What are your tricks for getting in the mood to write?

[Luv4hotwives]

I’m new to writing stories and I actually really love it. Sometimes I can just start writing and keep writing, I don’t even want to stop. There are also times when I might want to write and I even have ideas in my head I want to write, but I just can’t bring myself to start writing. Maybe anxiety I don’t know. Does that ever happen to you? If so what are your tricks to get over that hump?

 

[SamScribble]

I only write when I am in the mood to write. And I make sure that I am in the mood to write each and every morning at 8am, sometimes a little before.

 

[SisterJezabel]

I usually find when I need to write a few thousand word paper for uni I get in the mood really quickly! Otherwise most of my stuff comes to me at night

https://jeanfischer.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/10404852_812370478815972_4276711888531021475_n.jpg?w=451&h=349&zoom=2

 

[KeithD]

If I haven't been compelled to sit at the computer and start keying, I'll sneak up on it by going through all of my daily Internet checks and play a couple or eight rounds of computer solitaire before buckling down and writing.

 

[HeyAll]

Keep thinking throughout the day until you find the right idea. Something that really excites you and immediately gets your creative energy flowing.

That is the key to always wanting to write.

 

[mfan2112]

A Jack and Coke and some jazz help a lot to relax after a busy day at work and dinner with the fam. But if I start to read other's work, that shoots my own creativity.

 

[Jada59]

No tricks. I'm either in the mood or I'm not. Right now? I'm not.

 

[RetroFan]

I write a lot of stories set in the past, so often listen to music from that particular era. For example I'm writing an Incest/Taboo story about two cousins set in the mid 1950s at the moment, so I'm listening to Bill Haley & the Comets, The Four Aces, The Platters, The Penguins, Perry Como, Patti Paige and the like.

Other times I'll listen to stories that set the mood for the story, for example I wrote a story called 'Grumpy Humphrey's Easy Wife' about a cheating wife in the early 1960s and would frequently listen to the song 'The Cheater' by Bob Kuban and the Inmen when working on it.

 

[Beneaththesurface]

I would say you can't make yourself get into the mood. For me if I try to hard I just sit blank. When I do get a thought or idea I just put it down without worrying much about grammar or sentence structure. Once I get started things usually start to flow and I will later go back and correct and refine. I guess hats why they call it a draft. Good luck.

 

[Omenainen]

No tricks. I'm either in the mood or I'm not. Right now? I'm not.

This, exactly. I can't be forced to do anything, even things I really need to do, and writing smut isn't even mandatory.

 

[SimonDoom]

It's more a matter of discipline than mood, for me. If I make myself open a story and write I can write. I don't get writer's block. But I get easily distracted with other things. I don't make any money from this so there's no reason for me to force myself to do it.

 

[SyleusSnow]

Professional writers say to establish discipline and habits and not rely on mood.

Good thing I'm strictly amateur... I rely on my muse for motivation. Through the last time she motivated me I ended up writing moose porn

The times I absolutely must sit and finish something, I find doing a few minutes of free writing helps to get things going. Five minutes of spewing train of thought random garbage seems to really prime the pump.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I can't be forced to do anything, even things I really need to do, and writing smut isn't even mandatory.

Bingo. This is a hobby for me and my on-again, off-again writing is at most a minor frustration. If I had a contract or my mortgage depended on it, it would be a different thing entirely.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I’m new to writing stories and I actually really love it. Sometimes I can just start writing and keep writing, I don’t even want to stop. There are also times when I might want to write and I even have ideas in my head I want to write, but I just can’t bring myself to start writing. Maybe anxiety I don’t know. Does that ever happen to you? If so what are your tricks to get over that hump?

Put fingers on keyboard and type a sentence. Any sentence. As soon as I start typing, brain engages and words come out. Infallible for me

 

[ChuckWolf]

For erotic stories, I find it helpful to be horny while writing them.

 

[SamScribble]

Professional writers say to establish discipline and habits and not rely on mood.

Shortly before nine o'clock, on a morning almost 60 years ago, I sat down at a fourth-hand typewriter and told myself that if I didn't write today I probably wouldn't eat tomorrow. Ten years later, I found that I didn't even need to remind myself why I was doing it.

 

[Voboy]

This isn't business. It's pleasure.

So I just wait until the mood strikes.

 

[Athalia]

For me, it usually begins with a nice warm bath. That's where the germ of the story begins. It's developed in a nice warm bed, on the ragged boundary of sleep. Finally, I make a nice warm cup of tea and sit at my desk by a nice warm heater, and let the story flow into my nice warm computer. If the re-reading makes me nice and warm, too, I know I might have a good story.

 

[WinsomeWeb]

As someone who deals with a lot of anxiety over stupid things, learning how to do rewrites really made me more comfortable with writing. I would get so obsessed about making everything perfect on the first attempt that I would freeze up and not be able to start anything.

Adopting an iterative approach really took the anxiety out of what should be just a fun, laidback hobby. Now, instead of toiling over five hundred good words in an afternoon, I can write a few thousand bad ones in the same amount of time. The quality is lesser, but after a few attempts at the same passage, I work through a lot of the problems I'm having and it comes out the better for it. Then I can go in and tighten the language and make it even better.

There's something to be said for precision and intention in art, and being precious about what you put on the page leads to better art no matter the medium, but for me, that also came with a lot of anxiety in trying not to fuck it up. Realizing words are cheap and taking a few attempts at doing something right really helped me loosen up.

I would make for a terrible carpenter, but at least writing is fun again.

 

[jehoram]

For me, it usually begins with a nice warm bath. That's where the germ of the story begins. It's developed in a nice warm bed, on the ragged boundary of sleep. Finally, I make a nice warm cup of tea and sit at my desk by a nice warm heater, and let the story flow into my nice warm computer. If the re-reading makes me nice and warm, too, I know I might have a good story.

I expect you're keeping your nice warm fingers busy as well.

 

[PoisonPen33]

I have a goal - write one sentence a day.

One sentence leads to another, which leads to a paragraph, which leads to a page.

But always one sentence.

 

[JamesMiehoff]

If I had a contract or my mortgage depended on it, it would be a different thing entirely.

I suspect this is the problem with George RR Martin. His mortgage probably doesn't rely on his writing anymore.

James

 

[TxRad]

After XX number of years and XXX number of stories and XX number of books, just rereading a Word page or so of a half finished story jump starts the brain in writing mode.

Coming to Lit gets my ass in the chair so I can read that page or so.

Now you know all my secrets.

 

[Rustyoznail]

I have a goal - write one sentence a day.

One sentence leads to another, which leads to a paragraph, which leads to a page.

But always one sentence.

Sounds like a plan. Sometimes it takes me a day to write a sentence.

 

[QuillPig]

Sounds like a plan. Sometimes it takes me a day to write a sentence.

Lately I've been writing negative sentences. Pounding the delete button, clearing rubble.

Someday I'll fill in that space with something better.