Joyce Carol Oates has a surprising opinion. The most important writerly quality, she says, is not the ability to develop characters or structure plots. It’s not the presence of voice or the ear for flowing prose.

It’s energy.

But maybe that’s not a surprising opinion after all. As a writer, you’ve probably finished a writing session and felt physically and mentally drained. Or you’ve gotten home from a long day of work or study and you’ve lain on the couch, unable to muster the *energy* you need to write. 

“It takes a lot of energy to be creative.” – Austin Kleon, in Steal Like An Artist

“It takes great passion and great energy to do anything creative.” – Agnes De Mille, legendary American dancer and choreographer.

At ClimbWrite, we call this energy “writeforce.”

Writeforce is a fact of the craft. Whether you believe it comes from God or the muse or creative discipline, you can’t deny that some kind of energy fuels your writing. This fuel is vitally important, but few of us give it the attention it deserves. We focus instead on things like dialogue and “show, don’t tell” and killer opening pages. These are all important components of the craft, to be sure, but it doesn’t matter how many great things we load into the car if we don’t have gas in the tank.

That’s where writeforce comes in.

It’s every great writer’s accelerant, the amplifier of skill, and the ticket to your writerly dreams.

So … what exactly is it? Where does it come from? And how can you use it to take your writing from good to great?

Writeforce Component #1: Purpose

Have you ever been unmotivated to do a task at work or at home? You’re midway through brushing the grout or reorganizing a filing cabinet, and you say to yourself: “I don’t even know why I’m doing this.”

Being disconnected from your purpose is debilitating for your enthusiasm. So if you find yourself dragging your feet before a writing session, it might be time to check in with your purpose. Why do you write? What are you trying to achieve–either for yourself or for others–and why is that thing worthwhile?

Even if you’re already writing with gusto, knowing the answers to these questions can accelerate your productivity and your enjoyment.

How strong is your purpose? Take the free Writeforce Assessment below, see if you’re better or worse than average, and use your results to start improving your score … and your chances of reaching your writerly goals.

Writeforce Component #2: Self-Acceptance

Say you have to run a marathon. (Sorry ;D ) Would you rather run it in 10-pound (or dollar) trainers? Or in Nike Free Runs?

Same question goes for your writing. Would you rather write a novel from a place of self-doubt and self-criticism? Or from a place of confidence and excitement?

Self-Acceptance allows you to take off the lead-lined tennis shoes, to silence the critical voice in your mind, and write freely. It allows you not only to find your writerly identity–your voice–it also helps you find pride in that identity. So instead of spending your writeforce energy fighting off your self-doubt, you can spend it locking down your dream agent or hitting those bestseller lists.

Take the Writeforce Assessment to see how your self-acceptance score stacks up against your peers.

Writeforce Component #3: Autonomy

Some people are miserable at their job because of the 10-hour days. Then they quit and start their own business, and they’re happier and more engaged than ever … and they’re working 14-hour days. This is the energy-gift of autonomy, and it exists for writers too.

External pressures can hijack your creativity. Concerns about what is “commercial” distract you from what is interesting. Anxiety over what others will think prevents you from writing what you want to write. These things rob you of your creative autonomy, and the long days start to feel even longer.

Instead of letting external pressures drain you of your writeforce, be guided by your internal compass. It always points to your writerly goals.

Do you have creative autonomy? Or is your writeforce being held back by the external? Take the Writeforce Assessment to find out.

Writeforce Component #4: Positive Relationships

Have you ever wondered why there are so many people clustered around a boxer between rounds? It’s not because they can help throw punches against his opponent–the fight is a solitary endeavor. They’re there for support, for the fighter to draw strength from.

Sometimes writing can feel like taking a long series of punches. You can either nurse yourself back to health, spending a great deal of writeforce in the process, or you can lean on the people in your corner for support. These are your writer friends who understand what you’re going through, who’ve been in the ring themselves and know what the punches feel like.

You can also draw writeforce from people who’ve never fought–or written–a day in their lives. These people are your fans, and no matter where you’re writing or how difficult the work, they’ll always give you the electrifying energy of home-ring advantage.

Have you surrounded yourself with positive people who support your writing? Take the writeforce assessment to find out how you can grow your relationship writeforce.

Writeforce Component #5: Environmental Mastery

Picture yourself in a sailboat. You want to travel between your private tropical islands (we’ll assume this is after you’ve found great success with your writing ;D ). In scenario one there’s not a puff of wind, and when there is, it’s blowing against you. You go below deck to row. In scenario two the wind is at your back, the oars are stored away, and you’re on deck sipping Mai Tais in the sun.

Which scenario would you choose?

It’s an easy decision, but for many of us, the analogous decision is difficult. In our writing, we never stop to think about how to construct an environment that works for us instead of against us, that does not require writeforce energy to conquer but that gives us that very energy.

Do you know what kind of environment increases your writeforce? Have you constructed that environment for yourself?

Take the Writeforce Assessment to measure your environmental mastery. Then, stop rowing against the wind and use it to your advantage.

Writeforce Component #6: Personal Growth

“What a waste of potential.”

This phrase can be directed at anyone, but it almost always comes from parents or teachers or those involved in the lives of our young people. Is it cynicism or generational tension that produces this critique? Maybe a bit of both, but the deeper component comes from within. From experience.

We reprimand our juniors–indeed, we reprimand anyone who “wastes” his potential–because we know what it feels like to fall short of our own. It’s not a good feeling, knowing you could have finished with a better GPA or a higher certification, knowing that if you had only managed your time a little bit better, you could have gotten that promotion at work. Or maybe you’ve fallen short at home. You know that if you’d just tried harder, you could have been a better father or mother or daughter or son. This gap between your reality and your potential is a deadweight on your heart and mind. Your lack of effort to close that gap waters a seed of guilt inside you, and that guilt eats away at your writeforce energy.

Creating a cycle of personal growth will pull this guilt out at the roots.

Do you value personal growth and the energy it gives you? Or do you prefer the energy drain of stagnation?

Take the writeforce assessment to find out.

Perhaps now Joyce Carol Oates’s claim no longer seems so strange. Energy–writeforce–really is the most important writerly quality. It makes everything else you do easier. It’s the first domino in the line leading to a successful writing career. It’s the fuel in your writing vehicle. The analogies go on and on, but know this.

There are a million writing skills you can focus on, but there’s only one that bolsters all others: writeforce.

For a free, creativity-supercharging video course on how to grow your writeforce, click here.

Mason Engel is the Amazon-bestselling author of 2084, the director of bookish documentaries for public television, and the founder of ClimbWrite.com. ClimbWrite’s video courses are designed for fiction writers who are looking to supercharge their creativity and pen the next bestseller.
You can find him on his website or follow him on Instagram.

The post Writeforce: The Secret to Maintaining the Motivation—and Discipline—to Write appeared first on DIY MFA.

Now, we’ve already debunked the myths associated with Speculative Fiction, slain the 7 deadly sins, appreciated the storytelling elements with some awesome books, and worked on world building. What’s next? Motivation.

Here are 4 things about speculative fiction that could inspire the motivation to get those words on the pages. And it goes beyond your dreams of seeing your name on the cover—your writing can help your future readers.

Motivation 1: Speculative fiction can build mental resilience.

First things first, I am a psychology graduate. It is probably my fifth language, only because the first four spots are already occupied. And I’m here to share something I learned during my personal research to satiate my psychology craving.

You can help people (especially young audiences) to cope with anxiety and stress by putting your speculative story out there. It is not a discovery that literature is the mirror of society. But when you add the “What if” element to your stories, you are encouraging your readers to think outside of the box.

Your story must have a conflict. Perhaps it is something grounded in reality with a touch of speculative elements. Or it is completely based on fantasy. When your characters survive and learn to cope with uncertainties and learn life lessons, you’re giving your readers the hope they can do it too.

In the most uncertain times, what’s a better message than to tell the readers that they can shape their lives too?

Motivation 2: You can send a wave of change.

Raise your hands if you’ve read the Hunger Games trilogy! 

Well, what was your first reaction to the games itself? My guess is, they turned you off. A minor spoiler alert: Hunger Games is nothing if not a direct reflection on the horrors of war.

I remember reading the trilogy for the first time as a teenager and thinking about the many social issues Suzanne Collins packed in her Hunger Games trilogy. How horrible it all was and developed my own thoughts on all that I read and beyond that.

Now, of course, Panem was a world unlike mine, that helped me leave my biases at the door when I began. But by the end, I had not only looked at everything from an unbiased perspective but developed a viewpoint that could also resonate with my reality. Often, such perspectives can spark a debate that lights the fire of change.

Pretty cool how you, too, can do it by getting your story out there, right?

Motivation 3: You can help develop empathy.

Don’t just take my word for it. But several researches show your speculative fiction story can help develop ethical thinking, emotional intelligence, and empathy! Perspective-taking is your keyword here. We all must have one book in our library where the narrator wasn’t someone we could really like, but we go on this incredible journey to experience the world through their eyes.

Our need for closure, or cognitive closure, decreases. This is our desire to get a direct and firm answer instead of an ambiguous one. Resisting this means you are more comfortable accepting other perspectives, more empathetic, more emotionally intelligent, more thoughtful, and, of course, more creative.

Your story doesn’t need an unlikeable narrator. The “what if” element is good enough to resist cognitive closure.

Motivation 4: You can help someone make sense of the world.

Speculative Fiction is beyond “what if.” It stabilizes your readers in the “now.” You take the approach of a “what if” question and ask it in the “now.” 

What if a Metroid hit the earth? What if you could time travel to the future? What if aliens invaded Earth? 

It could be anything for that matter, but in your story, it is happening in the now for your characters.

The characters making sense of the world helps readers look at their own world and make sense of it. Much like how I did as a teenager after reading the Hunger Games trilogy. 

Sometimes it can hit closer home. What’s the temperature where you’re living? It’s 40 degrees Celsius here already when we’re supposed to be enjoying spring. Global warming took spring from us here and no one is happy about it! 

I recently came across a fantasy story about a time in the near future when water has become a luxury. That hit closer to home than an alien invasion, for sure. 

But here’s the thing: speculative fiction poses questions in readers’ minds and helps them make sense of the world in a new light.

Share Your Wisdom!

Come on now, give your readers the wisdom of sight that only your story can provide. If that doesn’t give you the motivation to write, I don’t know what will.

And the next time we meet, let us talk about some emerging trends in speculative fiction and how we can use (and avoid) them to help our writing journey. Until then!

Tell us in the comments: What is your motivation for writing speculative fiction?

Disha Walia is a lifelong storyteller and an enthusiastic writer and editor in love with the idea of exploring the creative world of words. While making her space in the world of non-fiction and fiction alike, Disha loves to spend even her free time daydreaming about what next to write. Connect with her on www.quillinary.com. You can also follow her on Instagram and Twitter.

The post Find Your Motivation for Writing Speculative Fiction appeared first on DIY MFA.

For me a morning writing routine is like ripping off a band-aid, it’s quick, easy, and fairly painless. That is compared to attempts to write later in the day, otherwise, I’d spend most of the day stressing about when or if I’ll get to write. 

Here are five reasons why you should start a morning writing routine:

1. It’s quiet 

How quiet your morning is will likely vary depending on where you live, who you live with and how early you get up. But generally, it’s going to be quieter in the morning compared to the middle of the afternoon or evening. You may be able to write with noise and think it won’t be much of a distraction. However, anything can become an excuse not to write. Why take the chance? 

Besides, I’m not just talking about outside noise. For me, this applies to the noise inside my head too. 

When I first wake up, I tend to have a much clearer mind. It hasn’t been bombarded with the millions of messages we receive daily through email, social media, television, etc. If you’re good about not checking your phone as soon as you wake up, you’ll be more likely to access whatever creative work has been bouncing around in your head. 

2. Inner critics sleep late 

Speaking of a quiet mind, I find myself being much less critical of my writing in the morning. 

One of the major issues writers often face is their inner critic. That voice in their head that tells them everything they write is just awful and there’s no point in continuing if it’s not perfect. That voice sadly keeps many people from really committing themselves to their writing. Or they become stuck rewriting the same thing waiting for it to be perfect. 

You have to be willing to write badly sometimes just to move forward. 

Personally, I start writing while drinking my morning coffee and I need at least one cup in me before I’m fully functional. So maybe I’m just not awake enough to recognize how bad my writing is. Bad writing is still better than no writing. You can’t edit a blank page. 

3. Avoid Decision Fatigue 

Decision fatigue is the psychological term for the deterioration of our decision-making skills. It happens when we have too many choices and after having made many decisions. 

The further into the day we get the more decisions we’ve had to make. The later in the day you wait to write the less likely you are to choose wisely. Even if you’ve scheduled your writing time, you still have to decide to follow through. 

You may also face the decision of what to write. Later in the day, it will be harder to decide what to work on. Faced with that difficult decision, it becomes easier to just skip the writing session altogether. 

4. Less likely to procrastinate

Writers like to joke about how the minute they sit down to write they suddenly see all the chores that need to be done. It’s not likely that first thing in the morning you’re going to do laundry, sweep and mop or clean out your refrigerator. 

The most tempting form of procrastination will be your phone. 

But, relating back to the concept of decision fatigue, it’s easier in the morning to choose wisely. 

Most likely if you have a day job, you’re going to have a limited amount of time in the morning. Besides writing, you’re going to have to shower, eat breakfast, and all everything else to prepare for your workday. A limited amount of time might be just what you need to get yourself in gear. Think of how deadlines are often the most motivating force a writer can have. 

5. It’s motivating

You know that satisfying feeling when you check something off your to-do list? Well, imagine being able to start your day by accomplishing something as important as writing. 

I first started my morning writing routine doing morning pages, while reading Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. I found myself going into my day job happier and less full of the usual dread. I also managed to squeeze in work on creative projects during lunch breaks and after work more often.

Eventually, with an established journaling practice as a part of my morning routine, it was easy to add time for creative work. When I started working on creative projects in the morning, I found it hard not to go back to my writing later in the day. I’d find myself continually thinking of a specific project or new ideas throughout the day. I started building the momentum to really get going and push past all the excuses. 

Tell us in the comments: Do you have a morning writing routine?

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Alexis M. Collazo writes in a wide variety of styles, forms, and genres. She’s worked as a freelance writer, copywriter, and content marketing blogger. She is currently working on a memoir written in prose and poetry. After moving to Pennsylvania in 2016, she worked at the local public library where she led monthly writing workshops. In 2021, she was certified as an Amherst Writers and Artists workshop facilitator. She now leads online workshops and hosts write-in sessions, to see current or upcoming events visit www.alexismcollazo.com.

The post #5onFri: Five Reasons to Start a Morning Writing Routine appeared first on DIY MFA.

Landing on a bestseller list, earning rave reviews and big-name awards, landing a contract that will give you some form of financial freedom (that you will use—of course—to continue to write), or simply finishing an original manuscript will not happen unless you put pen to paper. 

This does not necessarily mean you must write every single day. It does, however, require the sort of discipline that will keep you writing on bad days, when your fickle-minded muse is off rolling around in someone else’s hayloft.

First, A Caveat

I get it, fellow DIY writer on a budget. Piecing together your own education and skillset feels like building the boat while sailing. Ahead of you is a vast, seemingly unfathomable sea of writing resources and advice to navigate. 

This column is not intended to hand down immutable rules or proscriptions. Instead, I want to empower you to continue building your own boat. Of what follows, incorporate the suggestions and strategies that work for you. Let go of what doesn’t. You may find, after some trial and error, that the blueprints for our ships look very different from one another. 

Agreed? Then, read on to learn how to establish a disciplined writing practice.

Align Your Behavior with Your Priorities

Over the next two weeks, track how you spend your time. Use a basic spreadsheet or annotate your planner by hand. Be accurate and honest. Record any significant emotions or fluctuations in your energy and productivity levels. 

At the end of two weeks, reflect. Do your day-to-day actions align closely with your priorities? What are some potential pockets of time you can reserve for writing? Your findings might surprise you.

From there, build a strategic writing schedule that you can adhere to. 

Protect your creative time by blocking it out, like any other important appointment, in your agenda. It is perfectly acceptable to start small. Completing ten minutes of writing on your lunch breaks, every other day, will move you closer to a manuscript draft than idealizing four-hour weekend sessions that never happen. 

Also, look for ways to tweak hard-to-break habits. Could you, for example, place a notebook by the couch where you will reach for it rather than the TV remote in the evenings?

Set Clear, Attainable, Measurable Goals 

Nowadays, I write regularly out of force of habit, with far less of the pre-session hand-wringing and ritual I once had. When writing time is on my schedule, nestled (sometimes squished) between a part-time, in-person job and a second, at-home creative gig, I sit down and get to work. 

The more you write on both good and bad days, whether constructing prose feels near-effortless or like drawing blood from a stone, the easier and more unselfconscious it will become. 

If you are struggling with consistency, clear, attainable, and measurable goals can give your writing practice structure, purpose, and direction until it becomes second nature to sit at your desk day in and day out. 

Whether you want to write 100 words or 1000, for an uninterrupted stretch of thirty minutes or five, your goals should be concrete and challenging, but manageable enough so you can reasonably accomplish them given the current demands of your life. 

Track Your Progress

Writing is work. Immediate results are not guaranteed. 

The granular, day-to-day developments in your writing practice and craft can often be difficult to see. To stay motivated, keep track of objective data like word count, the number of first drafts you have completed, or writing session length over both the short and long-term for a full picture of your progress. 

Seeing the broad strides you make over longer periods of time can be a powerful reminder that your daily efforts really do make a difference. At the end of the quarter or calendar year, you can also use this information to set increasingly challenging goals for yourself and continue refining your writing schedule.

I happen to use Christie Yant’s Tools for Writers. Her templates are a user-friendly and inspiring addition to any writer’s toolkit. You can set up a profile on the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) website and use their project goal and word count statistics tools throughout the year.

Even the most austere of spreadsheets can work wonders. Oh, the beauty of a set of blank cells! How heady the sense of possibility, as they call out to be populated with your data! 

Have Back-Up Prompts Ready

So, you have blocked out time in your calendar. You have your progress tracker ready. You are alone at last with a blank page. And then, nothing. You have no idea what to write about. Your inner critic cackles in delight. Now what?

Sometimes you need a backup plan when you are trying to work under less-than-ideal conditions. Writing prompts are wonderful tools, especially on days you need outside help to stay anchored to your writing practice. A quick Google search can get you started in seconds, or you can check out Reedsy prompts, Writer’s Digest, or our very own DIY MFA Writer Igniter. 

Days when you have no idea what to write or where to take your story are also great opportunities to focus on technical aspects of your craft. Why not use that session to write (or rewrite) scenes that explore and play with specific craft elements like dialogue, narrative voice, or point of view?

Use Positive Peer Pressure

While the writing life requires a certain degree of solitude, it does not have to be lonely. Today it is easier than ever to connect with local writing groups, professional associations, and the greater literary community. Other writers are invaluable sources of both professional guidance as well as encouragement. Don’t overlook them!

Many writing groups and organizations host in-person write-ins or run virtual writing sprints. Others may offer co-working sessions that you can join at various times during the week. 

Take advantage of the positive, productive energy fostered in these group settings to fill out your writing practice once in a while. It is a lot harder to blow off writing time in your calendar when you know other people are expecting you to show up (and looking forward to seeing you!)

Reward Yourself

When all else fails, resort to bribery.

A little extrinsic motivation can go a long way. If your favorite, luxurious hot beverage from a corner coffee shop, one of the books on your wishlist, or an extra hour of reading time on Sunday morning is the extra push that effectively gets you in your writing chair, that is okay.

And be sure to treat yourself for meeting your goals throughout your writing journey. What we do is challenging work, and exercising the kind of self-discipline, reflection, and stamina to create objects that move people with little more than markings on a page is certainly worth celebrating.

It’s Your Turn

Ready to set pen to paper? Here is a prompt to kickstart your week with a disciplined writing practice. 

Write a scene where one or more obstacles keep thwarting your main character’s attempts to create something new. 

If you are a newbie, set a timer for five minutes and write. When the timer goes off, stop. Pause no more than two minutes to collect your thoughts and look over what you have written. Then, set the timer for ten minutes, and continue writing your scene in sprints between 5 to 15 minutes until you get to at least 400 words. 

Tell us in the comments below: How did it go? What did you learn and apply from this article? What other strategies work for you in creating a disciplined writing practice?

The elder daughter of Korean-Canadian and Austrian immigrants, F.E. Choe currently lives in Columbia, South Carolina. When she is not at her desk trying to craft true and beautiful sentences or piecing together her latest short story, you will find her feeding the dog scraps under the table, reading, or training her backyard flock of hens to walk backwards. Follow her on Instagram @f.e.choe.

The post How Do I Establish a <s>Daily</s></p> Disciplined Writing Practice? appeared first on DIY MFA.

You know what? That kind of resistance is totally normal.

Resistance invades the artistic process at every level. In fact, resistance is so pervasive that Steven Pressfield wrote a book about it. A whole book. The War of Art. And he’s not alone. Many people have written books and articles on this subject.

So how can we overcome resistance to establish a habit that allows us to write our memoir, our nonfiction book, our novel?

Let’s work through it together, exploring the ideas introduced in my piece, “Five Ways to Trick Yourself into Writing,” over the next few months. Within this process, I encourage you to lower your expectations about what you can or will or should do (See this piece for what I think about that horrid “should”) and take the time to think deeply to create a solution that works for you.

Selecting a Goal

Between the “should” and the tip-tip-tapping of the words each day lies a chasm filled with reasons and rationalizations for why you can’t make those words happen regularly. 

So, how can you find your motivation and show up for this marvelous story you want to tell? After all, you’re dying to tell it. You dream about the possibility. Your mind pops new ideas at you all day long.

Luckily, the answer to this question lies within you. You are the only one who can know what motivates you. And what motivates you may not work for anyone else. That’s okay.

Finding that motivation makes the difference between a completed book and the dream remaining a dream.

Pick a Goal that Aligns with You

By selecting a goal that aligns with your purpose and meaning, you discover a real reason to get out of bed on frigid mornings or pinch yourself awake when you want to collapse at night.

When I speak of your purpose and meaning, I’m talking about the thing or action or feeling that brings importance to your life. We’ve all heard people talking about “finding their purpose” or “searching for their meaning,” but that bestows more gravitas on this process than it deserves.

While some of us find our meaning in saving the planet like Greta Thunberg, I suspect that most of us find meaning in smaller ways. For example, my purpose is to delight and inspire people to create beauty.

Your purpose can be just as serious as Greta’s or as light as mine. The judgments of the world or your family or your friends don’t matter. 

Realize that everyone’s purpose is beautiful.
Everyone’s purpose is powerful.
Everyone’s purpose is as important as everyone else’s.

No matter their seeming weight.

The Perfect Work Day Exercise

One of my favorite tools for finding your purpose is the Perfect Work Day exercise. 

Take a few moments and journal a detailed picture of your perfect workday. Where are you working? What are you working on? What activities are you participating in? Who joins you as you spend your day? Write your whole day from waking in the morning to going to bed at night.

After you’ve finished creating the picture, read it again and then consider:

• Which part tugs at your heart the most?
• Why? Why does that thing touch you so deeply?
• What does it do in your life and the lives of others that means so much to you?

Creating that picture of your perfect workday and answering those questions helps you begin to see your purpose in action. And that makes your dream much harder to ignore. The feeling of freedom or the joy in creation or whatever made your heart sing in that picture of your perfect day—that could be the thing to draw you out of your routine and propel you into action.  

For example, my perfect workday includes writing fiction, personal essays, and inspirations for creatives in the morning and meeting with coaching clients in the afternoon. Looking at these activities made me realize that all I want to do is delight my readers, inspiring and empowering them to create their beauty in the world. That thought made my fingers itch to get moving.

Aha! I thought. Now I can get to work! I enthusiastically leaped into writing.

I didn’t know there was one more step to finding that perfect motivation.

I knew I needed to put myself in a space where I would write more. Where I could write more. Where I expressed my ideas and communicated them in words that would inspire you to make your art, write your words, manifest your dream in our world!

Whew! Got a little full of myself there. Basically, I knew that I needed to create a space for my writing in my hectic life.

So, thinking that I needed at least ninety minutes of writing time each morning, I decided to get up at 4:30 am.

Well, by day three of getting up at 4:30 am, I thought I was going to die. Thoroughly exhausted in every way, my day job suffered from poor quality work—and if you need that day job to get by like most of us do, you know that can’t last.

On day four, I accidentally slept in until 6:45 am and felt great all day. No more early mornings, I decided. I guess I just can’t do that.

I could have stopped there, but my motivation is strong. I want to write. I want to support others to achieve their dreams. I want to make people laugh. I don’t want to die without helping everyone I can and writing delightful essays and books along the way. When I thought of giving up, my regret lay on top of me like a dusty bag of unmixed concrete.

“How can I make my writing happen?” I despaired.

And, with that question, I knew I’d picked the perfect goal.

The moment you look at your dream and say, “How can I make this happen?”—know you have picked the right thing to pursue.

And know that, on your path to your writing habit, all you need to do for the next month is find your motivation.

What motivation makes you ask, “How can I make this happen?”

***This post uses Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching Tools.

Tell us in the comments: How did you find your motivation?

LA (as in tra-la-la) Bourgeois empowers you to embrace JOY as you manifest your creative goals through her Creativity and Business Coaching. Battle resistance, procrastination, and overwhelm with her at your side, gently encouraging with humor and heart. Discover more at her website, labourgeois.biz

The post To Find Your Motivation, Ask “How Can I Make This Happen?” appeared first on DIY MFA.

We begin the month obsessed with our “shoulds.” I should lose weight. I should write my book. I should clean my house more.

Maybe that last one is just me? It can’t be!

Encouraged by the world, we take all of our “shoulds” and turn them into resolutions. I will lose weight. I will write my book. I will clean my house more.

After throwing ourselves at them for a few days, those resolutions dissipate back into their original form, but with an added bonus of guilt from the unrealistic expectations we piled on ourselves!

And the guilt makes the “should” show up even more often.

“Should” Pressures Us

When we say “I should,” we state what we insist we must do. Actions we believe that someone else or our community or the world demands of us. Expectations that have not been met. Each time you say “I should,” an unfulfilled assumption unfurls from your tongue, and guilt breaks through the dam surrounding your soul, flooding it with disgust.

Guilt around these “I shoulds” helps no one. Guilt fills up your brain with static, refusing to allow anything else entry. 

Where is the room for your writing? Gone because you’re feeling guilty about not writing! 

Where is the room to make a beautiful home? Gone because you’re feeling guilty that you haven’t cleaned the house! 

Where is the space for your family? Gone because you’re feeling guilty that you didn’t take the time to play with your kids!

It’s a vicious cycle, and it’s one inflicted on us by ourselves.

Luckily, one radical practice frees you from this cycle.

Stop using the word “should.”

That’s it. Excise “should” from your vocabulary. Does it sound easy? Because it is not. That “should” is trained into us by our family, our schools, our community, our society. Shaking it loose takes time and effort. This is why it’s a practice—not a quick fix!  

The first step? Stopping your mouth from forming the word.

And the real trick to stop the cycle and avoid the guilt trip from yourself?

Define the expectation. 

When you stop your “should,” replace that word with another one. What’s the first word that comes to mind to replace it? Why that word? What does that word tell you about this expectation you hold?

Inquire why you must do this thing that you “should” do. 

What goal is achieved by doing it? Can the goal be met by taking different actions?

The rote “I should ” now becomes an “I can.” Or maybe, the “I should” becomes an “I don’t need to” or an  “I want to.”

And that’s ok.

This transformation of the “should” redirects your energy from wallowing in guilt into practical action. It encourages you to work on your real goals infused with your meaning rather than the goals that you imagine everyone expects.

And that is what I am asking you to do by releasing “should” from your vocabulary. 

Let’s give it a try.

One of my not-so-favorites is “I should work on my novel.”

First, I eliminate the word and substitute it with another. My first thought is to use “will” in its place. Immediately, “will” sends up a flare of alarm. That word sets up a new way to add pressure. Bye-bye, “will!”

However, “I can work on my novel” tells me that I think working on my novel is possible.

Now I ask why.

Why can I work on my novel?

Because I can physically work on my novel. I can sit down at the computer and type words into the document and write my novel. It’s a possibility.

Why am I not working on the novel?

Because I work hard all day and I’m tired at night. And on the weekend, I have to do my chores and recover from the week. And I’m at a place in the novel that is hard to write.

Now I have some good information! Instead of just feeling guilty, I can start to delve into the reasons behind my excuses. And I can find solutions to the problems.

• Maybe I can ask my wife to help with the chores and free up a little time for me to write on the weekend.
• Maybe I can rise early in the morning to write before work since I’m tired at night.
• Maybe I can let myself off the writing hook for a couple of weeks until this super-stressful deadline at work has passed.
• Maybe I can begin writing that difficult section by committing to write just one sentence a day. Or every day-ish.

Options exist. A potential solution reveals itself.

And the “should” no longer controls my thoughts.

The practice of stopping your “should” cycle is one that you will find needs constant attention, especially for the first few weeks. Once you start noticing your “shoulds,” they will surprise you with their frequency. Over time, their presence will slow to a trickle, but never quite disappear. 

Perfection in this practice may not be possible (I certainly haven’t found it yet!), but committing to the practice of inquiring into your “shoulds” can empower you to make progress toward your dreams.

“Should” happens. Inquiring into each “should” reveals the reasoning behind the expectation. Facing the actualities of each “should” reveals a list of barriers that you can overcome to achieve your real goals. Delving into the options each “should” reveals empowers you to take action.

One final thing—sometimes what the “should” reveals is that you don’t really want to pursue that goal. It’s just a goal that other people expect you to achieve which doesn’t align with your heart. 

Or it’s a thing or action that someone has told you that you need to get to your goal but the action or thing doesn’t ring true for your journey. If the answer you discover in your inquiry is “That feels wrong to me,” respect the voice of your soul and find another way.

So, for this new year, resolve only to inquire into your “shoulds.” Begin where you are. Define the expectation. Ask “why.” Try not to judge yourself for falling into the “should” trap of expectations.

We all do it.

And the lessons we learn from those “shoulds” empower us to make real change and achieve the goals of our hearts.

***This piece applies Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching Tools. Tell us in the comments: What are you going to use instead of that word?

LA (as in tra-la-la) Bourgeois empowers you to embrace JOY as you manifest your creative goals through her Creativity and Business Coaching. Battle resistance, procrastination, and overwhelm with her at your side, gently encouraging with humor and heart. Discover more at her website, labourgeois.biz. You can follow LA on Facebook or Instagram.

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So if you feel like you want to throw all of your pages out of the window because you’re not sure where to go, here are 3 ways the holidays can revive your book. It’s time to let the holidays leave you and your book feeling brighter and happier, no matter how you spend them. 

1. Slow Down and Soak in the Moment

One of the best parts of the holidays is the opportunity to slow down. There’s less guilt about enjoying an extra cup of hot chocolate or wine. You’re allowed to linger and savor conversations, meals, and as many old movies as you like. 

Maybe it’s the twinkle lights or heaps of cookies that show up everywhere, but every moment feels thick with magic.

Most of the year is spent rushing off to the next thing, so let yourself soak in everything this season has to give. Take the long way home to look at Christmas lights on your favorite street. Grab your baking sheets and some friends for a gingerbread-making afternoon. Order the kringle from the bakery with the line around the corner—it’s worth the slight frostbite.

You never know what can pop up when you lean into the holidays. The same is true for your book. 

As a writer, there’s pressure to produce pages and to be in a constant creative flow. What if you just soaked in how it feels to write again? Instead of trying to get through it, slow down. Make an extra-large pot of coffee, put on some festive instrumental music, and block out time for writing. 

If you stare out the window for 30 minutes, it’s okay. 

Feel like rereading your entire manuscript? Do it. 

Want to pull out old material just because? No one is stopping you.

Whatever you do with your time is exactly what you should do this season, so enjoy it while it lasts. This act of savoring the feeling of writing can help you revive your book.

2. Get Curious About How Traditions Started

Ever notice how people seem to do the same things every year, but no one knows why? You’re also doing it with your book. For some reason, you have an idea in your head that this is how your story has to be because you’ve always imagined it that way.

Now is the time to get curious and ask questions.

With the holidays, why did your dad never let you eat latkes with applesauce? Why does the next-door neighbor, Connie, make glögg for her annual party when she’s not Swedish? Who started putting walnuts and oranges in stockings and how can you make it stop?

Well, your dad thought applesauce looked like baby food and didn’t want that touching his bubbe’s pristine latkes. Your neighbor used to have a Swedish roommate who would throw dinner parties all throughout December with a kitchen full of glögg ready for anyone with an empty mug. And the nuts and fruits in stockings? Your mom’s great-grandparents started it during the Depression and stuck with the family ever since.

When you get curious about origin stories, it’s easier to see why things happen—which is crucial to reviving your book and writing. 

Ask yourself some of the same questions, including:

• How did this all start?
• Why have you continued with this version of it?
• What (if anything) can you change?

By getting curious, you open the window for fresh ideas, which is exactly what you need to revive your book for this last part.

3. New Places to Go and Things to Eat

Now that you’ve slowed down and gotten curious about your own holiday routines, you can branch out. As tempting as it is to keep things as they are, every tradition starts somewhere. It’s your turn to do something different.

Maybe you channel your year abroad in Japan and invite your family over for a traditional Kentucky Fried Chicken Christmas dinner. Not sure what to bring to your first neighborhood potluck? Ask your uncle for his Groundnut stew recipe. Throwing a New Year’s Party sans the booze? Stock up on non-alcoholic spirits and test out some new mocktail recipes.

And don’t be afraid to shake things up with your book. Grab a stack of index cards and map out your chapters or outline. Rearrange them on the floor or a whiteboard and write new ideas on additional notecards. Let yourself see where your book could go if it started differently or if you cut out a huge chunk. 

Still not sure how to get the creativity flowing? Listen to a writing podcast. Watch the movie version of your favorite book. Grab your headphones and the soundtrack to your favorite musical. Test out a new recipe from your new cookbook.

Implementing different techniques to use for your writing practice will be easier the more you do it. Pretty soon, you won’t be holding onto the one way you write or approach your story. You’ll be open to the endless ways your book could unfold, which will help revive your book. 

Keeping the Holiday Spirit Alive

Wouldn’t it be great if you could bottle up the feelings of the season to keep year-round? Well, the good news is you can. The holidays are just a designated time to slow down, lean into traditions, and be open to what’s around the corner. 

Every project needs a reset, so drop the guilt and lean into everything this holiday season brings to your creative doorstep. Then, when you feel burned out on writing your book throughout the year, remember that you can revisit these three ways to revive your book anytime you want. You can even throw on some Rudolph tunes if need be.

Amanda Polick is a writer and book coach, who guides food folks through the writing process. Her work has been featured by Cooking Light, Food & Wine and Time. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee now, but a piece of her will be in California forever. To connect with Amanda, you can find her on her website.

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This distinction was never more apparent until October 2018, when I overheard some colleagues in the English department office of the high school where I teach, talking about an article one of them had published in a local newspaper.

“I’m a writer, too,” I said. “I’m writing a novel.” 

“Really? Have you published anything?” one asked.

I shook my head, instantly regretting that I had mentioned anything about the dream I’d had since I was seven years-old. Being unpublished means I’m not yet an author, but it also feels like having no proof that I’m even a writer. But I know I’m a writer because I have a writer’s life.

I wanted to explain that 22 years earlier, in my other life as an aspiring writer and stay-at-home mom of three, I had written an article that was published in Long Island Parents Guide, a monthly circular that was mostly ads for preschools, clowns for hire, tutors and day camps, with a few articles thrown in for parents in the know. 

But I didn’t. That was so long ago, it hardly mattered. And just because I had written an article, it didn’t mean I had any business writing a novel.

Why did I feel so insecure about my writing? Why was I seeking outside validation for my childhood dream? And, more importantly, why hadn’t I finished said novel years ago when I first started writing it?

Life of A Writer: Motivation

When my colleagues continued their conversation into the hallway, I was left with the newest teacher in our department (who was in her early 20s) to contemplate my unfulfilled dreams of being a published writer, and therefore, an author. 

The cliché goes that all English teachers are wannabe writers, and in my experience, it’s more true than not. 

“I’m actually writing a novel, too,” she said.

“Wow, that’s cool,” I said, slightly jealous that her author career was getting off the ground so young. I was 46 and still in the same position at the starting line.

“Are you doing NaNoWriMo?” she asked.

“NaNoo What What?”

She laughed and explained what it was. I hustled back to my classroom and promptly Googled it.

Within three minutes I was all signed up, excited to have a reason to get back to that novel I was so motivated to write over a decade earlier..

Life of A Writer: Conception

As a fairly new ESL teacher back in 2007, I was shocked by how many of my students said they abhorred reading. Remembering myself as a kid and teen who devoured books, I simply couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that they could wring no enjoyment out of losing themselves in the mind and heart of a character, whose thoughts and feelings can often feel more real than one’s own.

In my classroom, I chose books I thought my students would like, stories about young people facing big obstacles and how they grow strong enough within to overcome them, stories like Oliver Twist and Huckleberry Finn. While some students liked them, the majority did not, so I added texts with Hispanic/Latinx characters to better reflect the identities of my students. We read The House on Mango Street, Buried Onions and Esperanza Rising. 

Although more students seemed to enjoy these stories, I realized that what they really wanted to read was a book about a character more like them: a new immigrant, possibly undocumented, adolescent, who speaks both Spanish and English, and who struggles to embrace a new life while desperately missing their old one.

After doing a little research, I concluded that so few books like this existed, my students would only be able to read one if I wrote it myself. (This was the case in 2007. Gratefully, the situation has improved but there is still more catching up to do.) 

Therefore, with my students as my inspiration, I started working on a new novel just for them.  It was exhilarating because it was a win-win: they would get a story more reflective of their experiences and I would finally achieve my dream. Soon, I had joined a writer’s group and got a lot of positive feedback during our critique sessions. 

Then, after a few months, I got distracted by some problems in my personal life and I stopped writing.

The Perfectionism Trap

Alas, my first NaNoWriMo in 2018 was the newest addition to my growing collection of failed writing experiences that qualify as fodder for an Expectations vs. Reality meme. On November 1, 2018, I accomplished uploading the first several chapters of the novel I had begun in 2007, and nothing else. 

Several days passed with no writing done, and by November 11, I calculated that I was around 18,000 new words behind if I wanted to achieve the 50k goal. Knowing I would never be able to catch up, I did what any self-respecting perfectionist would do in such a situation: I gave up. Not only that, I further preserved my honor and reputation by refusing to write a single additional word for at least another year.

A New Beginning

Flash forward to NaNoWriMo 2019. Since my first attempt at this annual event didn’t gain me any new words, I was committed to finishing that book the second time around. By the end of November, I had written roughly 15,000 new words. While I wasn’t a winner, the event created some momentum for me, and I continued writing a little every few days for the next couple of months. I also started consuming writing podcasts and books on craft as if they were Oreos. 

Truth be told, I consumed plenty of actual Oreos, too.

In January 2020, I stumbled upon an open registration for an online writing course starting on February 1. The course was Rachael Herron’s 90 Days to Done, in which she teaches how to write a novel from start to finish in 90 days. I wanted to register, but I was worried about committing money to the achievement of a dream which had eluded me thus far.

To be honest, I was more terrified of not finishing. Again. Of failing. Again. Of proving myself wrong. (Or was it right?) Again.

The more I thought about it, the more I believed there was a reason I hadn’t heard about NaNoWriMo until 2018. There was a reason I had recently become obsessed with listening to writing podcasts, reading books about writing and Googling all I could about the writing craft. There was a reason I had found a writing course that would be starting in mere days.

The Universe was telling me that moment was the exact right time for me to get serious about my writing or I would die regretting it.

So, I listened to it, trusted it, and followed its advice.

After my first class with Rachael, I decided to start over from scratch, but with the same basic character and plot ideas I had developed thirteen years earlier. I spent several days outlining the plot, fleshing out my protagonist and developing the story and character arcs. I started writing the first new words on February 14, 2020.

I wrote for at least an hour a day, six days a week. To my surprise, I was averaging about 90 minutes and 1800 words per day. I wrote and wrote and wrote.

And then something unimaginably awful happened.

You can read all about it in the next installment of this column. Stay tuned for Episode 2: The Unthinkable Happens. 

Anita Ramirez is a writer and teacher who transforms dispassionate teens into lovers of books — one reader at a time. When she’s not teaching Hispanic/Latinx literature and composition to her high school students or linguistics at the college level, she’s revising her first novel, a YA contemporary featuring bilingual characters. She loves the poetry of Pablo Neruda, teen movies from the 1980s and café con leche.

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Some people are intimidated by writing humor. They think they just aren’t funny enough. And while it isn’t necessarily easy and some think it can’t be taught, I think it’s a good exercise to at least try. It’s one of those things that gets better with practice. 

Writing humor is an exercise in creativity above all else. It’s an exercise in authenticity and it can ultimately be therapeutic. Even the funniest people in the world admit that they aren’t funny all the time. Or when they are being funny, it’s from a dark place. Or when they sit down to try to be funny they just…can’t.

Speaking of funny people, I compiled a short list of some who are known not only for writing humor, but also are considered giants in that area. I refer to their insights on creativity, writing from a personal place, what they think makes writing funny, and the ways they have struggled to just be funny. All that with some self-deprecation thrown in for good measure. You know, to make them seem more relatable.

David Sedaris

I’ve been taking Sedaris’ MasterClass, which is a good place to start when you want to learn how to “write funny.” Sedaris admits that he doesn’t try writing humor, he just journals and notes observations. Then later he relays a story he believes is funny and lets the story do all of the work. He loathes setups and punchlines and believes the humor lies in the bizarre.

He suggests that writing the story isn’t the hardest part. The difficulty is putting himself in “strange” situations where he knows funny things will happen and then letting them play out without intervening.

Sedaris admits to people-watching and eavesdropping to get most of his story ideas, once overhearing a couple speaking French accusing him of being a pickpocket. Famously, Sedaris did not intervene or explain that he was in fact Davis Sedaris and not a pickpocket because he “wanted to see what would happen next.”

David says he uses three main tools when trying to make an audience or reader laugh: quoting funny people, exaggeration, and self-deprecation.  

1. In reference to quoting funny people: “When the people around you are funny, you can bring them into your work.” 
2. When he exaggerates he practices “stretching a scenario into the most ridiculous version you can imagine.”
3. And when you lovingly put yourself down: “Be harder on yourself than you are on anyone else in a story.”

Sedaris also highly recommends not just writing for yourself, but for an audience, and always trying to do something new. He says, “I never wanted to be the kind of writer who reads one thing that works and then drags it around.”

John Cleese (and Conan O’Brien)

If you are unfamiliar with John Cleese, he is best known as one of the founding members of Monty Python. According to Wikipedia: “The Pythons’ influence on comedy has been compared to the Beatles’ influence on music.” There are two ways to look at this kind of humor: it might be out-dated for some, timeless for others. Like all humor, it is a matter of taste.

Either way, Cleese has been writing comedy and about the act of writing comedy for almost five decades, so I thought it only fair to give him some airtime. 

He has very recently published a book about creativity called Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide. He was also interviewed by another comedy great, Conan O’Brien on his podcast Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend. In the interview, O’Brien and Cleese go back and forth on what they think makes for funny writing. 

O’Brien believes a lot of his funny writing comes from the unconscious. “I will hit my head against a wall for hours at a time with a legal pad in front of me…I don’t think I’m getting anywhere. Then I go to sleep and when I wake up I see things more clearly, and I have ideas that didn’t exist before.” He says that is essentially what Cleese’s book is about. 

Cleese says it’s “embarrassing that we are of the same mind.” But that ”when you put pressure on yourself to write something funny, you always go for what’s derivative.” 

O’Brien continues to say that “so much of writing is agonizing, wandering around, and procrastinating…making an excuse to buy a new desk… then suddenly the ideas come to you.” He also admits that much of his early writing was an imitation of Monty Python’s style, and that he thinks any good writer of comedy started out by copying someone else.

Both Cleese and O’Brien cite their odd and difficult upbringings for the reason they are so good at comedy.

Ultimately, they both agree that they too have a penchant for the bizarre, and when they let themselves improvise and play, the funny stuff comes out.

Samantha Irby

Author of many hilarious collections of essays: We Are Never Meeting in Real Life; Meaty; New Year, Same Trash, including her most recent (and my favorite) Wow, No Thank You. I can’t say enough good things about that book. It takes all of this writing advice and lights it on fire—not to burn it up, but to shoot it into orbit.

Irby knows that writing from personal wounds, including her struggles with childhood demons, body image, Crohn’s disease, degenerative arthritis, and depression, only gives her more material to work with.

In a recent interview with the Rumpus, called Laughing Through Life, she was asked about her journey from aspiring to sought-after humor writer. She also talks a bit about what inspires her humor and prompts her to write:

Rumpus: Humor can heal a lot. When did you first realize that humor could be a way to get through things that felt inexplicable in life?

Irby: I honestly don’t know. I had a terrible childhood and early adulthood but didn’t have money for therapy so I tried to laugh about things rather than crying over them. I’m sure there’s a therapist out there who’d probably say that my making jokes as a coping mechanism rather than unpacking my myriad issues with a licensed and trained professional is a terrible approach to life and is probably part of the reason I remain deeply depressed. But I’ve been good at it so far and now I’m afraid to stop! Don’t follow this tragic example!

You should follow her example. If you’ve been paying attention, this is what humor writers do: turn their pain, confusion, and anguish into humor writing.

Allie Brosh

Author of Hyperbole and a Half, Brosh is quite possibly known more for her comic illustrations of herself than her writing. But the combination of her depiction of the bizarre inner workings of life and her unique self-deprecating humor as a way to deal with her depression is nothing short of astounding.

In an interview with with Terry Gross on NPR, Brosh says this about her writing style:

ALLIE BROSH: I would describe it as stand-up comedy in book form. I feel like my writing style is sort of the result of me subconsciously trying to replicate the feel of stand-up comedy. I was very frustrated when I first started writing that there wasn’t that physicality to it. There was – it was more one-dimensional than stand-up comedy, which you can rely on tone and facial expressions, body posture, and I wanted to find some way to commit that to the page. And drawing fixed all those problems.

TERRY GROSS: Another solution would have been to do stand-up comedy.

BROSH: Yes. Unfortunately, stand-up comedy is live, and my thoughts tend to come out rapidly and partially deformed. So I don’t know if I lend myself very well to stand-up comedy. I’ve always wanted to try it, though.

GROSS: Would you describe for our listeners who haven’t yet seen your blog or your book how you draw yourself and why you draw yourself that way?

BROSH: All right. So I draw myself with very crude illustrations in a program called Paintbrush. It’s sort of the Macintosh analogue of MSPaint. And I look very funny. I’ve got these buggy eyes, and I have sort of like a tube body and a little, like, triangle ponytail thing on the top of my head, and it’s a strange sort of animal-like creature.

And the reason I draw myself this way is I feel like this absurd, squiggly thing is actually a much more accurate representation of myself than I am. It’s a better tool for communicating my sense of humor and actually getting across what I’m trying to say than, say, you know, being there in the flesh. I feel like it’s – that’s actually one of the reasons why I don’t do stand-up and why I do this instead, because I can use this character to communicate and make it much more accurate and true to what I’m trying to say and true to my tone.

Assignment:
If you struggle to with writing humor, I challenge you to write a bizarre scenario. One that comes from a deep personal place, is self-deprecating, yet feels therapeutic. Even if you only attempt it, you are doing what other humor writers do everyday. Or at least, on the days they feel like writing…

Amy Ayres is the Web Editor & Tech Fairy at DIY MFA. She has five novels in progress and is querying one. When she is not in her office writing about terraformed planets, multiple personalities, and Irish folklore, she is hanging with her awesome tech-savvy hubby, stepson, and RubyCat. Visit amymarieayres.com. You can sign up for her Newsletter where she sends out motivational tips for new writers and her special brand of humor. You can also find her on Twitter and Instagram.

The post Writing Humor When You Don’t Think You’re Funny appeared first on DIY MFA.

All of it has been drawing practice. Which makes you kind of a seasoned doodler.

What is Drawing?

Drawing is making marks, mostly on paper, sometimes in the dirt, on a wall or anywhere that’ll take it. Human beings have been drawing from the start, even before we devised alphabets, which led to words, lines of poetry, eventually prose. Drawing is in human DNA. Even if you aren’t a professional illustrator, you are human and so have it in you to draw, if you feel like it.

This column is mostly about books that have drawings in them, books created by people who draw for a living or at least spend gobs of time drawing. They have mad drawing skills and I love sharing their beautiful work. But from time to time, I like to give everyone else a nudge towards drawing. All the I’m-not-an-artist! types who have every right to draw, but tend to restrict themselves because they believe only artists can draw.

Only artists can draw. A weary old myth to which I say: Poppycock! Anyone can at least draw nothing!

I started the new year (2019), posting about tools you need to get started (see Resolving to Draw More). This follow-up post offers a few exercises to get you doodling (in case you bought drawing equipment in January and have been giving it guilt-stares ever since and here it is June already). 

So, pull that stuff out of the bag and get doodling! 

Draw Nothing

If you don’t know what to draw, draw nothing. Nothing is a doodle to get you started. Try to resist the urge to turn it into something. Who needs the pressure of drawing something? Nothing comes in all shapes and sizes. Nothing can take just a few lines to render. Or your nothing may be dense and dark, a broody kind of nothing.

If you absolutely have to draw something, consider drawing a sphere. In graduate school at Berkeley, I TA’d an introductory design class for professors Chip Sullivan and Joe Slusky. They always had us warm the students up with sphere-drawing. Big spheres on jumbo newsprint, using the whole arm, some shoulder even. The warm-up still works if you make small spheres in your sketchbook. Or, again, you can just draw nothing.

Some Science for Sceptics of Doodling

Drawing nothing is a bit like strolling without purpose, just walking about on an explore, no particular destination in mind. Both are ideal methods for unstopping the brain so ideas can flow. Science supports the benefits of this kind of doodling (and walking for that matter), such as stress reduction, better memory retention and increased creative problem-solving skills. If you have any idle moments over the summer months, or are in a really boring meeting, give doodling prompts a try (see below). (BTW doodlers retain 29% more than non-doodlers, so you’ll remember more from that boring meeting than you would by just sitting and pretending to listen.) 

Three Things to Try While You’re Drawing Nothing

1) Play around with line vocabulary

What is line vocabulary? Just your own collection of line shapes (like phrases) that you develop to help give your drawings your own voice. They can be loose and loopy, light, airy, dark, foreboding, feathered or jaggetty. It helps to play your favorite relaxing music while you play with your line vocabulary, so you don’t start judging your own visual voice. I’ve drawn a few examples to get you started. You can try them all, pick your favorites and cover a page with nothing made from these little line phrases, or start making up your own.

2)  Hatch and Cross-Hatch

Hatching is making a series of parallel lines that fill up space, imply light, make shadows and generally pass the time. When you hatch over hatches, you’re cross-hatching. The more hatch layers you make, the darker the space becomes. I follow Landis Blair on Instagram (@landisblair), because he is a master hatcher. Sometimes he posts those fast videos of him drawing and I just watch him hatch away. It’s very inspiring and relaxing. His drawings are amazing and complex. I don’t have the patience to hatch like a master, but I still practice a little every day, or at least I try. Here are a few of my less masterly hatches.

3) Divide and Conquer

If the blank page feels large and daunting, make a few shapes on it and doodle in those. Doodling in the confined spaces you draw on the page can reduce blank-page-anxiety and recall some old geometry you may have forgotten from high school. When I was much younger, I would spend hours filling whole pages with lines, from edge to edge, all the way around (that groovy doodle up at the top of this post is a slice of a bigger page I covered with lines). 

As a kid, I had lots of time and not much paper. But now that I’m older and have less time left on earth than I’ve already lived, I draw fewer lines, make smaller drawings and often switch over to water colors, to speed things up (Sidenote: color is complex, but so fabulous, more on that in a later post). Doodling with the Grim Reaper looking over my shoulder has encouraged an economy of lines in my work. One of the perks of advancing age. Yay, elder me!

P.S. More fun with drawing coming soon! Books by Hippocampus has a craft book by yours truly on the horizon! It’s a book version of drawing for writers, that’ll be a pocket-sized book of drawing prompts and little tips for getting started as a writer who draws. A kind of vade mecum for doodling writers. I’ll post more info as the project develops on my website. I’ll also be teaching a pre-conference workshop on drawing for writers at HippoCamp 2019, a conference for nonfiction writers (and co-presenting on hybrid form with Lara Lillibridge!) in August. I hope to see you there! In the meantime, keep drawing nothing!

Rebecca Fish Ewan, a poet/cartoonist/writer and founder of Plankton Press, teaches in The Design School at Arizona State University. She grew up in Berkeley, California, and now lives in Arizona with her family. Her cartoon/free verse memoir, By the Forces of Gravity, was published in 2018 through Books by Hippocampus. You can connect with her at rebeccafishewan.com or Instagram @rfishewan.

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