What to do when you don’t feel like writing? Writing a memoir is not easy. As I have written so many times—no one has ever promised it would be. Au contraire… Memoir writing can be difficult. Among the biggest of the difficulties is discouragement. How easy is it to write when you don’t feel like […]

Writing a memoir is not easy. As I have written so many times—no one has ever promised it would be. This is especially trying when you don’t feel like writing. Au contraire…

Memoir writing can be difficult. Among the biggest of the difficulties is discouragement. How easy is it to write when you don’t feel like it and are sure you are producing junk words? In case you haven’t guessed (but I’m sure you have been there done that)…

Stay in the memoir conversation even if you don’t feel like writing

It’s not easy to stay in the memoir conversation when you are in a state of discouragement when you don’t feel like writing.

Just recently, I sat down at my computer and opened the document in which I had filed my most recent effort—a memoir of my high school years. That day, I didn’t much feel like writing, but it was my writing time, and as I have also said elsewhere, a professional does not wait for inspiration to get to work. (Does the plumber need to be inspired to do work on your bathroom?). So, I opened my document—I had committed myself to writing at least a half hour which seemed very long that day—and, while I didn’t actually stare at it, I was about as productive as if I had.

I began typing words—I hardly can dignify what I was doing by calling it “writing my memoir.” Instead, I typed some lifeless words, and then I thought, “What am I doing. This is drivel!”

Oh my! but that isn’t encouraging to call the writing one is doing one’s best to do “typing drivel on the page.”

Sticking to a writing schedule even if you don’t feel like writing

Well, I had told myself that I would write for a minimum of a half hour and so I kept my nose to the grindstone—or fingers to the keyboard—until I had put in my requisite time. It wasn’t fun—but did anyone say it would be fun. (I wish somebody had found a way to always make it fun!)

My half hour did not produce deathless prose, but I did remain in the memoir conversation, as I have called it so many times, in the memoir conversation—and of that I am pleased. Perhaps today, I will write both more enjoyably and well, but for that day, what I did was what I could do. Perhaps when I review the section I wrote, I will find that it is not so bad after all and my feeling about it was just a reflection of how I was at the moment, about other things in my life or perhaps I will evaluate it as drivel that clearly needs to be rewritten. But I have often felt that rewriting is where the real writing occurs so I am again ahead of the game.

It all adds up.

One thing I know is, if I don’t keep writing, if I give up when I don’t feel like writing, my memoir will never gets done. Inch by inch, it’ a cinch; yard by yard, it’s hard.

Even if my prose proves to be drivel, maintaining my writing practice on an “off’ day leads to success.

I’d appreciate hearing about your own writing experience when you don’t feel like writing. Please leave a comment.