When Your Muse Goes On Strike, Grab a Club

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”

              Jack London

I love this quote by Jack London because it’s a good reminder for freelancers. If you wait for your muse to show up before you start writing, you just might go broke.

Serious writers—and by serious, I mean those who want to keep enough money rolling in to keep the lights on—have to write whether a jolt of inspiration hits on a daily basis or not. More than anything else, writing is a discipline. And it means that if you’re more than a just hobbyist and you want to make a living at this, you’ve got to do it whether you feel like it or not. It has to become as unquestioningly routine as brushing your teeth—something you do without fail day after day, without giving a second thought to whether you feel like doing it or not.

Now, I would love to tell you that every time I start writing a story, my fingers tingle and my brain is all on fire from the inspiration coursing through my veins. But if I told you that, I’d be lying. And if any professional writer ever tells you that, they are probably lying too.

The fact is this: Some days, writing can be downright painful. It happens to the best of us, so don’t beat yourself up if it happens to you. Sometimes a lack of sleep can dampen your muse. Or maybe you’ve taken 15 pages of notes that you somehow have to condense into a 1,500-word story—and your brain starts shutting down just thinking about it. Or maybe you’ve been reporting on the story for so long that you’re already bored with the subject matter by the time you have to sit down and write the darn thing.

So how do you chase down inspiration when you need it most? Here are a couple of things that help me when my muse decides to go on strike:

1) Commit to 15 minutes. This works for me almost every time. I tell myself I only have to write for 15 minutes at a stretch, and if I feel like quitting after that and doing something else, then I give myself guilt-free permission to do that. This may sound counterintuitive—especially if there’s a tight deadline involved. But it seems to work for me because I give myself an out, and that takes some of the pressure off. Most times, I am so into the story after 15 minutes that I just keep on writing. So that initial 15 minutes usually turns into an hour or more.

2) Take a break. Sometimes your brain simply needs some time off, or a good night’s sleep. Walks can help give you that respite, but so can cleaning the bathroom sink. I’ve found that trying to power through a story without taking a needed rest can drag out the task much longer than necessary. In fact, I ran into this situation a couple of nights ago. When 10 p.m. rolled around, I knew that I was not going to complete my story in a couple hours. So I did the counterintuitive thing and went to bed. But when I woke up the next morning, I was able to knock out the story in about an hour—far less time than it would have taken me had I stubbornly stayed up late to finish the story.

3) Read the stars. If you’re like me, you’ve probably got a handful of favorite writers who inspire your best work. So I find that when I’m low on inspiration and need to cajole my inner muse, simply reading the work of my favorite writers helps remind me of what’s possible and puts me back on track.

So how do you go after your inspiration when your muse seems to be on vacation? Drop me a line—I’d love to hear all about it!

Best,

Jenny