You write because you love to. But sometimes it seems like a duty, something to slog through rather than enjoy. How do you recapture the joy of writing you once had? I brainstormed this quick list of thirty-one ways that might work for me. What’s on your list?
- Walk, move around, or dance while writing
- Read writing out loud
- Use characters I love, or a sneaky character
- Collect words I think are great
- Collect words I hate
- Use a new format (not a novel, for instance)
- Try to write in a different language, real or fake
- Write about a topic I love talking about
- Write as if it’s a letter to a friend or relative
- Write in a different place
- Research a topic that is absolutely riveting
- Go to a place and people watch and write about what I see
- Scout places for settings
- Find a way to make it feel like channeling (meditate?)
- Make ridiculous lists
- Get goals for characters from news or research
- Use music to write or in writing
- Pattern something after a writer I like
- Let it be poetic and word/emotion driven. Don’t craft it as I write
- Come up with the stupidest ideas, plot, characters imaginable
- Write really, really badly
- Parody something
- Write the craziest, most fanciful world and characters ever
- Go through the dictionary or thesaurus until I find the best random words as a jumping off point (don’t take the first words I come to)
- Riff on a famous quote
- Use tabloid or other headlines as a prompt
- Combine unrelated ideas for a title or plot
- Combine unrelated ideas for a type of book
- Speed write 100 plots, character goals, or conflicts
- Write flash fiction
- Do a mashup
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