How to Write More – 5 Practical Ways to Start and Keep Writing

If you want to know how to write more, don’t miss these tips. They’ll increase your self-discipline and get you one step closer to being a published writer.

Before the tips, a quip from Elizabeth Gilbert:

“As for discipline – it’s important, but sort of over-rated. The more important virtue for a writer, I believe, is self-forgiveness. Because your writing will always disappoint you. Your laziness will always disappoint you,” says Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love.

Another writing motivation quotation: “After inspiration, the most important gift you can bring to your book writing is discipline. It sets the writer in you free,” say the writers and editors at Book Coach Press.

Discipline and freedom can co-exist – but successful writers need to have more self-discipline than freedom. If you struggle to write, you’ll find 73 Ways to Fire Up (or Just Fire) the Muse helpful. It contains tips from successful freelancers, published authors, journalism professors, and novelists — it’ll give you all the motivation to write you could ever need.

And, here are five tips for writing more and writing better…

5 Ways to Write More

1. Stay hungry. Find what your writing motivation is, and work it, baby. Work it! Me, I write to earn money. My writing goal is to earn a few thousand bucks a month – which I’m actually struggling with this month because all I want to do is blog. But earning money as a freelance writing is my self-discipline. “Stay hungry” is a writing tip that involves finding what keeps you motivated to write, and stay focused on that.

2. Balance self-acceptance with challenging yourself. Every writer needs to learn self-forgiveness. More importantly, every writer needs to find the balance between self-discipline and self-forgiveness. Err on the side of too much self-forgiveness, and you’ll barely meet your writing goals. Err too much on the side of discipline, and you’re a workaholic. The best way to learn how to write more is to find balance.

3. Vary your writing projects. When I’m struggling to write more, I work on one assignment for an hour, then reward myself with a blog post or a visit to a writer’s forum. The more I break up my writing assignments, the easier they are – and the more writing I get done. This tip doesn’t work for every freelancer, because some need to stay focused on one assignment at a time. The trick is to find your own way to increase your writing discipline, and find the freedom in that.

4. Make a plan. Set your writing goals, whether it’s 500 words a day or 3 hours a week. Or, set a writing schedule: every day from 7 – 9 a.m., or after the kids go to bed until 11 p.m.. Once you have your schedule set, then your writing motivation may increase because, perhaps paradoxically, you’re free to be creative, inspired, and productive. It’s the same as sticking to a fitness plan or building a healthy relationship: you need to be committed and focused to be a successful writer.

5. Figure out how discipline sets you free. If you’re disciplined or motivated to write, then you’ll struggle less with inspiration and creativity. That is — if you’re not trying to avoid writing distractions, then you’re free to concentrate on what you really should be doing: writing books, pitching queries, or creating poetry that touches readers’ souls.

For more tips, read 10 Ways for Lazy Writers to Increase Motivation.

Do you have any tips or thoughts on how to write more? Comments welcome below…

Category: Inspiration & Creativity, The Writer's Life, Writing Tips