“Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No excuses.”

Writing is great. Whether you’re writing multiple times a week on your own personal blog or if you’ve got a new novel in the works, getting your ideas onto paper can be one of the greatest feelings in the world. It gives you a sense of release, enjoyment and a huge burst of creativity. Let’s be honest; if writing is your passion, you’ll do anything to make it happen.

However, writing is not all plain sailing. It’s not so easy getting up in the morning and feeling full of inspiration. It can sometimes be difficult to get in the zone. You get that feeling where you want to write, but your imagination can’t think up any new ideas. So, instead of writing 10 blogs posts in a day or reaching your ideal word count, you end up gormlessly staring at your screen, fingers burning to get things typed…without anything actually happening. Hands up – who can relate?

“Erm, something’s come up.”

Yeah, we’re all busy. It can be very difficult to find a couple of hours to just sit and focus solely on your writing. With full time jobs tiring you out throughout the day and the whole Spyro The Dragon series to get through before the remasters are released in September (…surely I’m not the only one?!) time is very limited! Okay, I don’t necessarily have to play Spyro, I was more thinking of the fact that you need to make time for yourself too. Working yourself too hard will only push creativity further and further away. I feel that finding the time to write is sometimes difficult, and when you do find time, you have to feel creative too! Nightmare.

Work, brain, work!

Right, so you’ve found the time to press some keys. You boot up your laptop and …oh. What do I write about? This is such a common problem. I wrote another blog post a while back about writer’s block and now to combat it, the one thing that all us writers dread the most. This can be hard to overcome and even those best selling authors suffer too.  One of the worst things you can do is force it I’ve found, and you end up writing something that’s not up to your usual standard. The last thing you need is to think you’ve lost all your writing ability.

Oh look, a squirrel…

Yep, distractions. Whether it’s Facebook, online shopping, dogs (well, dogs are the best kind of distraction) or whatever else, distractions keep you from doing what you need to do. When you live with other people, it can be so difficult to get a little peace and quiet where you can get into that writing zone. Signing out of all social media, leaving the shopping for a while and restricting yourself from chatting may be difficult for some, but let’s face it – it’s the only way any work is getting done ’round here!

Hey, I wrote something! …Hello?

Getting noticed is difficult. Getting people to notice and comment on your writing ability is even more difficult. Making a name for yourself is even more difficult still! Everyone starts from the bottom. I gradually built up my reader base by promoting and sharing my work on Twitter (follow me if you want to see more of my writing progress!) It takes a lot of hard work and a passion for what you do, but if you don’t get any likes, retweets or comments on the things you post, don’t give up. It’s a long road, but worth it when you find out you’ve helped just one person in their journey! You’ll get there, promise 🙂

No, don’t read that…it’s rubbish.

Surprisingly, people want to write, but then battle with themselves to keep it a secret. I was guilty of this for so long; I began to write a story and blog and refused to share it with anyone in fear of what they might say. You should always share your content, for a number of reasons. Number one, it’ll build your confidence. Number two, you’ll get some great constructive feedback. Number three…well someone’s going to read it one day! Having confidence in your work is so important and I know how hard it is to finally feel comfortable in your abilities. If you’re still worried, send your work to me! If you need a book review to boost some interest in your novel or if you want a second opinion on your blog, I’m your gal.

“I give up.”

It’s one thing to keep your work a secret, but to give up completely? That’s not on the agenda, folks! Giving up means you have no passion left. Giving up means you’ve become lazy. (No, it’s true.) Honestly, if you want something enough, it’ll happen. You need to be patient and you need to realise that things don’t just happen overnight. Do you really think all the best selling authors wrote their novels in a week, grabbed a publisher by day 8 and had it on book store shelves by the end of the month? I don’t think so.

But…

Taking a break from writing for a while can be a good move, but people still argue that writing ANYTHING is better than writing nothing it all. I really think this varies from person to person. On the one hand, you could write something minuscule that does indeed help your brain work and kick starts your creativity. On the other, you can feel really deflated so every time you go to write, you associate that feeling with writing, making you want to do it less. Something that is really not what we want! Again, everyone is different, but my advice would be if you really don’t feel like writing, don’t force it! You don’t want to despise doing it or see it as a chore.

What difficulties do you face while writing and how have you learnt to overcome them? 🙂