It's Motivation Week!

A blank page can be a heavy thing, especially if you’re as uninspired as a Mills and Boon novel. The sheer nothingness of it will stare you down until you hit that “X”. Maybe today isn’t the right day to write, so you might as well not bother. A blank page has a way of instilling fear, but where does that feeling come from?

Self-doubt has a lot to do with it. You can never be quite sure you’ll come up with worthwhile words until you’re halfway through. An unwritten first line is fraught with self-doubt, but where does that feeling come from?

Self-judgement.

Self-judgement has a message that’s remarkably common among writers. It says, “I’m not a real writer. One day I will be exposed as a fraud. I’m really just faking it. What if I end up writing mediocre work? What if people judge me for it? Besides, I’ll never write another brilliant piece again, and who’s to say I’ve ever written anything worthwhile? Surely it’s too late in my life to be learning a new skill anyway?”

This is often called imposter syndrome—the sensation of being the only fraud in your niche. Every writer suffers from it, which tells you how seriously to take it. (Hint: The answer is, “Not at all. Not ever.”

Literary greatness happens to people who have rid themselves of self-judgement. The best writing comes from a free spirit who just doesn’t give a fuck what other people think. These are people who play; who leap over their own boundaries with absolute relish. Like puppy dogs, they wriggle and jump all over that white page as though this is just a game.

Yup. You can’t be serious unless you’re capable of occasionally treating writing as a game. Creativity is born of people at play. You cannot let your blank page convince you this process is anything less than relish. Writing is supposed to be fun. If it’s not fun, maybe you’re doing it wrong.

This week we're speaking about how to get your motivation back. It's January, after all.

Exercise

Today we’re not doing a writing exercise. Instead, I’d like you to post lists of your own reasons for self-doubt and self-judgement as a writer. You can post them in this thread since this is not for critique. You can't break a wall down until you've seen the wall. This is the same: You can't confront your self-judgement until you identify it.