“I just don’t feel motivated to write,” you say struggling with writing discipline . “I want to get my book written and out in the world but I’m just not motivated. I won’t write today.”

Alternatively, what if you don’t feel like writing but you sat down at your computer and reread some pages of your memoir? You might notice a few changes you could make or you might come up with how to extend a scene.

These are two examples of writing with motivation or with discipline.

Which approach will have you write through to the end of your story?

You have felt this tug many times, I’m sure. I certainly have. It’s the feeling of “I don’t want to write today.”

If you are to succeed to write a memoir, this resistance must be countered.

Writing discipline is a big part of memoir success

A big part of being successful at writing is showing up and doing the work. To write when you feel like it and to write when you don’t feel like it.

To succeed at finishing an article, a post or a book, you have to do the writing; you have to exercise writing discipline, some “nose to the grindstone.”

Now the writing process is neither straightforward nor linear, and there are many unexpected twists and turns. This can be discouraging if you let feelings rule the day.

People get it that they need to show up for paid employment as scheduled, but so many writers don’t get “showing up to write” very clearly and insist they need to “feel like it” to write.

“I don’t want to force my writing!” people say.

The fact is that big parts of writing can be called yeomen’s work and the fact is also that not too many people feel like doing “pick and shovel work!”

BTW, rewriting will improve those passages where you didn’t feel like writing. The reader will not likely notice the paragraphs where you felt like writing and those where you did not feel like it.

Turn inspiration on.

Inspiration—closely aligned with motivation—is an on-again-and-off-again experience. What I have found is that my inspiration can be turned on with scheduled regularity. Just as going to the gym at regular times can get you motivated as exercise time approaches, so too writing at fixed times can get the juices flowing.

I’ll admit I’ve “made” myself go to the gym many times, but once I’m there, I get into the routine and forget that earlier I didn’t want to go.

The same is true of writing. Too many writers depend on inspiration rather than writing discipline.

How many writers, would you guess, turn out books regularly if they depend on inspiration before sitting to write?

I don’t think there are many.

One writer said, “I believe strongly in inspiration. It comes at 9 AM every day when I sit down at my computer and begin to write.”

And if “inspiration” somehow doesn’t come? You will have a time set aside anyway to produce your memoir—even if it’s not deathless prose.

Write. You feel like writing, you write; you don’t feel like writing, you write.

Success factor

Many factors will contribute to your success as a memoir writer, and writing discipline over inspiration in writing your memoir is one of them.

No one said it would be easy to do the work of writing a memoir!

“Writing is hard,” you realize again as you look at your production for the day. “Perhaps I’m not cut out for this work of writing a memoir.”

To your dismay, you have been writing in snippets for many days now. In the mornings, when you show up at your computer—later and later it seems, you must face, as does every writer, a demanding master: your daily writing. Why can’t writing be more fun? Why can’t it be—well, to tell the truth—less hard?

Oh, how you wish it were the end of your scheduled writing period for the day! Why did you think you could do this book-writing thing!

“Whom am I kidding thinking I’m a writer?” you bemoan.

Discouragement can halt the work of writing a memoir.

Like many writers, your writing time is perhaps not long. Too soon, you need to move on to the numerous chores that are attendant on keeping a life and a home going. Nevertheless, you feel some urgency to write deathless prose because of the short period available. After all, you have so little time to write that it ought to be good writing, shouldn’t it?

Good writing would be nice, but if that is what you need to persevere, you are likely to quit on many days when you are not producing deathless prose. Every profession has days of pick-and-shovel work that are not that much fun—but they are absolutely necessary.

Perhaps you are in a pick-and-shovel phase that will lay the foundation for bringing your book to another stage?

Not to be daunted, perhaps you choose a document file and find there 200 words you had written, say, several days earlier. Then you think, “OK, today, I will bring this vignette to completion. I’ll turn it into a chapter,” but it seems that you can only write another few hundred words before you feel like moving on to something else—anything else but this dreadful text on the screen before you!

The vein of inspiration has completely dried up.

Even the few hundred words that you have managed to write that day when you summoned your energy to be brave and continue to write seem to be trash. In fact, who would dispute that any junior-high-school kid could do better, for heaven’s sake!

So you think, “I better move on to another document. Let this ‘meretricious melodrama’ incubate for a while longer.”

You are sure your way is not the way “real” writers write.

You open another document. “What do you know!” you tell yourself with pleasure, “this story fragment already has 500 words. I’ll pitch right in with some editing. I’ll get those five hundred words into shape.”

By the time you get to the end of the text, you have been able to add a few hundred new words and, by the time that is done, it has become the end of your allotted writing time and, with great relief, you realize you can honorably move on to the rest of your day.

You still call yourself faithful to your mission to write when someone at the grocery store, someone you have not seen in a while, asks you what you have been doing.

“Why I’ve been writing a book,” you will be able to respond honestly.

If you write, you are a writer.

Why would you think that writers—”real” writers—do things differently? Why would you think they are different for you? No, the fact is, like you, they have to have to show up and do the work of writing a book—otherwise the writing doesn’t get done.

An exercise in mindful reframing to achieve writing discipline

Calculate the number of manuscript pages you have written—not just today but since you began to write this piece. Even snippets add up to many pages if done regularly enough. While it is possible your writing snippets will not be praised as deathless prose, and you do not know how much of it will survive into a finished memoir, it is nonetheless always easier to rewrite and edit than to produce a fresh text.

Be kind to yourself as you do the work of writing a memoir. Plodding along is an aspect of writing everyone must accept. While there are days of exuberant writing when the words appear on the screen as fast as you can type, and when you reread the text, it all sounds great, there are many more days when writing is a matter of showing up and doing the work—plodding along like a workhorse who, step by step, transverses the miles. Over time, even your plodding writing—with some editing—will add up to a manuscript.

Often in rereading the texts, the writer—and the reader—cannot discern which parts were written in exuberance and which parts are the result of careful professional rewriting—and you will, over time, become a professional writer if you work this way.

The end

The end is something you’ll reach if you keep at your work. In time, you’ll produce much text to serve as a basis for your book.

Show up and do the work of writing your book. Don’t wait for inspiration. You’ll be glad you showed up and didn’t depend on inspiration.

Remember: “Inch by inch, it’s a cinch. Yard by yard, it’s hard.”

Action Steps

The following action steps are “best practices” and can be done in any order but they should all be done.

1. Select a regular writing time and make note of it on a daily calendar. Today and every day, honor your commitment  to writing discipline.
2. Journal about what you will gain from writing your memoir. Possible responses include:

• setting the record straight;
• preserving the memory of a way of life that is now gone;
• becoming calmer, happier and more centered as a result of understanding your past.
• Forgiving transgressions—real and imagined.

3. Journal about the obstacles that will prevent you from writing. Possible responses include:

• fitting writing into an already busy schedule,
• lack of writing skills,
• fear of visiting a difficult time and reliving negative feelings,
• doubts about the significance of your memoir to anyone else.

4. Write a strategy plan for how you will address the negative elements in #3. If you need help, a coach can work with you to achieve a breakthrough.

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Write to the End