The Motivating Factor: Tips and Tricks to Motivate & Inspire Your Writing

New Year’s resolution: Get back to writing every day and finish some of those pieces that have been languishing in the proverbial desk drawer. It’s time to bring back that writing mojo. 

You’ve hit a wall, you say? Well, let’s bust right through that wall, shall we?

Writing isn’t just an activity for us; it’s a core part of who we are. Can you write for fun? Absolutely. But I have a feeling that writing is more than that for you, much the same way playing guitar for Keith Richards isn’t just about doodling around on the weekends.

That’s why when we get that block, it’s beyond frustrating. Everything comes to a grinding halt. It’s like running in quicksand.

I’m a sports fan: baseball in particular. So when one of my favorite players goes into a slump, it can be excruciating to watch. For the player himself, it’s oh so much more agonizing. Every player goes into a slump at some point, and every player eventually comes out of that slump. When they do, they typically go on an exhilarating rampage that leaves the opponent quaking in their boots.

For 2022, let’s get our writing on an exhilarating rampage. The kind that leaves readers salivating for more.

In this piece, I’m going to share five ways I jump-start my motivation and inspiration for writing. If you’d like, go ahead and play Start Me Up by The Rolling Stones while you do it.

Let’s get started.

From Screen to Pen: Finding Writing Inspiration From Movies

I’ve always loved movies. Growing up my world was largely shaped by movies, as from an early age going to the cinema was a way of life for me. The locations, characters, and events of all the movies I watched informed me about the world at large.

But while studying filmmaking in college and working on various projects, there was something else happening in the background that I didn’t really notice at the time. I was learning to write. That is to say, I was becoming consciously aware of writing as an external process to filmmaking, yet also interwoven.

The work I was doing on films was enhancing the thinking I had about writing. I was learning to write in new ways that were wholly surprising and inspiring to me.

The narrative, or as it’s often referred to in a film script, the hero’s journey (encompassing the personal story of the protagonist and their thoughts, feelings, motivations, and fears) was no longer hidden to me.

Perhaps subconsciously seeping into my mind, this hero’s journey along with the dialogue, the poetry in visuals (which began on paper), and the overall pacing and flow of the story, were all rising up and giving me new ambition to explore their worlds.

I was becoming acutely aware of how storytelling was being used in movies. This led me to the awkward, late-stage epiphany that no storyline just magically appears out of nowhere in a medium. Any idea must first be written. 

In this post, I share with you some of my personal experiences in filmmaking and writing to offer you a different approach to writing, one that challenges you to open your mind to a more visual way of storytelling: by finding inspiration through movies.