3 Ways to Inspire Yourself Out of a Writing Drought - Craft Your Content
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3 Ways to Inspire Yourself Out of a Writing Drought

One essential ingredient for your writing life is knowing how to wake up your writing spirit, which is that subconscious push to write. Writing droughts exist, but there are ways to avoid getting caught in them.

Writing can be fun with its expressive nature and can also be challenging through the fight to string words together to reach a sensible point. However, it can feel burdensome when you reach a dead end or fail to get inspired to write.

There are times when ideas may be rushing in, and you may find yourself scribbling like you never have. At other times, however, you may encounter writer’s block, and, man, it can make a happy writer feel dejected quickly.

Too many rejections, too, can cause you to lose your spirit to write, and consequently you may lose interest in writing. So, you need to find ways to awaken that spirit all the time. Here are three simple tips to help you do that.

Reflect on Your Surroundings

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Look around you and reflect on your surrounding to get a spark of inspiration.

Day in and out, things happen to us or around us. They may be good, bad, or ugly. No matter what happens, you can always explore them to trigger your writing spirit.

While walking on my street, I saw a goat resting on the ground, which is a common scenario in many parts of Nigeria. This common occurrence furnished me with a lot to write about.

This resting goat made me think of the simple things in life. The goat didn’t seem to be worrying about whatever was happening, and that made me think of the art of meditation. Couldn’t the goat be meditating?

This triggered an urge to write about the need to simplify life and not allow the events of life to weigh me down. Writers can generally apply this idea to the way they craft their works. It can be explored to crafting a piece by outlining it and writing it in a gradual way till it reaches its end.

Such is the power of reflection and meditation. When a success occurs, think about how you got to achieve this. Recall all you went through, the sequence of events, and the impact people had on you.

As a writer, you can always find a story from this. Such is how reflections trigger the writing spirit. Reflect on them, and benefit your readers through them. Moreover, reflecting may give you ideas for your blog. Crossing hurdles or getting your first payment for an article are happy events that can turn into blog posts.

Likewise, when sad events occur, think about how fragile life is. Reflect on how short the little time we have on earth is or on the need to simplify things because what will happen will happen.

The next time you go on a long drive, don’t just look at the mountains and rocks out your window for nothing. Find inspiration in them. Relive those scenes after your journey. For example, you may see the ups and downs and then visualize life as full of ups and downs.

When you meet different people on your journey, study their characters, and see how you can use them in your next book. Make your writing spirit hop up with all those events around you; do not waste them.

You might meet people who will easily form a chatting bond with you. Find out how this bond is established, and think of how you can create the same bond with your readers in one of your introduction paragraphs. This is also a good way to explore the value of good or bad relationships and write about them.

Pin Down Your Thoughts

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Gather your thoughts on paper and don’t just trust your memory.

Don’t only reflect on situations, but solidify them by pinning down whatever you’ve reflected upon. You know humans can easily forget. With various thoughts of this and that, those reflections you garnered might just disappear.

Likewise, the things you’ve written down, be they quotes, observations, or pieces of advice, can add up to become a full-length book in the future. Writing things down will jolt you to remember those things.

This is similar to keeping a journal in which those happenings might culminate to become an autobiography. This will also help you use your experiences to help others, and that is also good for your blog.

Pinning down your experiences or ideas is as important as reflecting on them. So, try as much as possible to write down whatever ideas or reflections come to your mind. It’s nice to always take along with you a sheet of paper or even a notebook. Whenever you jot things on a sheet of paper, however, make sure you rewrite them in a larger notebook just in case you misplace the sheet.

You can save webpages and articles electronically. One app I enjoy using for this is Pocket, which is available across all devices.

Also, pin down new grammar rules or writing tips. Do not overtrust your memory, friend. You’re human and liable to forget things.

Read Books for Inspiration

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Pick up books in wide ranging topics and look for inspiration in the people and places you’ve read about.

Reading is an interesting way to get your writing spirit ablaze. On one hand, it takes you to places you’ve never been. The more you read, the more continents you visit. Importantly, you will be inspired by things and places, and this inspiration will jolt your writing spirit.

Also, reading will inspire you to want to produce something similar. This can be a good motivator for you to start something yourself.

One book that inspired my writing spirit was the Harry Potter series. J. K. Rowling’s portrayal of love inspires me to want to achieve the same thing for my readers. I have started working on a book that I hope will convey a message to Nigerians on the need to count all courses as being important.

Another way to benefit from a book is to see how accomplished writers craft their works. From this angle, you’ll know how to develop your story or organize your blog posts. You may even read a book about the craft of writing, and in addition to learning new things, it may inspire you to produce something of a similar nature.

The variety of books is vast, so read voraciously and you’ll find your writing spirit aglow.

Take Up the Baton

The inspiration to write might sometimes be out of your control. To be successful as a writer, however, you need some tricks to whip your writing spirit to life.

The three tips of reflecting on your surroundings, pinning down your thoughts, and reading books will go a long way to preserve your writing spirit. So, go on and explore them.

About the Author Bashir Oyetunji

Bashir Oyetunji is a writer who loves to tell stories and share experiences for the mind and soul. He specializes in crafting content for various needs among other things. Some of his inks are splashed on his website, Grow With Words. He can also be reached on his Twitter.

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