fingers Do the Talking

Get your fingers moving. The act of typing itself can lead to a flow state and productive writing. Sometimes, I’ll start a blog post by typing “I don’t know what to write about,” just to get my fingers moving. The staring at the blank page without typing contributes to writer’s block.

52. Get Back in Touch with Your “Why”

Remember your why. Did you get into writing because you wanted to improve people’s lives? Do you have interesting stories to share? Do you want to entertain people? Go back to the source of inspiration that made you want to write in the first place. Revisit it often.

53. Find Writing Inspiration in Dark Places

Life throws curve balls at you. While you can’t avoid certain situations from happening to you, you can use them as sources of inspiration to create.

In an extreme example, Viktor Frankl used his experience in a Nazi death camp as inspiration to help others through his writing with his book Man’s Search for Meaning. You can let negativity overwhelm you, or you can use your experiences to inspire yourself in a cathartic way through your words.

54. Remember that Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Have you ever had a loved one go on an extended trip? When they come back, you’re overjoyed to see them, and you cherish the moments you have together a little bit more than usual. Why not create instant inspiration by doing the same with something you wrote?

Take a draft you’ve worked hard on and “lock it away” for a week or two before you revise or add to it. If you distance yourself from it for a bit, you’ll be inspired to jump back into a relationship with it, just like a loved one coming back from their trip.

55. Look Back and See How Far You’ve Come

Think about something that was once hard for you to do, but you now find easy. When you’re struggling to put together an introduction, edit the chaff from your sentences, or transition between points, remember that practicing these things will lead to a point where it becomes second nature.

56. Picture Your Name on a Best-Selling Book

If you’ve never written a book before, go to Canva’s free book cover maker tool and create your own custom book cover. Stare at it and imagine how it will feel to have a published book with your name on it in the future. The first time I held a copy of something I created, I was euphoric. I continue to chase that feeling each time I write.

57. Let Life Inspire Art

If you want to make your writing more interesting, make your life more interesting. If you’re feeling frustrated, step out into the world, enjoy it, and let your experiences compel you to write again.

58. Keep Your Eye on the Prize

Enter a writing contest. Writing contests often pay for top prize winners. There’s one incentive.

The popular writing blog The Write Practice hosts writing contests multiple times per day. During its most recent contest, the blog partnered with Short Fiction Break, which displayed every single piece submitted to the contest. They encouraged writers in the contest to comment on each other’s pieces and get to know each other, which created a hotbed of inspiration.

Knowing you’re a part of something larger than yourself can be inspiring. Use a writing contest to show the world what you’ve got.

59. Act Like a Hollywood Script Doctor

Rewrite a dissatisfying ending of a popular movie, short story, or book. It’ll get you in the mood to write because you’re familiar with the subject matter. If you have the gall to rewrite a popular story, you should be confident enough to create your own.

60. Don’t Fall into the Routine Trap

Write when you’re most creative. You don’t have to be a morning person to write well.

Some people are more creative at eleven at night. Blindly copying routines that don’t suit you is a surefire way to fail. Create an environment and schedule that aligns with your strengths.

61. Make a Creative Pilgrimage

This may seem a bit drastic, but moving to another city can inspire you to be more creative.

In his book Where Good Ideas Come From, Stephen Johnson claims that moving to a more populated city fosters creativity through “superlinear scaling,” which is a fancy way of saying that the more people you’re exposed to, the more creative you are. Maybe you’re not in a position to move, but if you’re young and mobile, perhaps you should take your talents to the Big Apple or out West.

62. Exercise Your Neurons

Your brain needs exercise like any other part of your body. If you’re not feeling inspired, try playing some games that involve words. Hitting a triple word score in Scrabble can remind you of your creative writing prowess. The education company Lumosity has a line of brain games that help you increase your vocabulary.

One of my inspirations for writing is the words themselves. I was one of the weird kids who looked forward to vocabulary tests, because new words excited me and stimulated my brain. Play brain games with words to inspire yourself to pen them.

63. Cast Yourself Away

Go on a thinking retreat. Bring books to read, but no electronics. Spend time alone to be with your thoughts and consider what steps you want to take in your writing career. Bill Gates does this for two weeks every year to crystallize his vision for Microsoft’s future as well as his charity foundation. You’re not a billionaire with unlimited free time, so a day or two will suffice.

64. Use These Two Words as Inspiration

Interesting questions lead to interesting answers. Many of the best pieces of writing started with the phrase, “What if?”

Use hypothetical questions to inspire new ideas. For example, you could ask, “What if I wrote a piece saying the exact opposite of what most people believe about _____?” or “What if we lived in a world where everyone was bluntly honest all the time?” These types of questions create open-ended areas to explore, giving you new material to think about and write about.

65. When in Doubt, Ship

Seth Godin has written 18 books, and has been quoted as saying, “I feel like a fraud as I read you this, as I brush my teeth, and every time I go on stage. This is part of the human condition. Accept it. Now what?”

Other creative people like Neil Gaiman and Tina Fey have reported feeling the same way, regardless of the amount of work they’ve put into the world.

What’s the difference between them and the people who let their inspiration die? They ship.

They put their work into the world regardless of how they felt about it, and it paid off. If they can create while plagued with doubt, so can you.

Look far and wide for examples of successful writers and you’ll find one common denominator — and it sure as heck isn’t procrastination. It’s shipping. Let their stories inspire you to do the same.

66. Let Technology Lend a Helping Hand

Use idea-generating tools from companies like Hubspot and Portent’s Content. With ready-made ideas and headlines, you should have everything you need to get started.

67. Be a Little Creepy

Have you ever looked at a couple across the room at a restaurant and wondered what their lives were like?

Have you ever walked past an older person at the park and thought about what crazy experiences they’ve had?

People-watching can be great inspiration for writing. You can observe people you don’t know, and let the mystery of their lives inspire you to write a story about what they could be like. It’s part writing exercise, yes, but knowing you can draw material from anywhere is inspiring.

68. Eat a Sh** Sandwich

Charles Bukowski once said, “Find what you love and let it kill you.”

He was referring to what many, including bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert, call a “shit sandwich.”

If you don’t love something enough to go through pain for it, you don’t really love it. Your shit sandwich is the one thing you cherish so much you can endure for it. How is that inspiring? Well, if you’re capable of going through heartache for something, it has an inspiring quality drawing you to do so, or else you wouldn’t do it.

Is writing your shit sandwich? If so, get really hungry, because life is going to give you an all-you-can-eat buffet.

69. Say “Hi, My Name Is _____”

Attend a conference for writers in your niche. You have to be careful with conferences because they’re a waste of time if you go without any predefined goals, but they’re great for meeting and affiliate yourself with industry insiders and the atmosphere of the event will make you want to perform well when you get home.

70. Go to the Source

Reach out to your favorite writers and ask for advice. Many people do this, but they do it the wrong way.

First, send them a message simply thanking them for the work they’ve done and leave it at that. Tell them how you’ve implemented something they’ve taught you. After your initial outreach, come back later and ask a specific question regarding a situation. Don’t just say “let me pick your brain.” Most are willing to help if they’re not too busy.

Some won’t respond, but others will. Use their words as inspiration, follow up with their advice, and let them know when you’ve implemented it.

71. Get Yourself Some Education

Take an online course on writing. I took Smart Blogger’s Guest Blogging Certification Program. Before taking the course, I wouldn’t have had the guts to pitch big-name blogs. I thought they were “off limits.” Seeing examples of people who went through the course, some of whom built million dollar businesses with the course being the catalyst for their growth, inspired me to level up my game.

Finding the right online courses by the right instructors makes a world of difference. Having a laid-out blueprint for success gives you confidence to follow through with the steps required to build something valuable.

72. Pat Yourself on the Back

Take a piece of writing you’ve done and evaluate it based solely on what you like about it. Even if it’s just one sentence. Find something to highlight as inspiration to keep writing in the future.

73. Follow The Artist’s Way

Use stream-of-consciousness writing like Julia Cameron’s famed morning pages to get your creative juices flowing. Many writers swear to this strategy, saying it unlocks the creativity hidden in their subconscious minds.

74. Find Inspiration in Everyday Heroes

I once listened to a podcast by serial self-publishing author Steve Scott. He was recapping the strategies from his latest book launch, which resulted in $60,000 in royalties.

Hearing his story was inspiring because he isn’t Malcolm Gladwell. He started self-publishing books and kept doing it until he figured out how to become one of the best. He’s what you would call an ordinary person doing something extraordinary in the publishing world. There are many examples of self-published authors you can use as inspiration. Find them on Amazon and read their stories.

Once you know it’s possible to make a killing without the gatekeepers, you’ll be inspired to do it yourself.

75. Embrace Your Inner Barbara Walters

Interview people in your niche about a topic you’re interested in. Creating profiles of other people might seem less daunting than coming up with a topic from scratch. You can use their stories in your books or blog posts.

76. Dare to Be Different

Embrace your inner weirdo. Your idiosyncrasies and strange ideas are what make you you. Don’t be afraid to show them. The more personality you put into your writing, the better.

77. Throw Your Big Hairy Goals in the Garbage

When I encounter someone who has a puffed-up chest and talks about what they’re going to do, I know they’re going to fail. Most “grand missions” end abruptly. To stay inspired, gain momentum. To gain momentum, create the smallest goals possible. Your brain likes to “win.” If you set laughably achievable goals and succeed, your brain equates it with making progress. A series of small wins is better than no wins.

For example, if your goal is to write 250 words per day, and you reach it every day for a week, it will inspire you to either write at the same pace again or up your word count. If instead, you’d started out by setting a goal of writing 1,000 words per day, you could’ve gotten discouraged and quit. The first goal inspires you to continue, while the second is demotivating.

78. Stop When You Hit the Sweet Spot

Cut your writing short right when you’re in the groove. Pick up where you left off the next day. You’ll be inspired to dive back into the page because you’ll have been thinking about where you left off.

79. Sleep with the Enemy

Make friends with fear. The sooner you stop expecting fear to go away, the better off you’ll be. Remind yourself that fear is a sign of you doing something amazing with your life — something most others won’t do.

Fear is the enemy of inspiration, but thriving in spite of your fear is inspiring. If you’re afraid of being criticized, hit publish anyway and feel inspired from overcoming the hurdle. If you fear your writing won’t be captivating, press through and ship, because one day you’ll write something people will love.

Action is the best deterrent to fear, but it never erases it. Each step you take forward alongside your fear will inspire you to do it again and again.

80. Bore Yourself to Death

You stare at the blank page and nothing comes to mind. You feel blank and stuck. You’re bored.

Good.

Boredom filters out the pretenders from the contenders. Sometimes inspiration won’t sneak up on you until you stop looking for it. If you stop trying to force the situation and let the words come to you, they’ll come. Those writing sessions where you’d normally quit after ten minutes of boredom may bring a creative breakthrough at the eleventh minute.

81. Literally Write for One Person

The idea of writing for one person has been offered time and time again, but what if you went into insane detail about the person you’re writing for?

Instead of writing for “a member of your target audience,” come up with a customer avatar even an experienced marketer would find a bit obsessive.

Something like:

“Mary Elle Christiansen is a forty-year-old woman with two children — Jeremiah, 14, and Deanna, 11. She lives in Cranston, Rhode Island. Every morning after dropping the kids off to work she visits her favorite breakfast spot, Harriet’s Kitchen, and has a pecan maple danish with a Venti caramel iced macchiato — with an extra “half pump” of caramel.

After her meal, she settles in, opens her computer, and writes. She’s working on a memoir. Her late husband, Jim, was an air force veteran. She was an air force wife. Her entire family traveled the world together, moving from base to base. The constant motion was turbulent at times, but Mary was a supportive wife through and through. She wouldn’t be happy if her husband wasn’t. After Jim died — during a tragic flight exercise gone wrong — Mary was left with a large life insurance settlement, a pit of loneliness in her stomach, and an unrealized dream of becoming a writer she suppressed for her family. It’s just her, her children, and her laptop now.“

It wouldn’t be hard for me to write a blog post to inspire Mary Elle. Get insanely specific about who you’re writing for to the point of absurdity, and get inspired to benefit that person’s life.

82. Have an Affair

Many of the world’s most successful creators had extra hobbies that had nothing to do with their main craft. Try drawing, playing music, or making pottery. Take time to express yourself creatively without writing. Creativity fuels you regardless of its source. Add some creative gasoline to your tank to use in your writing.

83. Create a Monster in Your Lab

If you’ve been writing for a while, you have a hefty list of unfinished drafts. Instead of discarding them for good, you can find inspiration by taking pieces of each unfinished post to build a “Frankenstein piece.”

84. Don’t Trust the Opinions of Losers

Fear of ridicule kills inspiration. If you’re worried about what a reader will think of you, consider this question from the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius: “You want praise from people who kick themselves every 15 minutes, the approval of people who despise themselves?” People who don’t even think highly of themselves don’t have the right to hold a negative opinion about your work.

Get your inspiration back by seeing “trolls” for what they really are — people who hate their own lives so much they want to criticise what you do in yours.

85. Stop Telling Yourself You’re a Writer

Stop only identifying with being a writer. If your identity is closely tied to being a writer, you’ll take your failure in writing as cracks in your personal character. You write, yes, but you do lots of other things, too.

86. Turn Trials into Triumph

You know what’s more inspiring than believing you can overcome obstacles? Actually overcoming them, because knowing you have the strength to do it inspires you to do it again.

Most writers fail because they avoid difficulty. Most don’t grasp the hidden inspiration in defeat. When a team loses by one point in the championship, they work even harder the next season, because they know they’re on the cusp of victory.

When a piece you write gets rejected, get inspired to prove the editor wrong. When your blog post or book falls flat on its face, get inspired to write ten times better the next time.

Real inspiration isn’t warm, fuzzy, and cute. The truly inspired are gritty, tenacious, and walk directly into the flames of disappointment and setbacks.

87. Con Your Way to Success

Become an impostor. Impostor syndrome is the feeling of being a fake, phony, or fraud who doesn’t deserve success. A great remedy for impostor syndrome is embracing the idea of being one. Write under your guise of falsehood. Realize nobody knows exactly what they’re talking about, and give up your need for appearances. Fake it till you make it.

88. Appreciate the Fortunate Timing of Your Birth

Consider the fact it’s ten times easier to become a successful writer than it used to be.

A few decades ago, to get published you needed to throw your needle into the haystack of the publishing world and hope someone discovered you. Now you can publish your own books. With the click of a button, your words can potentially reach millions of people. Technology has empowered us all.

I call this the excuse-free era because there are more opportunities than ever to find exposure.

89. Realize You’ve Already Put in “10,000 Hours”

Think of how much writing you’ve done in your life. From papers in school, to emails, to social media updates — you write all the time. When you focus on building a writing career, it’s more of a focused effort, but it’s writing just the same. Remember how much you effortlessly write in other areas of your life, and take some pressure off the writing you do for an audience.

90. Make a Mountain Out of a Molehill

Focus on doing one thing a little better each time you write. If you only get one percent better every day, you’ll be 37 times better by the end of the year.

Growth in writing is exponential, not linear, which means your practice won’t just make you better little by little. One day, after several weeks and months of getting better inch by inch, your skills will explode. You’ll enter a higher plane of creativity and the words will come out of you as if possessed by a wordsmith demon who scorches the keyboard with its fingers.

91. Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Making an investment in your writing inspires you to create because it shows you’re serious. Being an “amateur,” isn’t always inspiring, but “turning pro” is.

How do you turn pro? You do the work, but you also treat your writing like a business instead of just a hobby. Making financial investments in your craft inspires you to live up to the image you create for yourself.

A telltale sign of someone who isn’t serious about their writing is a lack of willingness to spend money. Invest in tools to grow your website. Invest in your writing education. Invest in tools to create high-quality books. The more you invest, the more you’ll feel invested in your work.

92. Stop Robbing the World of Your Creativity

Think about your readers.

What if the scientist who was meant to cure cancer decided medical school was too hard? She isn’t only robbing herself, but the world. Your writing belongs to your readers. Your words can help educate, entertain, and inspire people. I once had a reader comment on a lull I had between blog posts. They were relying on my words to help their career.

Your words matter, and we need them.

93. Pay Your Debt

Earlier we talked about the idea that your writing isn’t for you, but for other people. This is true, but at the same time remind yourself that you owe yourself. Sure, writing can be a bit of a slog at times, but you owe it to yourself to push through the pain and see what’s on the other side, especially if you’ve already invested time into your writing career. Don’t let what you’ve done go to waste.

94. Harness the Curious Power of Envy

Have you ever been jealous of another writer for their accomplishments?

You can use your envy as fuel to inspire yourself to improve. Oftentimes when I see someone else do something I want to do but haven’t done, I turn my envy into curiosity. After seeing green for a bit, I think to myself, “How did they do it?” Then I trace their steps and reverse-engineer what they’ve done.

I’ve used this strategy to get featured on popular blogs, come up with headlines for blog posts, and add more substance to my work. Don’t just get jealous, get better.

95. Hit the Reset Button

The experience of having a fresh start was inspiring because I was re-energized with new material. You don’t want to fall into the perfectionist trap, but you can inspire yourself by carefully choosing when to start over.

96. Create Your Own Turning Point

In every book or movie, there’s the moment where the unassuming protagonist takes the call to adventure. For most of her life, she’d been somewhat of a nobody, but opportunity arises, and she finally begins the chapter of her life that changes everything.

Will this moment happen in one instant for you? Maybe not. But you can embrace the idea of taking action and starting your journey today. Get inspired by the moment, or the idea that life is fleeting. Dig dip inside yourself and conjure up whatever energy is inside you and make today the day that’s different.

97. Curate an Inspiration “Museum”

We come across inspiring material all the time, whether they’re quotes, places we visit, pieces of art, or experiences we have.

What if you created a place to document and store all of this inspiration, so you could use it later in your writing? This could be in a form of a journal or scrapbook where you collect inspiring ideas. You could keep track of things you’ve thought to yourself or heard from other people that inspire you.

When your creative well runs dry, you can look to your journal for the jump-start you need.

98. Set a Finish Line

With the first book I wrote, I gave myself a specific deadline to publish it. I woke up every day, hammered away at the keyboard with reckless abandon, and looked forward to the last lap.

I relaxed a bit on writing the next book. I told myself I’d get it done without any pressure of a deadline. The result? I worked on it on and off instead of being consistent. I didn’t get back into the swing of writing until I put a deadline on my work again.

Give yourself deadlines for your writing projects. They might seem arbitrary, but deadlines help you stay motivated to push through, and they make you treat your writing like a business instead of a hobby.

99. Boil it Down to This…

Each one of these points ties into the central message behind becoming a great writer. You have to write. Get inspired by your own deep love and need for putting words on the page. You’re the best source of inspiration for yourself.

You have the itch, the pull, the call. Use it.

Get Busy Writing, or Get Busy Dying

If you really have the itch to write, it’ll never go away,

You have two options — get inspired and get to work, or let your anxiety and insecurities grow and fester.

I know what it feels like to get stuck between the feeling of knowing you have something important to say and wondering whether you’re cut out for the task at hand.

It’s been two years since I started, and I never imagined I’d be where I am today. The same can happen for you, but not without putting in the work day in and day out until you get what you want.

Remember, whether you write or not, the time will pass anyway.

You are cut out for it.

You can make all of your writing dreams come true.

You got this. Now go.

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jinjojess · 7 years

Note

Could you elaborate on what you dislike about Death Note? If you feel like doing it, of course! I always enjoy your unpopular opinions so I would like to hear more about this. I personally liked many aspects of it, but I can also see many flaws, and the second part of the story is way less fun. Also: "Remember how I can't stand characters transparently designed to appeal to a certain kind of fan" PLEASE GO ON. I need a serious critique of the characters!

Oof, I don’t know if I have that in me, but here’s a semi-short version.

Death Note has a lot of objective stumbles, but honestly the thing about it is that it’s very much Not For Me and that’s where I have the most issues.

Spoilers for the entire series, just in case.

Edit: This got really fucking long, I’m so sorry mobile users…

Note: This will be manga-based since I read the entire manga, but have only seen a few of the anime episodes.

So I was very on board with the series in the early chapters of the manga, because I liked how it was exploring the way that Light starts off as this really eager do-gooder who gets corrupted by power. In the early chapters he looks younger and adorable, and you can see a physical change in the way he carries and presents himself as he becomes more Kira than Light. Loved the idea of presenting a protagonist and then turning him into the villain and testing the reader to see if they would still side with him or not. That was cool.

I probably would have enjoyed his rivalry with L more if I didn’t find L so personally obnoxious. A lot of people like him (to the point where I feel like I am the sole dissenter) and I don’t think he’s necessarily the worst character, but just like…I dunno. Something about him and the way he’s treated in the series just feels so…I don’t know how to put this…wish fulfillment-y? Like he’s this dude who really shouldn’t be attractive because he’s gaunt and pale and clearly doesn’t take care of himself at all, plus he’s got all these nervous tics that would probably be at best politely tolerated while everyone talks about how awkward he is behind his back but like…I don’t remember that ever happening really.

Like if the police force were like “Jesus, dude, just sit like a normal human being for once,” I’d have found him more believable as an actual character instead of this guy conspicuously being weird to show off how “different” and “special” he is. Plus he’s also athletic, despite not ever being shown practicing or going to the gym or anything–he’s just super good at martial arts and a tennis champ, guys. Like sorry, but for those of us in the real world, we have to adhere to social codes and actually work for that kind of shit, and while some people find comfort in this sort of idealized escapism, it’s always just pissed me off from a personal standpoint.

Basically L feels like he was created to appeal to socially awkward fangirls who could squee over him and be like “he’s weird and socially awkward just like me! but everyone would be jealous of me if he was my boyfriend because unlike me everyone loves him!” Which in and of itself is not inherently Bad or anything, but it gives me a sense of unbearable second-hand embarrassment so I just cannot deal with that.

Let me be clear here: those kinds of fangirls completely deserve to have media aimed at them, and Death Note fills that niche pretty well. Again, this complaint is from a place of personal preference, and is just to get you to understand why Death Note turned out to not really be my cup of tea.

(Plus also where is the storyline where L gains weight or gets type 2 diabetes from surviving on sweets? Oh, it’s because his brain burns too many calories. Fuck that guy.)

Misa is similar in that she’s basically Yamato Nadeshiko: Goth Edition and that just ain’t my thing. Like don’t get me wrong–I love me some tragically loyal people, but I usually prefer that they also be capable in some other way (Pekoyama can swordfight like a badass, Sakakura is a world-class boxer, Mukuro is…well, Mukuro, etc.). MisaMisa is kind of a fuck up. Plus iirc she’s an idol and sorry, if you are not part of Maizono’s posse I have zero time for you.

Anyway, the fact that the reader is supposed to feel less sympathy for Light because of his treatment of Misa is interesting, but it’s kind of clouded by the fact that Misa is so annoying to me personally that I just wanted her to fucking die already and get out of the narrative. Rem, you are too good for this shit.

I did find the police force itself pretty charming, though. I was rooting for them for most of the story.

Ryuk was great too. A nice provider of very needed levity, and probably the most consistently good point of the series, at least until the very end which I’ll get into in a second.

Anyway, the more technical issues I have with Death Note are with its pointless meandering. There’s that famous tennis scene where it’s supposed to be really exciting because Light and L are trying to figure each other’s psychology out, but the things they’re thinking aren’t at all realistic. Like trying to win a tennis match proves you’re competitive ergo you must be Kira? What? It’s overthinking very mundane things that would have too many variables to ever be conclusive proof of anything, and it turns out to be pointless since they both reach that conclusion at the end of the game anyway.

So yeah, my biggest issue with Death Note was that it wasted so much of my time. It feels a little like the V3 trials, where you’d be purposefully led down this boring, clearly incorrect route so that the reader could be “surprised” when it turned out that something could be Occam’s Razor’d. There are entire volumes where nothing happens. And I don’t mean like, nothing physically happens, but the characters are having intense debates or whatever. I remember reading volumes where only two real conversations were had, and the rest of the time was everyone imagining and mentally preparing for said conversations.

Maybe my memory of the series is too patchy, since I read the manga over a decade ago in 2005, but I remember a LOT of padding.

Something I did think was handled well was how Light defeats L. That was pretty great because at heart I do love super smart villains with stupidly complicated plans, and that one was pretty great, especially since I figured that L wouldn’t be going anywhere.

However, the series should have ended here. It should have ended with Kira winning out over L, but the law being closer to figuring out who Kira is, leaving the reader in a state of uncertainty about the future of this world and Light as a character.

Would that have wrapped up all the loose ends? No. But it would be way better than what we got in the second half of the series, I think most people would agree.

So let’s talk for a second about Near and Mello.

To touch again on the “this was clearly for a certain kind of fan” subject, how hard do you think the publishers shit themselves when they realized that L was going to die but the series wasn’t over? L was and still is by far the most popular character from the series, and the fangirls were probably not going to be pleased that their husbando got ejected from the narrative.

So what do we do?

Replace him with more of the same!

While L was annoyingly teetering on Gary Studom, Near is basically that just with an added dose of “precocious child” which doesn’t really help the situation. I hesitate to call him Shouta L, even if that’s how it feels sometimes, but I just felt like Near was way too similar to L to be his own character. He felt more like L was reborn as a kid for the Death Note Babies spin-off.

Mello was a lot more interesting, with the inferiority complex and his tendency to, you know, actually do things. The only part of the latter half of the series I remember liking was when Mello kidnapped Light’s sister and there was this tiny glimmer of humanity left in him where he didn’t want her to die. However this was always offset for me by the fact that he was running around with an exposed midriff because yeah we need to have fanservice somewhere man. (Again, not inherently Bad and fangirls deserve their fanservice too, but like…not my thing, at all.) It just felt very…calculated, if that makes sense.

What would have been way more interesting to me would be Light finding out about these orphans being groomed to take over for L and there being some kind of commentary on how the side of “good” is using these really dubious and unethical methods to catch Kira, bringing up the question of whether or not they’re actually any better. Like let’s talk about that.

Okay so. The only thing left to talk about is the ending. And holy shit, that fucking ending.

I was still trying to be on board with Death Note even in the second half where I had very little desire to finish it but felt like I’d already invested the time and money so I might as well. I was trying so damn hard, and I was still kind of enjoying the ridiculous lengths Kira was going to get a one-up on his pursuers, with the fake out girlfriends and the cult, and the fucking pieces of Death Note pages inside the secret compartment of his watch and shit…it was so dumb but in like a fun way.

And to be clear, I’m fine with Light losing in the end, and being undone by his own hubris.

But to only have it happen because Ryuk decides to conveniently help the police? Like, that’s dumb. The entire thing hinges on Ryuk deciding at that very moment to fuck Light over–sure, whatever, he’s not on a side, sure. I don’t expect him to actually pull a Rem, but he must have fucking known that the lackey’s book was fake (who, by the way, should have planned to do away with everyone one at a time, using the power to determine how people die to make it look like an accident, and then he would have noticed that his notebook wasn’t a real one). At least hint toward Ryuk getting fed up, or bored, or something so that this doesn’t seem so frustratingly convenient.

Though Ohba apparently once said that L was the smartest character because “the plot needs him to be” so there you go. That’s his approach. Plot contrivances are the order of the day.

So yeah, anyway.

That’s why I’m not that fond of Death Note. Part of it is because of personal biases against certain kinds of characters that are not appealing to me, and part of it is because the entire story feels like it’s taking itself too seriously and is trying to be more clever than it is. As a more compact narrative I think it would probably get a pass, but the fact that it’s so bloated and sprawling really makes it hard for me to consider it objectively good.

…Turns out I did have it in me.

#ask #anon #opinions #long post #criticism #Death Note #no seriously it's long #you've been warned

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returnerofthesky · 7 years

Note

tbh i never knew you were a fan of starfox since you like never post about it lmao

Sorry for taking so long to answer this. Again, trip, staying off of Tumblr, etc. :V

I’d say I’m a fan of Star Fox the same way I’m a fan of Sonic - they were both big influences on me when I was younger (and not just the whole furry angle either), but nowadays I’m only really a fan of... “part” of the series, despite still enjoying the franchise and wanting to see it keep going. Star Fox 2 is my favorite of them all, and the only one I’ve gone back to play more than just once or twice, which probably speaks for itself.

For me, Star Fox feels a lot like how Zelda did in that it feels like the series simply has not been allowed to evolve. It’s gotten so mired in a lot of old traditions (gameplay-wise or story-wise) that it doesn’t seem like a lot of people know really what to do with it, and this becomes a lot more glaring with how few games there actually are in the series. In a lot of ways I’d say that the series has been “suffering from success” for years, and I think it’s going to take a BotW-style shift in order for the series to truly survive.

Most of that probably sounds vague, so let me put it another way - there’s two things that I think the developers really need to realize:

One, shmups are a really, extremely niche genre nowadays. Maybe back in the 80s and 90s shmups were all the rage, whether they were 2D or 3D, but nowadays shmups basically seem to be interchangeable with bullet hell. Linear corridor-esqe shooters really aren’t a thing anymore, even in indie circles; Star Fox Zero was the last space shooter game that I can remember coming out with a lot of fanfare in a long, long time.

The thing that made me realize this was Dan Ryckert’s review of Zero back when it came out, in which he stated that he liked the game alright aside from the motion controls issue and some minor stuff, and that it felt like the sequel to 64 that everyone always wanted... but nowadays, that still felt incredibly outdated. Like it would have been a really well-received sequel if it had been released back in the 2000s, but nowadays the industry had simply moved on after so many years.

Two, Star Fox 64 is... just kinda alright.

Like, it’s a good game. I’m not going to say something stupid (and untrue) by calling it bad, because it’s not bad by any stretch of the imagination. But there’s no denying that much of the game has aged, even with the 3DS rerelease. The bump in grahpics and sound quality was desperately needed (even if I think I prefer the older voice acting, as it sounds a bit more natural), but, as I said, shmups are a genre that’s fallen out of favor, and a large chunk of 64′s gameplay consists of rail shooter levels. And since the all-range mode, while good, mostly consists of fairly barebones maps with few obstacles or details...

I’m perfectly willing to admit that part of that is personal bias - I’ve talked before about how more arcade-y games and genres (like shmups) generally don’t grab me very well, as they’re usually much more stressful and frustrating for me to play. I find the all-range modes to be a lot more my style, even though they have their faults in 64. But the rail shooter sections in Star Fox have never bothered me as much as, say, Thunder Force (where I repeatedly lose track of everything happening at once and die on the first stage). That said, they’re still not that interesting, and as I mentioned last paragraph, all-range doesn’t fare much better in 64 either.

Of course, despite all that, SF64 is still a really iconic game that commands a lot of weight and respect - but despite being awed by the game when I was a tiny five year old tot, I think that most of what people remember about SF64 doesn’t stem from the gameplay itself. Instead, most of what’s kept the game so well-remembered comes from its presentation; the voice acting, the script full of memorable lines, the scenarios presented for each level, so on and so forth.

That’s not to say that the gameplay itself isn’t good, just that none of it feels like it really... “sticks”. Despite Sector X being about the robot boss destroying the base, I don’t really remember much of the level itself, just the boss fight. Despite Titania being about going to save Slippy, it’s mostly just a slog of fighting birds and other junk before actually reaching the interesting bit (it’s worth noting that Titania in Zero is much improved in this regard, with more variation in terrain and obstacles). All-range mode usually is a lot more memorable to me.

So of course, if 64 is more memorable for it’s presentation than most of the actual gameplay, and if half of its gameplay (shmup) has slowly turned into a niche genre, what happens? Well, as you might expect, I think the series needs to start putting more focus and care into the other half of its gameplay: all-range mode. And funnily enough, I think the developers(es), at least on some level, realize this as well.

If that sounds weird, let me point this out: after Star Fox on the SNES, the sequel immediately shifted gears from a rail shooter to an outright dogfight game, with some small strategy elements thrown in to add nuance to the space shooting. Star Fox 64, despite having shmup gameplay, also included a number of all-range levels and sequences. Star Fox Assault expanded on this with half-shmup, half-all-range, with on-foot sections and more detailed levels since you could go on foot. Star Fox Zero did the same, reintroducing the Walker instead of on-foot sections and making a lot of all-range sequences with impressive details and obstacles.

Do you see what I’m getting at here? The series has always, always, been drifting more and more towards emphasizing the all-range mode, expanding on it in many different ways and in a lot of ways improving and polishing it to the point where it easily could be a highlight. In fact, the reason it isn’t a highlight usually isn’t because of all-range mode itself, but because of other factors. Gyro controls, wonky cameras, iffy third-person-shooter gameplay, etc etc.

Take, for example, Zoness, in Zero. In it, you’re teleported to an enemy base on Zoness and have to infiltrate it without being detected, by sneaking through a main corridor, flying into power generator rooms and disabling the power shield so the place self-destructs (and then you have to escape while it crumbles, obviously). Unfortunately, you’re flying the Gyrowing, making the whole level this slow, annoying slog, and that doesn’t even take into account the aiming controls themselves.

However, there’s an alternate version of the level where you visit in the Arwing instead, and you have to do the same mission but on a seven minute time limit. Utilizing the Arwing/Walker in order to explore and escape the base is an incredible improvement on the level; it’s faster, smoother, and more fun to play - if they stripped out the time limit (keep it, just as a challenge level) and made it the default level instead of the Gyrowing, I bet the level would have been much more well received.

Another example of a really good all-range level from Zero is, of course, Sector Beta, and not just because it basically crams every named character from 64 into one giant love letter. It essentially consists of dogfighting between Andross and Cornerian forces (like Katina from 64), eventually getting through a giant battleship’s shield and infiltrating it in Walker form, and then battling Star Wolf while the rest of the battle keeps going on. There’s no frills or exploration like in Zoness, it’s just pure space shooting, and it’s an excellent level because of it.

For one that isn’t from Zero, anyone remember Sargasso Space Zone from Assault? It’s kind of a combination of both styles of all-range mission, where you have to get inside of the base and destroy some teleporter things while fighting enemies inside, but then after destroying them, Star Wolf pops up and you finish off by having a dogfight with them and other normal enemy fighters.

All of these are solid examples of how all-range mode works, and I feel like focusing more on these levels is where the series needs to head. I wouldn’t necessarily say that shmup gameplay should disappear forever, and I wouldn’t do away with absolutely all arcade-y aspects of the series, either (the high score counter is perfectly fine, for instance, and linear segments can work as small one-offs).

The games need a major shake up in order to survive, and I think making a game focused more around the dogfighting aspect rather than the corridor shooting would work quite well. That’s the reason I compare it to Zelda; it might not have nearly as many games under its belt and be quite as much of a staple, but Star Fox really needs its own Breath of the Wild to catch up with the times. Whether it goes the route of essentially becoming like a Rogue Squadron game, or if it takes Star Fox 2′s concept of light RTS elements and designs a game like it, something needs to give, and considering Nintendo’s recent habit of reviving their games with the right modern touches and the old, less-necessary traditions tweaked or changed, I think they could do it.

(Stick with the Zero aesthetic, though - the mixture of elements from SNES and 64 work juuuuuuuust right to me)

#star fox #sky rambles #Anonymous

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todisturbtheuniverse · 7 years

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Fanfic Year in Review - 2016

I was tagged in this by @hollyand-writes; thanks! :)

Total number of completed stories: 8, plus 1 WIP I started that is still in progress.

Total word count: Just about 90K posted to AO3.

Fandoms written in: Dragon Age (2 and Inquisition), Mass Effect, and Strange Magic.

Looking back, did you expect to write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected? I expected to write a lot less. That last Inquisitor/Iron Bull story was an abrupt decision, and given that it was 25K words, had a serious impact on my word count. I also didn’t expect These Chains to expand the way it did. Silly me, picking up a project and thinking it’s going to be 20K words or less. Like the dumb slow-burn romance lover living in my head would allow that. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What’s your own favorite story of the year? That’s tough. Probably Wall Yourself Away, just because I’ve waited a long time for Bull and Kat to get to the mushy stuff, and it was like finally releasing a sneeze to get it written down.

Did you take any writing risks this year? Sort of? I knew when I started writing it that These Chains was not necessarily going to be popular; it’s a pairing that doesn’t come off looking so good in canon, BDSM is divisive, femdom is not super popular, etc. It was a dynamic I’d never written before, so in that regard, it was definitely a risk. But ultimately, it was something that @argharies had the idea for and that we ended up developing together as a fun creative exercise, and oh what fun it was.

Do you have any fanfic or profit goals for the new year? I definitely want to wrap up These Chains. I’m getting fairly close to having no more “active” WIPs floating out there in the wild, and I would really like that to happen this year.

Otherwise, I have a few long-ish fics that have been varying stages of development for varying amounts of time, including:

f!Hawke/Isabela fic set during-and-post-Inquisition, getting into what the heck Hawke was thinking to get involved with the Wardens and what happens when she goes to Adamant (let me tell you: Isabela is Not Happy). This was actually a story I was developing for the 2015 Dragon Age Big Bang. I ended up dropping out because, surprise surprise, it got much longer and more complicated than I had planned, and I ran out of time.

f!Hawke/Isabela modern-ish AU featuring Gangs, Fake Dating, and Lots of Panic (about Castillon’s Lingering Grudge); this one was a lot of fun to play with earlier this year.

f!Adaar/Josephine fic set during the “Of Somewhat Fallen Fortune” quest, which is similar in style to Only Pieces/Wall Yourself Away: a flashback fic showing some historical development for both Adaar and Josephine, juxtaposed with the present goings-on. This one is kind of like a sneeze, too.

Jyn Erso/Cassian Andor fic, the premise for which is so full of spoilers that I’m not even going to get into it. If it ever comes to light, you’ll see. Honestly, the most delightful part of even starting this was that Star Wars was really the first fandom I wrote (shitty, self-insert, never-posted) fanfiction for; coming back to it 15-ish years later feels really fun and indulgent.

Just about two dozen one-shots, of various pairings--mostly Shakarian right now, since I’m working on my replay of ME before Andromeda hits, but plenty of Inquisibull & other DA stuff, too.

I have no idea if any of these are going to actually happen this year. If I had to put money on it, I’d say some ficlets and that f!Adaar/Josephine fic, but if I put my head between my ears, I’d hope to really flesh out that f!Hawke/Isabela story. None of those longfics are going to see a post date until the whole damn first draft is written, though. I’ve learned my lesson.

Best story of the year? Probably a toss-up between In Which Tongue Will We Speak and A Little Rehearsal; I personally thought I nailed characterization/atmosphere/humor the best in these two.

Most popular story of the year? By all accounts, it was all the leaves on the trees are falling, though it hardly seems fair; since I started writing it in 2015, of course it has more hits, kudos, comments, subscriptions, bookmarks, etc. than anything I posted in 2016.

Of those that I started posting in 2016:

Most hits: These Chains

Most kudos: Misfire

Most comments: Wall Yourself Away

Most bookmarks: These Chains

Most subscriptions: These Chains

Story of mine most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion: Eh, I don’t think any of them were underappreciated. Most have a 10% kudos-to-hits ratio, which is about what I expect (the exception is These Chains, which is at about 5%, for very obvious reasons). They’ve all received comments. I think they’ve gotten plenty of appreciation.

Most fun story to write: I loved A Little Rehearsal. There are some characters and pairings whose voices, for whatever reason, really flow for me, and Garrus/Shepard is one of them. In my opinion, I really get their humor/camaraderie (ymmv; these are, after all, my versions of these characters).

Story with the single sexiest moment: Honestly, probably Wall Yourself Away, just because the emotional component has really come in and joined the party; These Chains would have been a contender if Shepard and Vega were in the same spot, but they’ve got a ways to go.

Most sweet story: We All Fall. Quintessential Josephine/Inquisitor fluff.

“Holy crap, that’s wrong, even for you!” story: Nothing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I have no shame, or maybe the stuff I’m into/write about is just not niche enough. Plenty of people would probably take issue with both Wall Yourself Away and These Chains for the BDSM aspect, but they’re probably not part of my fandom circle.

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: I’m continually adjusting my perception of Bull, more than any other character I’ve ever written, so Wall Yourself Away. When a character’s main personality trait is that they’re a good liar, you kind of constantly second-guess everything you think you’ve interpreted about said character. It is exhausting.

Most unintentionally telling story: Probably Ornamented. Why is it unintentionally telling? Because it tells you all that if I sit down with an hour and a vague prompt, I’m going to churn out Hawke/Isabela fluff with creeping character development. That’s it, lol. That’s what’s in my brain.

Hardest story to write: Well, as the year has gone along, These Chains. I just got knocked out of the right mindset and need to dedicate some time to revisit it so I can get going again.

Biggest disappointment: None, really. I write and post fanfic with zero expectations; there’s plenty that doesn’t get posted because I’m just scribbling, it’s unfinished, it’s not ready, etc., but when I do post it--that end product is still what the starting product was. Basically just something I wanted to offload from my brain, or, usually, the fic that I want to read but can’t find. That other people enjoy it delights me, but if they don’t, oh well.

Don’t get me wrong; in general, I do wish that a greater level of feedback was generated for fanfiction. It’s just that I’m content as-is, personally. I’ve been part of a big enough fandom that I once got a ton of increased views and feedback; the super-long Dean/Castiel fic I wrote back in 2013 has more than 23,000 hits, 668 kudos, was part of somewhat popular rec lists, etc. My personal enjoyment of my own writing, however, is just not changed by the level of feedback.

Biggest surprise: The super-lengthy and loving feedback I got on Wall Yourself Away. I anticipated this fic especially to be a labor of love, mostly written for myself; while I am totally interested in other OCs, I usually still assume that most people do not want to hear about someone else’s OC, and this fic was all-Katrina-all-the-time (plus other OCs I pulled in, too). The fact that a fair few people were captivated was really nice. (I said I was content without much feedback, not that I don’t enjoy it when feedback occurs anyway! :))

Tagging: Anyone who wants to, really. I’ve seen it going around, so I’m not sure who’s done it and who hasn’t. Feel free!

#universe writes about writing #a wild meme appears

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autopilotrecruiting · 6 years

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New Post has been published on

New Post has been published on http://leadershipmentoring4free.info/blog/2018/01/04/network-marketing-system-what-you-need-for-success/

Network Marketing System - What You Need For Success

The Successful Network Marketing System… Have You Found It?

The Network Marketing System, or “System”, as we like to call them in the network marketing profession have become the cornerstone to real network marketing success.

It’s true; every leader is always pitching their “network marketing system” as the perfect one. The one that is finally going to help you create the online success you have been dying to achieve. As a network marketer, you know how valuable finding the proper one is. But what do you look for while seeking the one that is best for you?

There are so many options out there to choose from, so, what’s the best one? That’s a really good question… The best answer I can come up with is that one network marketing system will work best for one particular company and may not be so great for another.

The fact is we live in a very diverse world. There is no one network marketing system that is perfect for any company. Eventually, it will be discovered that something is simply missing for the needs of a particular company where it meets all the needs and expectations of another. There is a lot of grey area in-between.

So let’s check out three important factors in what to look for in…

The Successful Network Marketing System.

The first one we’ll touch on is..

1. EASE OF USE – does it play nice?

Let’s face it, we all want things that make our lives easier. If we get bogged down with complexity, we’re bound to lose interest fast. Also, it’s very important that as we bring other network marketers into our organization and want to give them the proper tools for success, they will need something that has a short learning curve and most importantly, is easily duplicated.

A formula of successful duplication is key to any successful network marketing system. Without it, a new user is going to grow frustrated quickly. If they don’t simply give up and quit, they will start to do things outside of the proven success formula that will soon lead them to certain failure. They will lose valuable money, time and possibly respect for you if you are the one who got them involved with such a complicated system. Eventually, they will likely quit, and you will be at risk of becoming part of their new story about their experience in network marketing, and why it doesn’t work. Network marketing systems that have “Ease of use”, are integral to your success, your team’s success and ultimately, the success of your business.

While working in corporate America, I used a very well known “system” that my employer provided. The system had to be heavily manipulated in order to get the result I was looking for and to stay on focus with the company identity. It was a generic system that could literally be dispatched in any field of business because it was generic. It was simply a system, for the sake of having a system.

The creator of the system boasted of its versatility, and it really is when properly pre-setup. But leaving it up to each user to manipulate the system simply caused frustration. It was mandatory to use this system yet many employees would eventually decide to risk reprimand for not using it rather than trying to make nice with it anymore.

The next successful network marketing system factor is…

2. FOCUS – will it be consistent in branding – you?

This really comes down to the internal tools that the network marketing system employs and makes fully available to you, the end user. Is it directly focused on what your business is or is it generic? Will it assist you in specifically targeting the niches you are going after? Since we rarely have complete control over the system our company provides, does the system support your exact marketing focus? In other words, if you are selling product #1, does it provide support (i.e. pre-made templates, campaigns, etc.) specifically for product #1 or is it vague in its focus? And if your business has several products, will it do the same for each product consistently? Does it create and provide consistency with your growing brand?

And the third successful network marketing system factor is…

3. PRICE – will it drain your wallet before you can use it?

Does paying more for something necessarily mean that it’s going to be better? Let’s say you want to remodel your kitchen. You should always get at minimum, 3 estimates and always ask for references of each contractor. Often times, the higher priced contractor will be reluctant to give you their references yet they are the one to put on the most pressure to get you sign on the dotted line today to have them do the work. Why is this? Because quite often, they know that they have over promised and under delivered their customers. They have zero confidence in the kind of recommendation their past customer may give.

All too often people think the phrase; “You Get What You Pay For” is gospel. So they go with the higher priced contractor thinking they are going to get the best work done when the contractor who charged in the middle has created such a loyal and devoted customer base because of his superb craftsmanship, he realizes charging more, doesn’t always equate to more money. Having multiple referrals and repeat customers who really do the selling for him does. He knows exactly what his customers are saying about him and he happily gives you as many references as you would like.

Will you get huge value out of your brand new network marketing system at its basic level? Or will you need to upgrade in order for it to start assisting you to produce the desired results? This is a common problem found with many network marketing systems out there as well.

Often heard:

“Join our business for as little as $1.00 Aday and use our high tech, industry-leading network marketing system to catapult your business into success you’ve never thought possible!”

Within minutes of processing your payment you’re being told that in order to get the maximum results from the network marketing system you just bought, you will need to upgrade! Or you’re being pitched on four other money making opportunities to join which in turn, breaks the basic fundamentals of factor #1!

FACT: Your new network marketing system should be ready made to get you going and start being profitable quickly, at any level of entry. The only reason to upgrade would be to put you in a position to PROFIT EVEN MORE! It should be there as a tool to success and not a distraction from it. It needs to be simple yet full-featured and allows you to focus on becoming profitable, NOT trying to figure out how to use it. You control it, not the other way around. The best network marketing system is the system that will be working for you even… when you’re not working!

If there was such a network marketing system that was very easy to use, maintained focus and consistently branded you, had a very low acquisition cost and could get you making money quickly? That would be one powerful network marketing system!

If you actually owned this system and other people wanted access to it so that they could experience the same benefits? But the only way they could, was to get it directly from you? Even if they didn’t join your network marketing opportunity, they could still get the system from you and you would still make money without them joining? Now that would be an extremely powerful network marketing system!

Hey! I found it!

If you are tired of all the gimmicks, and just want to get down to fixing your struggling business or starting your business off in the RIGHT direction. There is one… just one program that I can recommend. Find it on my blog here: I Erving Cxoxen. It is the “REAL”… tried, a true & proven system that gives you all the tools needed to drive traffic to your website, generate quality leads on demand and promote your business like a pro. You’ll also get amazing mentoring from the insiders who have mastered the art of this wonderful profession of network marketing. They’ll even guide you into making serious money quickly and sponsor and recruit, so you can start to enjoy immediate profit – even if your prospect doesn’t join your primary business. Plus, you’ll be able to provide your team with the perfect solution to get them started in the right direction and enjoying profit regardless of your skill level. Click here and see this 3-day marketing system at work

Erving Croxen

Social Media & Network Marketer

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ahvie-voidsinger · 7 years

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Charity

During the course of one of my many facebook battles (I don’t necessarily see a futility in them if the person hasn’t unfriended me yet), I was berated for defending the rights of transgender citizens to use the bathroom of their chosen gender, not the one they were assigned at birth. Keep in mind I have not yet come out to my friends. One such friend angrily asked me, “The fuck do you care about them? It doesn’t personally affect you, does it?”

And although in fact it did affect me personally, because this is very much a fight on my character and my profession, that question struck me as very odd. Do people really think that we cannot or should not give a damn about something or someone if we ourselves aren’t expecting to get something out of it? Doesn’t that fly in the face of the charity work nonpartisan, religious and nonreligious volunteers do for other people?

Instead of choosing to come out right then and there and make the argument more personal (and therefore a little more subjective), I chose to grill them right back on what charity really is. You’re giving your time, your money, or something of your own to help improve the life of another human being, with ZERO expectation in return. Even if there’s no thanks. Some might say that they are charitable because it makes them feel like a better person, that they might not be as bad as the world tells them they are. Some might say that they are expected to be charitable because of a religious belief or some holiday or some leader told them to be charitable.

I’m quite aware that even writing a blog post about what being charitable is could very well be subjected to a possibility that it was just to get attention, to have praise and thanks lavished upon oneself. My father probably saw it that way, as part of his being a sociopath drove him to seek the shield of others’ adoration and admiration to hide behind. Ironically, he hated it when I donated money at the grocery checkout lines, or outside Walmart with the red kettles, and he certainly didn’t approve of gofundme’s.

Thankfully, he’s out of my life and not breathing down my neck on every decision I make. But back to the topic, which is where I really don’t giving money away to charity. I’m single, probably will be for a very long time as I transition, and have only one family member left, my poor mother. I have a decent job I enjoy that doesn’t pay a lot, but I live with her and we make things work, and we’re amazingly well off considering the political climate. I am ever conscious of how unlucky many of my gaming friends are, or how less well off they are, and I can finally start doing something about it.

I once donated a bit of money to a gofundme effort before there were gofundme’s, sort of a volunteer freelance project. See nearly three decades ago, when pc gaming was in its infancy, LucasArts released several games that revolutionized adventure stories, one of them being Escape from Monkey Island. The other, which my father chose for me instead, was LOOM. It was a musical-focused game that had the player-character cast spells through musical notes recited in a particular pattern. Some patterns were reversable by singing backwards. The game had a lot of depth and alternate means to solve the puzzles. And it was slated to be a trilogy. Only at the culmination of the first game, we got a hell of a cliffhanger... and LucasArts never delivered, only hinting briefly at what the titles of the 2nd and 3rd games would be. In the following years, and decades, the best we got were ports and special editions of the first LOOM game, some even going as far as providing voiced dialogue for ALL of the game’s speech. If that wasn’t commitment, I’m not sure what was; and yet the series just never continued.

Then a driven and story-loving nerd who, like many of us middle-aged gamers who grew up with LOOM, decided to continue the series himself by not only writing the story for the next two games, but also to hire programmers, testers, artists, musicians and coders to create a purely fan-based, fan-funded pair of sequels. Only, as you could imagine, following in the footsteps of a very iconically and archaic game art style required people with very niche skills, and all of those people needed to make a living. Paying for all of it became very difficult and very scarce. I think the project was a few years in development, barely halfway to even the first playable alpha demo, back when I stumbled upon it after searching for a sequel. I was young and idealistic, but no less idealistic than I am now, and shrugged. These guys might never get off the ground, even with a significant donation. But, Hell, I grew up with this too and want to see the story resolved. So I gave them their biggest donation in years (which appears to have inspired others to top it, as months later bigger cash flowed in) and thought nothing of the offers to put my name in the game as an easter egg, or to have a character named after me or whatever. Maybe in the credits, okay, but that’s not why I donated money.

I donated money because I want them to succeed. I want hardworking talented artists and caring people to stay employed so they can continue being hardworking talented artists and caring people. My friends used to tell me I sounded like an asshole when I told them I had money I was willing to throw around for the good of my friends. I was so confused then, and maybe I can understand the danger or the appearance of wanting to be a savior or somesuch. But I have very little in my life to throw money at, and I figure it’s far better than a WoW Token or a new car or a 4K TV or something I don’t need. Better to make the world better one choice at a time, because God knows there’s a shitload of stuff fighting to make the world worse many choices at a time.

I paid $2,000 for the custom-fitted, glow-in-the-dark Mass Effect N7 fury cosplay latex costume back in 2013. The tailor, Andrey (better known as Andromeda Latex now), was not very well known back then for his revolutionary catsuit patterns, latex designs and layering, as well as the reactive coating that made it glow under black light. After helping to fund what I saw as a very worthy artist being underappreciated, he got a few more ideas from progressively happy customers, and hit the jackpot making Evangelion plugsuits and Overwatch costumes. He has more work than he knows what to do with, and his waitlist is more than a year long. When he moved locations, he had a rare opportunity to make only specific costumes for a short time. I paid 2K for another one, just as much to own another rare and high-quality cosplay as to support an awesome human being who I thought deserved to stay in business.

So, um, yeah. I’m not rich. I make barely $35K a year being a newspaper editor and designer, but I rather like it. And living at home with an open-minded but damaged mother means I’m well capable of living within my means. Looking after me isn’t a big deal, isn’t a big upkeep. So when I offer an artist payment with no concern about the price tag, or help pay for someone’s bus ticket out of their shitty hometown, or help fill a few shelves at the pantry... I’m not doing it for God, I’m not doing it for the golden plaque, I’m not even doing it to escape from the shadow of my father’s upbringing. I can very much get by. I’m no high-roller, but... this world, with all the shit that happens to good people... I’m sorry Facebook ‘friends’, but I very much have a stake in this fight. I don’t know why you don’t feel the same way, with all the religious drivel you preach to me every day.

I hope the money goes to good use, and that it helps bring about happiness and goodness in this entropic world we inhabit. Would that money could solve all of our problems =\

It’s like Bill and Ted often said, “Be excellent to each other.”

#charity #donations #holy shit did i write all that #sorry guys #generosity #us poor people can still help #or maybe some of us can and we just gotta hug each other and hold on tight and keep each other warm in this fucked up snowstorm we call home #i think i might have rambled #rant #aint no getting off of this train

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richardrobertsimsuccessblog · 7 years

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99 Ways to Get Inspired to Write

Ugh, it happened again.

Another week or month has passed, and you’ve made zero progress on your writing goals.

Deep down you know your writing is important, but you can’t take consistent action.

What’s really going on here?

The truth is, you don’t feel inspired.

You can’t help but marvel at other writers who do persist, and have a large body of work you can’t even fathom achieving.

How do you get there?

How do you find the inspiration you need to stay the course long enough to become the prolific, popular, and successful writer you dream of becoming?

The Dirty Little Lie You Tell Yourself About Inspiration

If you’re struggling to find inspiration, you might be guilty of “believing in magic” when it comes to your writing career.

People who fail to do the things they say they want to do believe in fairy tales, like this one:

They believe successful writers have “made it,” and have no problem staying motivated because they’ve “arrived.”

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Regardless of how successful you are, there will be days you feel uninspired. In fact, what once seemed like a passion-filled calling can turn into a bit of a slog after a while.

Professional athletes love the game, but they don’t necessarily want to train their bodies every single day.

Business owners love money and recognition, but they don’t necessarily enjoy the process of getting their business off the ground.

You love expressing yourself with words, but you won’t necessarily enjoy each and every writing session.

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing — that’s why we recommend it daily.” — Zig Ziglar

Fortunately, I have 99 different ideas for writers — use them whenever you’re struggling to turn intention into action.

So here’s how to get inspired to write:

1. Do the One Thing They Always Tell Writers Not to Do

Once I paid attention to the writing in my favorite shows, I drew inspiration from the stories and turned a seemingly useless activity into creative fuel.

2. Read Your Old Love Letters

3. Embrace Your Insignificance

Realize the universe doesn’t care about you. Oftentimes, we lack inspiration because of fear. We’re afraid because we feel like the world is waiting for us to fail, like there’s a spotlight shining on our inadequacy. We live on a planet that’s one of billions of planets in one of billions of galaxies, each of which contains billions of stars. In the grand scheme of things, you’re insignificant. Nothing you do “matters,” except that it matters to you. Go for it, because you have nothing to lose.

4. Make the Subtle Shift from Goal-Setting to Habit-Forming

Goals give you inspiration by providing an end point, but habits weave inspiration into the core of your being and make it automatic.

Habits trump goals every time. The most prolific writers aren’t the most goal-oriented. They’re built to show up every day and do the work.

5. Tell Yourself You’re Not Good Enough

I once heard a story about a successful real estate agent who was constantly asked about how to break into the industry. He gave them all the same answer, “Don’t get into real estate. You’re not cut out for it.” He gave that answer because he knows it acted as reverse psychology for those who were cut out for it, and filtered out those that weren’t. Try a little reverse psychology on yourself. Try to convince yourself you’re not good enough, and then get offended. Of course you’re good enough! You were born to write. Trick yourself to put a fire in your belly and get inspired.

6. Start a Chain Gang

7. Become the G.O.A.T.

Focus on becoming so great you can’t be ignored. Most writers are worried about what the competition is doing and idolize their favorite writers. Instead, you’ll focus on being so good the competition will start to watch you. Embrace the attitude of Michael Jordan in his first few seasons. He knew the league was going to belong to him before it actually did. He put his head down, did the work, and demolished the competition to become the Greatest of All Time. You can be the same. Put your head down, write, and one day people will say “Who is this?”

8. Take a Dump

9. Embrace Your Inner Hulk

10. Become a Better Writer Without Becoming a Better Writer

Look at Tiger Woods. He never recovered from his personal scandal. What does that tell you? It tells you life outside your craft is just as important as practicing it, if not more.

11. Make It Impossible to Edit While You Write

12. Imagine Your Worst-Case Scenario

13. Start Acting Like a Child

What advice would a five-year-old give you about your writing? Would they tell you to focus hard, create solid outlines, and hit your daily word count? No. They’d tell you to have fun. Remember fun? When you were a child, you only cared about exploration. You didn’t waste time worrying about the future. The present was all you knew. I get it. You have “big dreams,” but if you take yourself too seriously, writing will get rote. If you’re feeling stuck trying to edit your manuscript, write something ridiculous. Write something totally unrelated to your niche for pure fun with no intention of publishing it. Act like a child and watch your curiosity and creativity flourish.

14. Dumb It Down

15. Make Money Your Muse

Take writing jobs as a freelancer if you’re looking to get writing without having to come up with your own ideas. As a freelancer you’ll work within the guidelines of what your client wants. This offers the benefit of money, plus you’ll develop a writing habit along the way.

16. Use your 9-to-5 to Fuel Your 5-to-9

17. Discover the Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

18. Don’t Believe the Myth

Remember this phrase from Jerry Seinfeld: “Writer’s block is just a made-up excuse for not doing your work.”

19. Sign Your Life Away

Create a contract with yourself. Make an actual signed document stating what you’re going to accomplish with your writing and place it somewhere prominent.

Imagine you’re sitting down to write and you look up to see an agreement you made with yourself, not just mentally, but physically. Wouldn’t that inspire you to hold to your commitment?

These little “nudges” might seem trivial on their own, but combining them changes your environment and makes it more conducive to productivity and creativity.

20. Make Your Writing Career a Family Affair

21. Get Meta

22. Converse to Create

23. When Inspiration Fails, Try Desperation

24. WWJD

25. Create to Connect

It’s easy to get caught up in numbers — how many subscribers you have, how many views your website gets per month, and how many comments you receive — but remember, you’re writing for real people. Even if you have just a few readers, get to know them. Send out an email to your tribe telling them they can each get 15 minutes on the phone with you to talk shop. Add prompts to your blog posts to encourage readers to share their lives with you. When you create with the intention of connecting with other human beings, it inspires you to work that much harder, because you can feel the person on the other end of the screen.

26. Become the CEO of You, Inc.

27. Don’t Follow in the Footsteps of Great Writers

28. Do the Math

29. Answer Random Questions from Total Strangers

30. Get Zen, Then Pen

The headspace app comes with a series of guided meditations you can use to start fresh every day.

31. Choose Quantity Over Quality

32. Teach an Old Draft New Tricks

33. Surround Yourself with Great Work

34. Put a Pot of Gold at the End of Your Rainbow

Setting goals doesn’t often work. The reason why they don’t work is because we don’t like to work! We want results. It’s why workout DVDs are called Beach Body or Six Pack Abs in Six Weeks instead of Exercise Regimen for your Core. You know you’ll have to do the work, but the results are what compel you to get started. Create statements around the rewards you’ll reap from your writing and the results you want, e.g., “Writing my book will give me the money, attention, and sense of accomplishment I’ve always longed for. ” When you think of setting goals and building habits in terms of the rewards they’ll afford you, you’re more likely to follow through.

35. Drink Rocket Fuel to Skyrocket Your Inspiration

Drink coffee. Coffee has fueled the creative inspiration of writers for centuries. I’m not sure if it’s even possible to write well without it.

36. Journey into the Wild

37. Switch Your Scenery

Imagine you’re lying back in a hammock in Bali. You’re surrounded by warm weather and a fresh breeze with a coconut by your side to sip on. You also have your laptop in your lap. That sounds like an inspiring environment to me. There has long been a link between travel and writing. Seeing new parts of the world is inspiring in and of itself, plus it will surely give you new material to write about as well. And even if you can’t make a physical trip, just spending a few minutes visualizing an exotic destination can provide valuable writing inspiration.

38. Devour People’s Brains

I just finished my second book. I pulled and wove in ideas from billionaires, dead Roman emperors, and Harvard psychologists. I didn’t go searching for the information. I conjured it from the recesses of my mind while writing, because I’ve read 100 books in the past two years. It’s like Neo in the Matrix where he “downloads” the ability to fight in Kung Fu style.

With reading, you can “download” hundreds or thousands of years of human experience and use it at your disposal.

39. Write in This Insanely Inspiring Environment

40. Put a Gun to Your Head

41. Search for Instant Inspiration

42. Chase the Muse

Inspiration can be tricky to capture. To maximize your chances of spotting the muse, come up with clever traps. For example, you can come up with a writing problem you’re trying to solve right before bed, let it stir in your subconscious mind while you sleep, and wake yourself up in the middle of the night and jot down what comes to mind in your hazy subconscious state. You can set prompts on your phone to randomly write whatever comes to mind at the exact time. Carry a pen and paper with you everywhere you go to capture ideas as they come. It seems mechanical, but careful planning can inspire you to create more.

43. Star in Your Own Montage

44. Find a Tango Partner

Find a writing partner to keep you accountable. Working with someone who’s “in the trenches” like you will help both of you inspire each other. There’s strength in numbers.

45. Find Inspiration in Your Rearview Mirror

46. Eviscerate Your Excuses

47. Join a Local Gang

48. Fake Your Own Death

49. Tune In to Tune Out Writer’s Block

50. Choose the Opinion You Like Best

Have you ever looked at the same piece of writing at different times and had two different opinions?

We’re quick to look at the negative opinions of ourselves and our work and believe them to be true. We accept negativity with alarming ease. Our mind can just as easily believe the good things we tell ourselves about ourselves. The next time you swing between both opinions of your writing, choose the one that inspires you. It’s okay to toot your own horn (in your mind) when you’ve penned some damn fine words. In fact, you should do it every time you feel good about your writing to keep the inspiration going.

51. Let Your Fingers Do the Talking

Get your fingers moving. The act of typing itself can lead to a flow state and productive writing. Sometimes I’ll start by typing “I don’t know what to write about,” just to get my fingers moving. The staring at the blank page without typing contributes to writer’s block.

52. Get Back in Touch with Your “Why”

53. Find Writing Inspiration in Dark Places

Life throws curve balls at you. While you can’t avoid certain situations from happening to you, you can use them as sources of inspiration to create.

54. Remember that Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

55. Look Back and See How Far You’ve Come

56. Picture Your Name on a Best-Selling Book

If you’ve never written a book before, go on Canva and create a cover for an imaginary book and put your name on it. Stare at it and imagine how it will feel to have a published book with your name on it in the future. The first time I held a copy of something I created, I was euphoric. I continue to chase that feeling each time I write.

57. Let Life Inspire Art

Many imagine successful writers as people locked up in cabins with typewriters, toiling away at their work in isolation until they resurface with their manuscripts. Some of the best writers, like Hemingway, spent as much time living and adventuring as they did writing. If you want to make your writing more interesting, make your life more interesting. If you’re feeling frustrated, step out into the world, enjoy it, and let your experiences compel you to write again.

58. Keep Your Eye on the Prize

Enter a writing contest. Writing contests often pay for top prize winners. There’s one incentive.

Knowing you’re a part of something larger than yourself can be inspiring. Use a writing contest to show the world what you’ve got.

59. Act Like a Hollywood Script Doctor

Rewrite a dissatisfying ending of a popular movie or book. It’ll get you in the mood to write because you’re familiar with the subject matter. If you have the gall to rewrite a popular story, you should be confident enough to create your own.

60. Don’t Fall into the Routine Trap

Write when you’re most creative. You don’t have to be a morning person to write well.

Some people are more creative at eleven at night. Blindly copying routines that don’t suit you is a surefire way to fail. Create an environment and schedule that aligns with your strengths.

61. Make a Creative Pilgrimage

This may seem a bit drastic, but moving to another city can inspire you to be more creative. In his book Where Good Ideas Come From, Stephen Johnson claims that moving to a more populated city fosters creativity through “superlinear scaling,” which is a fancy way of saying that the more people you’re exposed to, the more creative you are. Maybe you’re not in a position to move, but if you’re young and mobile, perhaps you should take your talents to the Big Apple or out West.

62. Exercise Your Neurons

Your brain needs exercise like any other part of your body. If you’re not feeling inspired, try playing some games that involve words. Hitting a triple word score in Scrabble can remind you of your writing prowess. The education company Lumosity has a line of brain games that help you increase your vocabulary.

63. Cast Yourself Away

64. Use These Two Words as Inspiration

Interesting questions lead to interesting answers. Many of the best pieces of writing started with the phrase, “What if?” Use hypothetical questions to inspire new ideas. For example, you could ask, “What if I wrote a piece saying the exact opposite of what most people believe about _____?” or “What if we lived in a world where everyone was bluntly honest all the time?” These types of questions create open-ended areas to explore, giving you new material to think about and write about.

65. When in Doubt, Ship

Other creative people like Neil Gaiman and Tina Fey have reported feeling the same way, regardless of the amount of work they’ve put into the world.

What’s the difference between them and the people who let their inspiration die? They ship.

They put their work into the world regardless of how they felt about it, and it paid off. If they can create while plagued with doubt, so can you.

Look far and wide for examples of successful writers and you’ll find one common denominator — shipping. Let their stories inspire you to do the same.

66. Let Technology Lend a Helping Hand

Use idea-generating tools from companies like Hubspot and Portent’s Content. With ready-made ideas and headlines, you should have everything you need to get started.

67. Be a Little Creepy

Have you ever looked at a couple across the room at a restaurant and wondered what their lives were like? Have you ever walked past an older person at the park and thought about what crazy experiences they’ve had? People-watching can be great inspiration for writing. You can observe people you don’t know, and let the mystery of their lives inspire you to write a story about what they could be like. It’s part writing exercise, yes, but knowing you can draw material from anywhere is inspiring.

68. Eat a Sh** Sandwich

Charles Bukowski once said, “Find what you love and let it kill you.”

He was referring to what many, including bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert, call a “shit sandwich.”

Is writing your shit sandwich? If so, get really hungry, because life is going to give you an all-you-can-eat buffet.

69. Say “Hi, My Name Is _____”

Attend a conference for writers in your niche. You have to be careful with conferences because they’re a waste of time if you go without any predefined goals, but they’re great for meeting industry insiders and the atmosphere of the event will make you want to perform well when you get home.

70. Go to the Source

Reach out to your favorite writers and ask for advice. Many people do this, but they do it the wrong way. First, send them a message simply thanking them for the work they’ve done and leave it at that. Tell them how you’ve implemented something they’ve taught you. After your initial outreach, come back later and ask a specific question regarding a situation. Don’t just say “let me pick your brain.” Most are willing to help if they’re not too busy. Some won’t respond, but others will. Use their words as inspiration, follow up with their advice, and let them know when you’ve implemented it.

71. Get Yourself Some Education

72. Pat Yourself on the Back

73. Follow The Artist’s Way

74. Find Inspiration in Everyday Heroes

I once listened to a podcast by serial self-publishing author Steve Scott. He was recapping the strategies from his latest book launch, which resulted in $60,000 in royalties. Hearing his story was inspiring because he isn’t Malcolm Gladwell. He started self-publishing books and kept doing it until he figured out how to become one of the best. He’s what you would call an ordinary person doing something extraordinary in the publishing world. There are many examples of self-published authors you can use as inspiration. Find them on Amazon and read their stories. Once you know it’s possible to make a killing without the gatekeepers, you’ll be inspired to do it yourself.

75. Embrace Your Inner Barbara Walters

76. Dare to Be Different

Embrace your inner weirdo. Your idiosyncrasies and strange ideas are what make you you. Don’t be afraid to show them. The more personality you put into your writing, the better.

77. Throw Your Big Hairy Goals in the Garbage

78. Stop When You Hit the Sweet Spot

79. Sleep with the Enemy

Action is the best deterrent to fear, but it never erases it. Each step you take forward alongside your fear will inspire you to do it again and again.

80. Bore Yourself to Death

You stare at the blank page and nothing comes to mind. You feel blank and stuck. You’re bored. Good. Boredom filters out the pretenders from the contenders. Sometimes inspiration won’t sneak up on you until you stop looking for it. If you stop trying to force the situation and let the words come to you, they’ll come. Those writing sessions where you’d normally quit after ten minutes of boredom may bring a creative breakthrough at the eleventh minute.

81. Literally Write for One Person

The idea of writing for one person has been offered time and time again, but what if you went into insane detail about the person you’re writing for?

Instead of writing for “a member of your target audience,” come up with a customer avatar even an experienced marketer would find a bit obsessive.

Something like:

82. Have an Affair

83. Create a Monster in Your Lab

84. Don’t Trust the Opinions of Losers

Get your inspiration back by seeing “trolls” for what they really are — people who hate their own lives so much they want to criticise what you do in yours.

85. Stop Telling Yourself You’re a Writer

86. Turn Trials into Triumph

You know what’s more inspiring than believing you can overcome obstacles? Actually overcoming them, because knowing you have the strength to do it inspires you to do it again.

When a piece you write gets rejected, get inspired to prove the editor wrong. When your blog post or book falls flat on its face, get inspired to write ten times better the next time.

Real inspiration isn’t warm, fuzzy, and cute. The truly inspired are gritty, tenacious, and walk directly into the flames of disappointment and setbacks.

87. Con Your Way to Success

88. Appreciate the Fortunate Timing of Your Birth

Consider the fact it’s ten times easier to become a successful writer than it used to be. A few decades ago, to get published you needed to throw your needle into the haystack of the publishing world and hope someone discovered you. Now you can publish your own books. With the click of a button, your words can potentially reach millions of people. Technology has empowered us all. I call this the excuse-free era because there are more opportunities than ever to find exposure.

89. Realize You’ve Already Put in “10,000 Hours”

90. Make a Mountain Out of a Molehill

Focus on doing one thing a little better each time you write. If you only get one percent better every day, you’ll be 37 times better by the end of the year.

91. Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Making an investment in your writing inspires you to create because it shows you’re serious. Being an “amateur,” isn’t always inspiring, but “turning pro” is.

92. Stop Robbing the World of Your Creativity

Think about your readers. What if the scientist who was meant to cure cancer decided medical school was too hard? She isn’t only robbing herself, but the world. Your writing belongs to your readers. Your words can help educate, entertain, and inspire people. I once had a reader comment on a lull I had between blog posts. They were relying on my words to help their career. Your words matter, and we need them.

93. Pay Your Debt

94. Harness the Curious Power of Envy

Have you ever been jealous of another writer for their accomplishments? You can use your envy as fuel to inspire yourself to improve. Oftentimes when I see someone else do something I want to do but haven’t done, I turn my envy into curiosity. After seeing green for a bit, I think to myself, “How did they do it?” Then I trace their steps and reverse-engineer what they’ve done. I’ve used this strategy to get featured on popular blogs, come up with headlines for blog posts, and add more substance to my work. Don’t just get jealous, get better.

95. Hit the Reset Button

I once wrote 15,000 words of a book and quit. I just wasn’t feeling it. I struggled over the words over and over again, but the project just didn’t seem like a good fit. I started over completely and wrote my second book. The experience of having a fresh start was inspiring because I was re-energized with new material. You don’t want to fall into the perfectionist trap, but you can inspire yourself by carefully choosing when to start over.

96. Create Your Own Turning Point

97. Curate an Inspiration “Museum”

We come across inspiring material all the time, whether they’re quotes, places we visit, pieces of art, or experiences we have. What if you created a place to document and store all of this inspiration, so you could use it later in your writing? This could be in a form of a journal or scrapbook where you collect inspiring ideas. You could keep track of things you’ve thought to yourself or heard from other people that inspire you. When your creative well runs dry, you can look to your journal for the jump-start you need.

98. Set a Finish Line

With the first book I wrote, I gave myself a specific deadline to publish it. I woke up every day, hammered away at the keyboard with reckless abandon, and looked forward to the last lap.

99. Boil it Down to This…

Get Busy Writing, or Get Busy Dying

If you really have the itch to write, it’ll never go away,

You have two options — get inspired and get to work, or let your anxiety and insecurities grow and fester.

I know what it feels like to get stuck between the feeling of knowing you have something important to say and wondering whether you’re cut out for the task at hand.

It’s been two years since I started, and I never imagined I’d be where I am today. The same can happen for you, but not without putting in the work day in and day out until you get what you want.

Remember, whether you write or not, the time will pass anyway.

You are cut out for it.

You can make all of your writing dreams come true.

You got this. Now go.

About the Author: Ayodeji is a writing coach who helps aspiring writers develop the confidence and habits they need to make an impact and and income. Visit his page to get three free writing guides, plus a copy of his bestselling Amazon book.

99 Ways to Get Inspired to Write

#Richard Roberts IM Success Mix #99 Ways to Get Inspired to Write

0 notes

alanajacksontx · 7 years

Text

99 Ways to Get Inspired to Write

Ugh, it happened again.

Another week or month has passed, and you’ve made zero progress on your writing goals.

Deep down you know your writing is important, but you can’t take consistent action.

What’s really going on here?

The truth is, you don’t feel inspired.

You can’t help but marvel at other writers who do persist, and have a large body of work you can’t even fathom achieving.

How do you get there?

How do you find the inspiration you need to stay the course long enough to become the prolific, popular, and successful writer you dream of becoming?

The Dirty Little Lie You Tell Yourself About Inspiration

If you’re struggling to find inspiration, you might be guilty of “believing in magic” when it comes to your writing career.

People who fail to do the things they say they want to do believe in fairy tales, like this one:

They believe successful writers have “made it,” and have no problem staying motivated because they’ve “arrived.”

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Regardless of how successful you are, there will be days you feel uninspired. In fact, what once seemed like a passion-filled calling can turn into a bit of a slog after a while.

Professional athletes love the game, but they don’t necessarily want to train their bodies every single day.

Business owners love money and recognition, but they don’t necessarily enjoy the process of getting their business off the ground.

You love expressing yourself with words, but you won’t necessarily enjoy each and every writing session.

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing — that’s why we recommend it daily.” — Zig Ziglar

Fortunately, I have 101 different ideas for writers — use them whenever you’re struggling to turn intention into action.

So here’s how to get inspired to write:

1. Do the One Thing They Always Tell Writers Not to Do

Once I paid attention to the writing in my favorite shows, I drew inspiration from the stories and turned a seemingly useless activity into creative fuel.

2. Read Your Old Love Letters

3. Embrace Your Insignificance

4. Make the Subtle Shift from Goal-Setting to Habit-Forming

Goals give you inspiration by providing an end point, but habits weave inspiration into the core of your being and make it automatic.

Habits trump goals every time. The most prolific writers aren’t the most goal-oriented. They’re built to show up every day and do the work.

5. Tell Yourself You’re Not Good Enough

6. Start a Chain Gang

7. Become the G.O.A.T.

8. Take a Dump

9. Embrace Your Inner Hulk

10. Become a Better Writer Without Becoming a Better Writer

Look at Tiger Woods. He never recovered from his personal scandal. What does that tell you? It tells you life outside your craft is just as important as practicing it, if not more.

11. Make It Impossible to Edit While You Write

12. Imagine Your Worst-Case Scenario

13. Start Acting Like a Child

14. Dumb It Down

15. Make Money Your Muse

16. Use your 9-to-5 to Fuel Your 5-to-9

17. Discover the Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

18. Don’t Believe the Myth

Remember this phrase from Jerry Seinfeld: “Writer’s block is just a made-up excuse for not doing your work.”

19. Sign Your Life Away

Create a contract with yourself. Make an actual signed document stating what you’re going to accomplish with your writing and place it somewhere prominent.

Imagine you’re sitting down to write and you look up to see an agreement you made with yourself, not just mentally, but physically. Wouldn’t that inspire you to hold to your commitment?

These little “nudges” might seem trivial on their own, but combining them changes your environment and makes it more conducive to productivity and creativity.

20. Make Your Writing Career a Family Affair

21. Get Meta

22. Converse to Create

23. When Inspiration Fails, Try Desperation

24. WWJD

25. Create to Connect

26. Become the CEO of You, Inc.

27. Don’t Follow in the Footsteps of Great Writers

28. Do the Math

29. Answer Random Questions from Total Strangers

30. Get Zen, Then Pen

The headspace app comes with a series of guided meditations you can use to start fresh every day.

31. Choose Quantity Over Quality

32. Teach an Old Draft New Tricks

33. Surround Yourself with Great Work

34. Put a Pot of Gold at the End of Your Rainbow

35. Drink Rocket Fuel to Skyrocket Your Inspiration

Drink coffee. Coffee has fueled the creative inspiration of writers for centuries. I’m not sure if it’s even possible to write well without it.

36. Journey into the Wild

37. Switch Your Scenery

38. Devour People’s Brains

I just finished my second book. I pulled and wove in ideas from billionaires, dead Roman emperors, and Harvard psychologists. I didn’t go searching for the information. I conjured it from the recesses of my mind while writing, because I’ve read 100 books in the past two years. It’s like Neo in the Matrix where he “downloads” the ability to fight in Kung Fu style.

With reading, you can “download” hundreds or thousands of years of human experience and use it at your disposal.

39. Write in This Insanely Inspiring Environment

40. Put a Gun to Your Head

41. Search for Instant Inspiration

42. Chase the Muse

43. Star in Your Own Montage

44. Find a Tango Partner

Find a writing partner to keep you accountable. Working with someone who’s “in the trenches” like you will help both of you inspire each other. There’s strength in numbers.

45. Find Inspiration in Your Rearview Mirror

46. Eviscerate Your Excuses

47. Join a Local Gang

48. Fake Your Own Death

49. Tune In to Tune Out Writer’s Block

50. Choose the Opinion You Like Best

Have you ever looked at the same piece of writing at different times and had two different opinions?

51. Let Your Fingers Do the Talking

52. Get Back in Touch with Your “Why”

53. Find Writing Inspiration in Dark Places

Life throws curve balls at you. While you can’t avoid certain situations from happening to you, you can use them as sources of inspiration to create.

54. Remember that Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

55. Look Back and See How Far You’ve Come

56. Picture Your Name on a Best-Selling Book

57. Let Life Inspire Art

58. Keep Your Eye on the Prize

Enter a writing contest. Writing contests often pay for top prize winners. There’s one incentive.

Knowing you’re a part of something larger than yourself can be inspiring. Use a writing contest to show the world what you’ve got.

59. Act Like a Hollywood Script Doctor

60. Don’t Fall into the Routine Trap

Write when you’re most creative. You don’t have to be a morning person to write well.

Some people are more creative at eleven at night. Blindly copying routines that don’t suit you is a surefire way to fail. Create an environment and schedule that aligns with your strengths.

61. Make a Creative Pilgrimage

62. Exercise Your Neurons

Your brain needs exercise like any other part of your body. If you’re not feeling inspired, try playing some games that involve words. Hitting a triple word score in Scrabble can remind you of your writing prowess. The education company Lumosity has a line of brain games that help you increase your vocabulary.

63. Cast Yourself Away

64. Use These Two Words as Inspiration

65. When in Doubt, Ship

Other creative people like Neil Gaiman and Tina Fey have reported feeling the same way, regardless of the amount of work they’ve put into the world.

What’s the difference between them and the people who let their inspiration die? They ship.

They put their work into the world regardless of how they felt about it, and it paid off. If they can create while plagued with doubt, so can you.

Look far and wide for examples of successful writers and you’ll find one common denominator — shipping. Let their stories inspire you to do the same.

66. Let Technology Lend a Helping Hand

Use idea-generating tools from companies like Hubspot and Portent’s Content. With ready-made ideas and headlines, you should have everything you need to get started.

67. Be a Little Creepy

68. Eat a Sh** Sandwich

Charles Bukowski once said, “Find what you love and let it kill you.”

He was referring to what many, including bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert, call a “shit sandwich.”

Is writing your shit sandwich? If so, get really hungry, because life is going to give you an all-you-can-eat buffet.

69. Say “Hi, My Name Is _____”

Attend a conference for writers in your niche. You have to be careful with conferences because they’re a waste of time if you go without any predefined goals, but they’re great for meeting industry insiders and the atmosphere of the event will make you want to perform well when you get home.

70. Go to the Source

71. Get Yourself Some Education

72. Pat Yourself on the Back

73. Follow The Artist’s Way

74. Find Inspiration in Everyday Heroes

75. Embrace Your Inner Barbara Walters

76. Dare to Be Different

Embrace your inner weirdo. Your idiosyncrasies and strange ideas are what make you you. Don’t be afraid to show them. The more personality you put into your writing, the better.

77. Throw Your Big Hairy Goals in the Garbage

78. Stop When You Hit the Sweet Spot

79. Sleep with the Enemy

Action is the best deterrent to fear, but it never erases it. Each step you take forward alongside your fear will inspire you to do it again and again.

80. Bore Yourself to Death

81. Literally Write for One Person

The idea of writing for one person has been offered time and time again, but what if you went into insane detail about the person you’re writing for?

Instead of writing for “a member of your target audience,” come up with a customer avatar even an experienced marketer would find a bit obsessive.

Something like:

82. Have an Affair

83. Create a Monster in Your Lab

84. Don’t Trust the Opinions of Losers

Get your inspiration back by seeing “trolls” for what they really are — people who hate their own lives so much they want to criticise what you do in yours.

85. Stop Telling Yourself You’re a Writer

86. Turn Trials into Triumph

You know what’s more inspiring than believing you can overcome obstacles? Actually overcoming them, because knowing you have the strength to do it inspires you to do it again.

When a piece you write gets rejected, get inspired to prove the editor wrong. When your blog post or book falls flat on its face, get inspired to write ten times better the next time.

Real inspiration isn’t warm, fuzzy, and cute. The truly inspired are gritty, tenacious, and walk directly into the flames of disappointment and setbacks.

87. Con Your Way to Success

88. Appreciate the Fortunate Timing of Your Birth

89. Realize You’ve Already Put in “10,000 Hours”

90. Make a Mountain Out of a Molehill

Focus on doing one thing a little better each time you write. If you only get one percent better every day, you’ll be 37 times better by the end of the year.

91. Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Making an investment in your writing inspires you to create because it shows you’re serious. Being an “amateur,” isn’t always inspiring, but “turning pro” is.

92. Stop Robbing the World of Your Creativity

93. Pay Your Debt

94. Harness the Curious Power of Envy

95. Hit the Reset Button

96. Create Your Own Turning Point

97. Curate an Inspiration “Museum”

98. Set a Finish Line

With the first book I wrote, I gave myself a specific deadline to publish it. I woke up every day, hammered away at the keyboard with reckless abandon, and looked forward to the last lap.

99. Boil it Down to This…

Get Busy Writing, or Get Busy Dying

If you really have the itch to write, it’ll never go away,

You have two options — get inspired and get to work, or let your anxiety and insecurities grow and fester.

I know what it feels like to get stuck between the feeling of knowing you have something important to say and wondering whether you’re cut out for the task at hand.

It’s been two years since I started, and I never imagined I’d be where I am today. The same can happen for you, but not without putting in the work day in and day out until you get what you want.

Remember, whether you write or not, the time will pass anyway.

You are cut out for it.

You can make all of your writing dreams come true.

You got this. Now go.

from Internet Marketing Tips https://smartblogger.com/how-to-get-inspired-to-write/

0 notes

laurendcameron · 7 years

Text

99 Ways to Get Inspired to Write

Ugh, it happened again.

Another week or month has passed, and you’ve made zero progress on your writing goals.

Deep down you know your writing is important, but you can’t take consistent action.

What’s really going on here?

The truth is, you don’t feel inspired.

You can’t help but marvel at other writers who do persist, and have a large body of work you can’t even fathom achieving.

How do you get there?

How do you find the inspiration you need to stay the course long enough to become the prolific, popular, and successful writer you dream of becoming?

The Dirty Little Lie You Tell Yourself About Inspiration

If you’re struggling to find inspiration, you might be guilty of “believing in magic” when it comes to your writing career.

People who fail to do the things they say they want to do believe in fairy tales, like this one:

They believe successful writers have “made it,” and have no problem staying motivated because they’ve “arrived.”

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Regardless of how successful you are, there will be days you feel uninspired. In fact, what once seemed like a passion-filled calling can turn into a bit of a slog after a while.

Professional athletes love the game, but they don’t necessarily want to train their bodies every single day.

Business owners love money and recognition, but they don’t necessarily enjoy the process of getting their business off the ground.

You love expressing yourself with words, but you won’t necessarily enjoy each and every writing session.

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing — that’s why we recommend it daily.” — Zig Ziglar

Fortunately, I have 101 different ideas for writers — use them whenever you’re struggling to turn intention into action.

So here’s how to get inspired to write:

1. Do the One Thing They Always Tell Writers Not to Do

Once I paid attention to the writing in my favorite shows, I drew inspiration from the stories and turned a seemingly useless activity into creative fuel.

2. Read Your Old Love Letters

3. Embrace Your Insignificance

4. Make the Subtle Shift from Goal-Setting to Habit-Forming

Goals give you inspiration by providing an end point, but habits weave inspiration into the core of your being and make it automatic.

Habits trump goals every time. The most prolific writers aren’t the most goal-oriented. They’re built to show up every day and do the work.

5. Tell Yourself You’re Not Good Enough

6. Start a Chain Gang

7. Become the G.O.A.T.

8. Take a Dump

9. Embrace Your Inner Hulk

10. Become a Better Writer Without Becoming a Better Writer

Look at Tiger Woods. He never recovered from his personal scandal. What does that tell you? It tells you life outside your craft is just as important as practicing it, if not more.

11. Make It Impossible to Edit While You Write

12. Imagine Your Worst-Case Scenario

13. Start Acting Like a Child

14. Dumb It Down

15. Make Money Your Muse

16. Use your 9-to-5 to Fuel Your 5-to-9

17. Discover the Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

18. Don’t Believe the Myth

Remember this phrase from Jerry Seinfeld: “Writer’s block is just a made-up excuse for not doing your work.”

19. Sign Your Life Away

Create a contract with yourself. Make an actual signed document stating what you’re going to accomplish with your writing and place it somewhere prominent.

Imagine you’re sitting down to write and you look up to see an agreement you made with yourself, not just mentally, but physically. Wouldn’t that inspire you to hold to your commitment?

These little “nudges” might seem trivial on their own, but combining them changes your environment and makes it more conducive to productivity and creativity.

20. Make Your Writing Career a Family Affair

21. Get Meta

22. Converse to Create

23. When Inspiration Fails, Try Desperation

24. WWJD

25. Create to Connect

26. Become the CEO of You, Inc.

27. Don’t Follow in the Footsteps of Great Writers

28. Do the Math

29. Answer Random Questions from Total Strangers

30. Get Zen, Then Pen

The headspace app comes with a series of guided meditations you can use to start fresh every day.

31. Choose Quantity Over Quality

32. Teach an Old Draft New Tricks

33. Surround Yourself with Great Work

34. Put a Pot of Gold at the End of Your Rainbow

35. Drink Rocket Fuel to Skyrocket Your Inspiration

Drink coffee. Coffee has fueled the creative inspiration of writers for centuries. I’m not sure if it’s even possible to write well without it.

36. Journey into the Wild

37. Switch Your Scenery

38. Devour People’s Brains

I just finished my second book. I pulled and wove in ideas from billionaires, dead Roman emperors, and Harvard psychologists. I didn’t go searching for the information. I conjured it from the recesses of my mind while writing, because I’ve read 100 books in the past two years. It’s like Neo in the Matrix where he “downloads” the ability to fight in Kung Fu style.

With reading, you can “download” hundreds or thousands of years of human experience and use it at your disposal.

39. Write in This Insanely Inspiring Environment

40. Put a Gun to Your Head

41. Search for Instant Inspiration

42. Chase the Muse

43. Star in Your Own Montage

44. Find a Tango Partner

Find a writing partner to keep you accountable. Working with someone who’s “in the trenches” like you will help both of you inspire each other. There’s strength in numbers.

45. Find Inspiration in Your Rearview Mirror

46. Eviscerate Your Excuses

47. Join a Local Gang

48. Fake Your Own Death

49. Tune In to Tune Out Writer’s Block

50. Choose the Opinion You Like Best

Have you ever looked at the same piece of writing at different times and had two different opinions?

51. Let Your Fingers Do the Talking

52. Get Back in Touch with Your “Why”

53. Find Writing Inspiration in Dark Places

Life throws curve balls at you. While you can’t avoid certain situations from happening to you, you can use them as sources of inspiration to create.

54. Remember that Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

55. Look Back and See How Far You’ve Come

56. Picture Your Name on a Best-Selling Book

57. Let Life Inspire Art

58. Keep Your Eye on the Prize

Enter a writing contest. Writing contests often pay for top prize winners. There’s one incentive.

Knowing you’re a part of something larger than yourself can be inspiring. Use a writing contest to show the world what you’ve got.

59. Act Like a Hollywood Script Doctor

60. Don’t Fall into the Routine Trap

Write when you’re most creative. You don’t have to be a morning person to write well.

Some people are more creative at eleven at night. Blindly copying routines that don’t suit you is a surefire way to fail. Create an environment and schedule that aligns with your strengths.

61. Make a Creative Pilgrimage

62. Exercise Your Neurons

Your brain needs exercise like any other part of your body. If you’re not feeling inspired, try playing some games that involve words. Hitting a triple word score in Scrabble can remind you of your writing prowess. The education company Lumosity has a line of brain games that help you increase your vocabulary.

63. Cast Yourself Away

64. Use These Two Words as Inspiration

65. When in Doubt, Ship

Other creative people like Neil Gaiman and Tina Fey have reported feeling the same way, regardless of the amount of work they’ve put into the world.

What’s the difference between them and the people who let their inspiration die? They ship.

They put their work into the world regardless of how they felt about it, and it paid off. If they can create while plagued with doubt, so can you.

Look far and wide for examples of successful writers and you’ll find one common denominator — shipping. Let their stories inspire you to do the same.

66. Let Technology Lend a Helping Hand

Use idea-generating tools from companies like Hubspot and Portent’s Content. With ready-made ideas and headlines, you should have everything you need to get started.

67. Be a Little Creepy

68. Eat a Sh** Sandwich

Charles Bukowski once said, “Find what you love and let it kill you.”

He was referring to what many, including bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert, call a “shit sandwich.”

Is writing your shit sandwich? If so, get really hungry, because life is going to give you an all-you-can-eat buffet.

69. Say “Hi, My Name Is _____”

Attend a conference for writers in your niche. You have to be careful with conferences because they’re a waste of time if you go without any predefined goals, but they’re great for meeting industry insiders and the atmosphere of the event will make you want to perform well when you get home.

70. Go to the Source

71. Get Yourself Some Education

72. Pat Yourself on the Back

73. Follow The Artist’s Way

74. Find Inspiration in Everyday Heroes

75. Embrace Your Inner Barbara Walters

76. Dare to Be Different

Embrace your inner weirdo. Your idiosyncrasies and strange ideas are what make you you. Don’t be afraid to show them. The more personality you put into your writing, the better.

77. Throw Your Big Hairy Goals in the Garbage

78. Stop When You Hit the Sweet Spot

79. Sleep with the Enemy

Action is the best deterrent to fear, but it never erases it. Each step you take forward alongside your fear will inspire you to do it again and again.

80. Bore Yourself to Death

81. Literally Write for One Person

The idea of writing for one person has been offered time and time again, but what if you went into insane detail about the person you’re writing for?

Instead of writing for “a member of your target audience,” come up with a customer avatar even an experienced marketer would find a bit obsessive.

Something like:

82. Have an Affair

83. Create a Monster in Your Lab

84. Don’t Trust the Opinions of Losers

Get your inspiration back by seeing “trolls” for what they really are — people who hate their own lives so much they want to criticise what you do in yours.

85. Stop Telling Yourself You’re a Writer

86. Turn Trials into Triumph

You know what’s more inspiring than believing you can overcome obstacles? Actually overcoming them, because knowing you have the strength to do it inspires you to do it again.

When a piece you write gets rejected, get inspired to prove the editor wrong. When your blog post or book falls flat on its face, get inspired to write ten times better the next time.

Real inspiration isn’t warm, fuzzy, and cute. The truly inspired are gritty, tenacious, and walk directly into the flames of disappointment and setbacks.

87. Con Your Way to Success

88. Appreciate the Fortunate Timing of Your Birth

89. Realize You’ve Already Put in “10,000 Hours”

90. Make a Mountain Out of a Molehill

Focus on doing one thing a little better each time you write. If you only get one percent better every day, you’ll be 37 times better by the end of the year.

91. Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Making an investment in your writing inspires you to create because it shows you’re serious. Being an “amateur,” isn’t always inspiring, but “turning pro” is.

92. Stop Robbing the World of Your Creativity

93. Pay Your Debt

94. Harness the Curious Power of Envy

95. Hit the Reset Button

96. Create Your Own Turning Point

97. Curate an Inspiration “Museum”

98. Set a Finish Line

With the first book I wrote, I gave myself a specific deadline to publish it. I woke up every day, hammered away at the keyboard with reckless abandon, and looked forward to the last lap.

99. Boil it Down to This…

Get Busy Writing, or Get Busy Dying

If you really have the itch to write, it’ll never go away,

You have two options — get inspired and get to work, or let your anxiety and insecurities grow and fester.

I know what it feels like to get stuck between the feeling of knowing you have something important to say and wondering whether you’re cut out for the task at hand.

It’s been two years since I started, and I never imagined I’d be where I am today. The same can happen for you, but not without putting in the work day in and day out until you get what you want.

Remember, whether you write or not, the time will pass anyway.

You are cut out for it.

You can make all of your writing dreams come true.

You got this. Now go.

from Lauren Cameron Updates https://smartblogger.com/how-to-get-inspired-to-write/

0 notes

sandranelsonuk · 7 years

Text

99 Ways to Get Inspired to Write

Ugh, it happened again.

Another week or month has passed, and you’ve made zero progress on your writing goals.

Deep down you know your writing is important, but you can’t take consistent action.

What’s really going on here?

The truth is, you don’t feel inspired.

You can’t help but marvel at other writers who do persist, and have a large body of work you can’t even fathom achieving.

How do you get there?

How do you find the inspiration you need to stay the course long enough to become the prolific, popular, and successful writer you dream of becoming?

The Dirty Little Lie You Tell Yourself About Inspiration

If you’re struggling to find inspiration, you might be guilty of “believing in magic” when it comes to your writing career.

People who fail to do the things they say they want to do believe in fairy tales, like this one:

They believe successful writers have “made it,” and have no problem staying motivated because they’ve “arrived.”

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Regardless of how successful you are, there will be days you feel uninspired. In fact, what once seemed like a passion-filled calling can turn into a bit of a slog after a while.

Professional athletes love the game, but they don’t necessarily want to train their bodies every single day.

Business owners love money and recognition, but they don’t necessarily enjoy the process of getting their business off the ground.

You love expressing yourself with words, but you won’t necessarily enjoy each and every writing session.

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing — that’s why we recommend it daily.” — Zig Ziglar

Fortunately, I have 101 different ideas for writers — use them whenever you’re struggling to turn intention into action.

So here’s how to get inspired to write:

1. Do the One Thing They Always Tell Writers Not to Do

Once I paid attention to the writing in my favorite shows, I drew inspiration from the stories and turned a seemingly useless activity into creative fuel.

2. Read Your Old Love Letters

3. Embrace Your Insignificance

4. Make the Subtle Shift from Goal-Setting to Habit-Forming

Goals give you inspiration by providing an end point, but habits weave inspiration into the core of your being and make it automatic.

Habits trump goals every time. The most prolific writers aren’t the most goal-oriented. They’re built to show up every day and do the work.

5. Tell Yourself You’re Not Good Enough

6. Start a Chain Gang

7. Become the G.O.A.T.

8. Take a Dump

9. Embrace Your Inner Hulk

10. Become a Better Writer Without Becoming a Better Writer

Look at Tiger Woods. He never recovered from his personal scandal. What does that tell you? It tells you life outside your craft is just as important as practicing it, if not more.

11. Make It Impossible to Edit While You Write

12. Imagine Your Worst-Case Scenario

13. Start Acting Like a Child

14. Dumb It Down

15. Make Money Your Muse

16. Use your 9-to-5 to Fuel Your 5-to-9

17. Discover the Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

18. Don’t Believe the Myth

Remember this phrase from Jerry Seinfeld: “Writer’s block is just a made-up excuse for not doing your work.”

19. Sign Your Life Away

Create a contract with yourself. Make an actual signed document stating what you’re going to accomplish with your writing and place it somewhere prominent.

Imagine you’re sitting down to write and you look up to see an agreement you made with yourself, not just mentally, but physically. Wouldn’t that inspire you to hold to your commitment?

These little “nudges” might seem trivial on their own, but combining them changes your environment and makes it more conducive to productivity and creativity.

20. Make Your Writing Career a Family Affair

21. Get Meta

22. Converse to Create

23. When Inspiration Fails, Try Desperation

24. WWJD

25. Create to Connect

26. Become the CEO of You, Inc.

27. Don’t Follow in the Footsteps of Great Writers

28. Do the Math

29. Answer Random Questions from Total Strangers

30. Get Zen, Then Pen

The headspace app comes with a series of guided meditations you can use to start fresh every day.

31. Choose Quantity Over Quality

32. Teach an Old Draft New Tricks

33. Surround Yourself with Great Work

34. Put a Pot of Gold at the End of Your Rainbow

35. Drink Rocket Fuel to Skyrocket Your Inspiration

Drink coffee. Coffee has fueled the creative inspiration of writers for centuries. I’m not sure if it’s even possible to write well without it.

36. Journey into the Wild

37. Switch Your Scenery

38. Devour People’s Brains

I just finished my second book. I pulled and wove in ideas from billionaires, dead Roman emperors, and Harvard psychologists. I didn’t go searching for the information. I conjured it from the recesses of my mind while writing, because I’ve read 100 books in the past two years. It’s like Neo in the Matrix where he “downloads” the ability to fight in Kung Fu style.

With reading, you can “download” hundreds or thousands of years of human experience and use it at your disposal.

39. Write in This Insanely Inspiring Environment

40. Put a Gun to Your Head

41. Search for Instant Inspiration

42. Chase the Muse

43. Star in Your Own Montage

44. Find a Tango Partner

Find a writing partner to keep you accountable. Working with someone who’s “in the trenches” like you will help both of you inspire each other. There’s strength in numbers.

45. Find Inspiration in Your Rearview Mirror

46. Eviscerate Your Excuses

47. Join a Local Gang

48. Fake Your Own Death

49. Tune In to Tune Out Writer’s Block

50. Choose the Opinion You Like Best

Have you ever looked at the same piece of writing at different times and had two different opinions?

51. Let Your Fingers Do the Talking

52. Get Back in Touch with Your “Why”

53. Find Writing Inspiration in Dark Places

Life throws curve balls at you. While you can’t avoid certain situations from happening to you, you can use them as sources of inspiration to create.

54. Remember that Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

55. Look Back and See How Far You’ve Come

56. Picture Your Name on a Best-Selling Book

57. Let Life Inspire Art

58. Keep Your Eye on the Prize

Enter a writing contest. Writing contests often pay for top prize winners. There’s one incentive.

Knowing you’re a part of something larger than yourself can be inspiring. Use a writing contest to show the world what you’ve got.

59. Act Like a Hollywood Script Doctor

60. Don’t Fall into the Routine Trap

Write when you’re most creative. You don’t have to be a morning person to write well.

Some people are more creative at eleven at night. Blindly copying routines that don’t suit you is a surefire way to fail. Create an environment and schedule that aligns with your strengths.

61. Make a Creative Pilgrimage

62. Exercise Your Neurons

Your brain needs exercise like any other part of your body. If you’re not feeling inspired, try playing some games that involve words. Hitting a triple word score in Scrabble can remind you of your writing prowess. The education company Lumosity has a line of brain games that help you increase your vocabulary.

63. Cast Yourself Away

64. Use These Two Words as Inspiration

65. When in Doubt, Ship

Other creative people like Neil Gaiman and Tina Fey have reported feeling the same way, regardless of the amount of work they’ve put into the world.

What’s the difference between them and the people who let their inspiration die? They ship.

They put their work into the world regardless of how they felt about it, and it paid off. If they can create while plagued with doubt, so can you.

Look far and wide for examples of successful writers and you’ll find one common denominator — shipping. Let their stories inspire you to do the same.

66. Let Technology Lend a Helping Hand

Use idea-generating tools from companies like Hubspot and Portent’s Content. With ready-made ideas and headlines, you should have everything you need to get started.

67. Be a Little Creepy

68. Eat a Sh** Sandwich

Charles Bukowski once said, “Find what you love and let it kill you.”

He was referring to what many, including bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert, call a “shit sandwich.”

Is writing your shit sandwich? If so, get really hungry, because life is going to give you an all-you-can-eat buffet.

69. Say “Hi, My Name Is _____”

Attend a conference for writers in your niche. You have to be careful with conferences because they’re a waste of time if you go without any predefined goals, but they’re great for meeting industry insiders and the atmosphere of the event will make you want to perform well when you get home.

70. Go to the Source

71. Get Yourself Some Education

72. Pat Yourself on the Back

73. Follow The Artist’s Way

74. Find Inspiration in Everyday Heroes

75. Embrace Your Inner Barbara Walters

76. Dare to Be Different

Embrace your inner weirdo. Your idiosyncrasies and strange ideas are what make you you. Don’t be afraid to show them. The more personality you put into your writing, the better.

77. Throw Your Big Hairy Goals in the Garbage

78. Stop When You Hit the Sweet Spot

79. Sleep with the Enemy

Action is the best deterrent to fear, but it never erases it. Each step you take forward alongside your fear will inspire you to do it again and again.

80. Bore Yourself to Death

81. Literally Write for One Person

The idea of writing for one person has been offered time and time again, but what if you went into insane detail about the person you’re writing for?

Instead of writing for “a member of your target audience,” come up with a customer avatar even an experienced marketer would find a bit obsessive.

Something like:

82. Have an Affair

83. Create a Monster in Your Lab

84. Don’t Trust the Opinions of Losers

Get your inspiration back by seeing “trolls” for what they really are — people who hate their own lives so much they want to criticise what you do in yours.

85. Stop Telling Yourself You’re a Writer

86. Turn Trials into Triumph

You know what’s more inspiring than believing you can overcome obstacles? Actually overcoming them, because knowing you have the strength to do it inspires you to do it again.

When a piece you write gets rejected, get inspired to prove the editor wrong. When your blog post or book falls flat on its face, get inspired to write ten times better the next time.

Real inspiration isn’t warm, fuzzy, and cute. The truly inspired are gritty, tenacious, and walk directly into the flames of disappointment and setbacks.

87. Con Your Way to Success

88. Appreciate the Fortunate Timing of Your Birth

89. Realize You’ve Already Put in “10,000 Hours”

90. Make a Mountain Out of a Molehill

Focus on doing one thing a little better each time you write. If you only get one percent better every day, you’ll be 37 times better by the end of the year.

91. Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Making an investment in your writing inspires you to create because it shows you’re serious. Being an “amateur,” isn’t always inspiring, but “turning pro” is.

92. Stop Robbing the World of Your Creativity

93. Pay Your Debt

94. Harness the Curious Power of Envy

95. Hit the Reset Button

96. Create Your Own Turning Point

97. Curate an Inspiration “Museum”

98. Set a Finish Line

With the first book I wrote, I gave myself a specific deadline to publish it. I woke up every day, hammered away at the keyboard with reckless abandon, and looked forward to the last lap.

99. Boil it Down to This…

Get Busy Writing, or Get Busy Dying

If you really have the itch to write, it’ll never go away,

You have two options — get inspired and get to work, or let your anxiety and insecurities grow and fester.

I know what it feels like to get stuck between the feeling of knowing you have something important to say and wondering whether you’re cut out for the task at hand.

It’s been two years since I started, and I never imagined I’d be where I am today. The same can happen for you, but not without putting in the work day in and day out until you get what you want.

Remember, whether you write or not, the time will pass anyway.

You are cut out for it.

You can make all of your writing dreams come true.

You got this. Now go.

from Julia Garza Social Media Tips https://smartblogger.com/how-to-get-inspired-to-write/

0 notes

annegalliher · 7 years

Text

99 Ways to Get Inspired to Write

Ugh, it happened again.

Another week or month has passed, and you’ve made zero progress on your writing goals.

Deep down you know your writing is important, but you can’t take consistent action.

What’s really going on here?

The truth is, you don’t feel inspired.

You can’t help but marvel at other writers who do persist, and have a large body of work you can’t even fathom achieving.

How do you get there?

How do you find the inspiration you need to stay the course long enough to become the prolific, popular, and successful writer you dream of becoming?

The Dirty Little Lie You Tell Yourself About Inspiration

If you’re struggling to find inspiration, you might be guilty of “believing in magic” when it comes to your writing career.

People who fail to do the things they say they want to do believe in fairy tales, like this one:

They believe successful writers have “made it,” and have no problem staying motivated because they’ve “arrived.”

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Regardless of how successful you are, there will be days you feel uninspired. In fact, what once seemed like a passion-filled calling can turn into a bit of a slog after a while.

Professional athletes love the game, but they don’t necessarily want to train their bodies every single day.

Business owners love money and recognition, but they don’t necessarily enjoy the process of getting their business off the ground.

You love expressing yourself with words, but you won’t necessarily enjoy each and every writing session.

“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing — that’s why we recommend it daily.” — Zig Ziglar

Fortunately, I have 101 different ideas for writers — use them whenever you’re struggling to turn intention into action.

So here’s how to get inspired to write:

1. Do the One Thing They Always Tell Writers Not to Do

Once I paid attention to the writing in my favorite shows, I drew inspiration from the stories and turned a seemingly useless activity into creative fuel.

2. Read Your Old Love Letters

3. Embrace Your Insignificance

4. Make the Subtle Shift from Goal-Setting to Habit-Forming

Goals give you inspiration by providing an end point, but habits weave inspiration into the core of your being and make it automatic.

Habits trump goals every time. The most prolific writers aren’t the most goal-oriented. They’re built to show up every day and do the work.

5. Tell Yourself You’re Not Good Enough

6. Start a Chain Gang

7. Become the G.O.A.T.

8. Take a Dump

9. Embrace Your Inner Hulk

10. Become a Better Writer Without Becoming a Better Writer

Look at Tiger Woods. He never recovered from his personal scandal. What does that tell you? It tells you life outside your craft is just as important as practicing it, if not more.

11. Make It Impossible to Edit While You Write

12. Imagine Your Worst-Case Scenario

13. Start Acting Like a Child

14. Dumb It Down

15. Make Money Your Muse

16. Use your 9-to-5 to Fuel Your 5-to-9

17. Discover the Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up

18. Don’t Believe the Myth

Remember this phrase from Jerry Seinfeld: “Writer’s block is just a made-up excuse for not doing your work.”

19. Sign Your Life Away

Create a contract with yourself. Make an actual signed document stating what you’re going to accomplish with your writing and place it somewhere prominent.

Imagine you’re sitting down to write and you look up to see an agreement you made with yourself, not just mentally, but physically. Wouldn’t that inspire you to hold to your commitment?

These little “nudges” might seem trivial on their own, but combining them changes your environment and makes it more conducive to productivity and creativity.

20. Make Your Writing Career a Family Affair

21. Get Meta

22. Converse to Create

23. When Inspiration Fails, Try Desperation

24. WWJD

25. Create to Connect

26. Become the CEO of You, Inc.

27. Don’t Follow in the Footsteps of Great Writers

28. Do the Math

29. Answer Random Questions from Total Strangers

30. Get Zen, Then Pen

The headspace app comes with a series of guided meditations you can use to start fresh every day.

31. Choose Quantity Over Quality

32. Teach an Old Draft New Tricks

33. Surround Yourself with Great Work

34. Put a Pot of Gold at the End of Your Rainbow

35. Drink Rocket Fuel to Skyrocket Your Inspiration

Drink coffee. Coffee has fueled the creative inspiration of writers for centuries. I’m not sure if it’s even possible to write well without it.

36. Journey into the Wild

37. Switch Your Scenery

38. Devour People’s Brains

I just finished my second book. I pulled and wove in ideas from billionaires, dead Roman emperors, and Harvard psychologists. I didn’t go searching for the information. I conjured it from the recesses of my mind while writing, because I’ve read 100 books in the past two years. It’s like Neo in the Matrix where he “downloads” the ability to fight in Kung Fu style.

With reading, you can “download” hundreds or thousands of years of human experience and use it at your disposal.

39. Write in This Insanely Inspiring Environment

40. Put a Gun to Your Head

41. Search for Instant Inspiration

42. Chase the Muse

43. Star in Your Own Montage

44. Find a Tango Partner

Find a writing partner to keep you accountable. Working with someone who’s “in the trenches” like you will help both of you inspire each other. There’s strength in numbers.

45. Find Inspiration in Your Rearview Mirror

46. Eviscerate Your Excuses

47. Join a Local Gang

48. Fake Your Own Death

49. Tune In to Tune Out Writer’s Block

50. Choose the Opinion You Like Best

Have you ever looked at the same piece of writing at different times and had two different opinions?

51. Let Your Fingers Do the Talking

52. Get Back in Touch with Your “Why”

53. Find Writing Inspiration in Dark Places

Life throws curve balls at you. While you can’t avoid certain situations from happening to you, you can use them as sources of inspiration to create.

54. Remember that Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

55. Look Back and See How Far You’ve Come

56. Picture Your Name on a Best-Selling Book

57. Let Life Inspire Art

58. Keep Your Eye on the Prize

Enter a writing contest. Writing contests often pay for top prize winners. There’s one incentive.

Knowing you’re a part of something larger than yourself can be inspiring. Use a writing contest to show the world what you’ve got.

59. Act Like a Hollywood Script Doctor

60. Don’t Fall into the Routine Trap

Write when you’re most creative. You don’t have to be a morning person to write well.

Some people are more creative at eleven at night. Blindly copying routines that don’t suit you is a surefire way to fail. Create an environment and schedule that aligns with your strengths.

61. Make a Creative Pilgrimage

62. Exercise Your Neurons

Your brain needs exercise like any other part of your body. If you’re not feeling inspired, try playing some games that involve words. Hitting a triple word score in Scrabble can remind you of your writing prowess. The education company Lumosity has a line of brain games that help you increase your vocabulary.

63. Cast Yourself Away

64. Use These Two Words as Inspiration

65. When in Doubt, Ship

Other creative people like Neil Gaiman and Tina Fey have reported feeling the same way, regardless of the amount of work they’ve put into the world.

What’s the difference between them and the people who let their inspiration die? They ship.

They put their work into the world regardless of how they felt about it, and it paid off. If they can create while plagued with doubt, so can you.

Look far and wide for examples of successful writers and you’ll find one common denominator — shipping. Let their stories inspire you to do the same.

66. Let Technology Lend a Helping Hand

Use idea-generating tools from companies like Hubspot and Portent’s Content. With ready-made ideas and headlines, you should have everything you need to get started.

67. Be a Little Creepy

68. Eat a Sh** Sandwich

Charles Bukowski once said, “Find what you love and let it kill you.”

He was referring to what many, including bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert, call a “shit sandwich.”

Is writing your shit sandwich? If so, get really hungry, because life is going to give you an all-you-can-eat buffet.

69. Say “Hi, My Name Is _____”

Attend a conference for writers in your niche. You have to be careful with conferences because they’re a waste of time if you go without any predefined goals, but they’re great for meeting industry insiders and the atmosphere of the event will make you want to perform well when you get home.

70. Go to the Source

71. Get Yourself Some Education

72. Pat Yourself on the Back

73. Follow The Artist’s Way

74. Find Inspiration in Everyday Heroes

75. Embrace Your Inner Barbara Walters

76. Dare to Be Different

Embrace your inner weirdo. Your idiosyncrasies and strange ideas are what make you you. Don’t be afraid to show them. The more personality you put into your writing, the better.

77. Throw Your Big Hairy Goals in the Garbage

78. Stop When You Hit the Sweet Spot

79. Sleep with the Enemy

Action is the best deterrent to fear, but it never erases it. Each step you take forward alongside your fear will inspire you to do it again and again.

80. Bore Yourself to Death

81. Literally Write for One Person

The idea of writing for one person has been offered time and time again, but what if you went into insane detail about the person you’re writing for?

Instead of writing for “a member of your target audience,” come up with a customer avatar even an experienced marketer would find a bit obsessive.

Something like:

82. Have an Affair

83. Create a Monster in Your Lab

84. Don’t Trust the Opinions of Losers

Get your inspiration back by seeing “trolls” for what they really are — people who hate their own lives so much they want to criticise what you do in yours.

85. Stop Telling Yourself You’re a Writer

86. Turn Trials into Triumph

You know what’s more inspiring than believing you can overcome obstacles? Actually overcoming them, because knowing you have the strength to do it inspires you to do it again.

When a piece you write gets rejected, get inspired to prove the editor wrong. When your blog post or book falls flat on its face, get inspired to write ten times better the next time.

Real inspiration isn’t warm, fuzzy, and cute. The truly inspired are gritty, tenacious, and walk directly into the flames of disappointment and setbacks.

87. Con Your Way to Success

88. Appreciate the Fortunate Timing of Your Birth

89. Realize You’ve Already Put in “10,000 Hours”

90. Make a Mountain Out of a Molehill

Focus on doing one thing a little better each time you write. If you only get one percent better every day, you’ll be 37 times better by the end of the year.

91. Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Making an investment in your writing inspires you to create because it shows you’re serious. Being an “amateur,” isn’t always inspiring, but “turning pro” is.

92. Stop Robbing the World of Your Creativity

93. Pay Your Debt

94. Harness the Curious Power of Envy

95. Hit the Reset Button

96. Create Your Own Turning Point

97. Curate an Inspiration “Museum”

98. Set a Finish Line

With the first book I wrote, I gave myself a specific deadline to publish it. I woke up every day, hammered away at the keyboard with reckless abandon, and looked forward to the last lap.

99. Boil it Down to This…

Get Busy Writing, or Get Busy Dying

If you really have the itch to write, it’ll never go away,

You have two options — get inspired and get to work, or let your anxiety and insecurities grow and fester.

I know what it feels like to get stuck between the feeling of knowing you have something important to say and wondering whether you’re cut out for the task at hand.

It’s been two years since I started, and I never imagined I’d be where I am today. The same can happen for you, but not without putting in the work day in and day out until you get what you want.

Remember, whether you write or not, the time will pass anyway.

You are cut out for it.

You can make all of your writing dreams come true.

You got this. Now go.

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