There are days I love writing. There are just as many days I’ve all but convinced myself I don’t love it anymore. Despite what the saying implies, writing often still counts as work no matter how much you like doing it. So much so that you might start to believe you hate it.
You like writing! I promise you do — you likely wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t. Sometimes, especially in those moments writing really starts to feel like work, we forget why we started. And we have to try to help ourselves remember why we still want to be writers.
Your Brain Doesn’t Know How This Will Eventually Feel
Your brain is a complex system of chemicals and nerves and tissues. But in the simplest of terms, it’s prone to tricking you into thinking and doing — or not doing — most things. When you start trying to force your brain into helping you do something that feels hard, it tends to resist — because why do something hard, like writing, when you could do something easy, like watch videos on your phone?
Eventually, when you’re finished with the writing you’re supposed to be doing right now (I see you), your brain will be happy you did it — it will feel good! But as complex as it is, your brain doesn’t yet know that having written will feel awesome. It might even try to trick you into believing you don’t like writing so you won’t do it.
To Have Time, You Have to Make Time
Fighting against your brain’s refusal to do hard things goes beyond the thing itself. We’ve all made the “I don’t have time to write” excuse at least a dozen times — excuses are just another thing your brain is really good at! In order to remember why writing matters to you, you actually have to do it. And that’s going to require making time for writing, even if you don’t feel you have time to spare.
Put it in your calendar. Set a goal. Transform it into a habit. There are a lot of different ways you can force writing time into your busy schedule. As your brain tries to trick you, it’s your job to trick it back … by, over time, making it think writing is just a thing you do regularly, so maybe it won’t resist it quite so much.
Write Until You Forget Why You Stopped
When I’m in a writing slump, I turn to things like journaling and free writing to activate that hidden part of myself that loves writing. It never goes away; sometimes it just gets buried for a while. I write until I have that moment of clarity when I remember — oh, right. I actually like doing this, even when it’s difficult.
The only way to fall in love with something you’ve seemingly fallen out of love with is to spend time with it. Make it fun, make it a priority, and try not to make it too stressful. Write anything, as much as you need to, until your love for this art finally comes back to you once more.
Meg Dowell Writes 