Writing When You Don’t Feel Like It

Did your pulse quicken when you read that title? Did you break out in a sweat? Did you avoid making eye contact with it? 

*grins* 

I don’t know what kind of person you are, reading this. I may know your name, what you like, what you don’t (not to be creepy). But I don’t have a deep friendship with you. I don’t know you as well as others. 

But I’m going to go out on a limb here and hold you accountable. 

Do you ever not do something because you don’t feel like it? 

Don’t shake your head at me. Don’t roll your eyes. Are you tempted to close the laptop, cap the pen, give up on finding the writing vibes? Do you tell yourself: I should go write. and then don’t? Because oh, I don’t feel like it right now. 

One thing needs to be cleared up. Writing is considered an art. It takes creativity to sit down with a blank sheet of paper, and fill it with things so life-like it captivates whoever reads it. Creativity-burn-out is the consequence of working yourself too hard. But turn that on its head. Lack-of-creativity is a consequence of laziness. 

Everyone’s been lazy one day or another. No one is perfect. No one can attain perfection. Not on this earth. You will stumble and fall because you are human. But this does not mean you cannot try. It means that when you fall, you can pick yourself up quicker, because you know everyone else falls too. 

When you fall down, don’t lay in the dust. You’ve been lazy? Get up! So much talent is wasted these days because people are too lazy to work hard and dedicate themselves to something worth living for. 

Let me go a step further. Are you serious? Do you want to kill procrastination? Do you want to become efficient? Stay true to priority? 

Turn the television off. 

I’m serious. No, this isn’t about the television. It’s your need to be entertained. Wean yourself off entertainment, and you’ll find you have better things to do with your time. More productive things. 

And next time you watch a movie, you’ll find you enjoy it more. You’re engaged. You learn something. You pay attention to details. The same goes for other forms of entertainment. 

Don’t binge watch, not when you have a world to explore, ideas to pour onto the page, lives to touch. Comparing the God-driven work you’re so passionate for to the thing that entertains you will open your eyes to just how much time we waste doing things that make us happy simply because it makes us happy; and we don’t feel like working hard. 

My mother used to tell me that, in life, there were some things I wasn’t going to enjoy doing that I would have to do. When I asked her why I would do things I didn’t like, she said something that hit very close to home: “What if one day I decided I didn’t feel like making you dinner?” 

Don’t only do things that make you feel good and ignore the rest. 

Serious writers need to write. And productive people turn off the entertainment.

They don’t wait. They don’t sit back. 

Productive writers write. 

At the end of the day, which is better? What you wrote? Or the hours you spent sitting, absorbing entertainment into your tired brain?  

This generation needs to hear that hard work and discipline is not an old people thing.   

Harsh? Yes. Needed? You tell me. 

And with that, I wish you the best. 

-Louise