Have you ever been bored by your own writing? Have you ever thought about your book, only to feel dread and a desire to procrastinate? Here’s the first thing to do when you meet this predicament: Don’t panic.
Photo by Kristina Alexanderson (Creative Commons)
This is normal. In fact, it’s expected. Most writers start to hate their book by the time they reach the middle. Usually when you begin writing a book (though not always), you know what’s going to happen at the beginning and what’s going to happen at the end. With the middle, most writers wing it.
This isn’t a bad thing. In fact, this isn’t a good thing, either. It just is. Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to add a little excitement—or at least mild pleasure—back into your writing. Here are three options.
1. Change your font
This is simple, easy, and fun. Anyone would get sick of Times New Roman after 30,000 words. It’s boring, repetitive, and—well, there’s no other word for it—blah.
Change up your font every couple chapters. Try the cutesy Kristen ITC or the romantic Blackadder ITC. Or maybe you can go for something fun, like Jokerman.
There are thousands of fonts out there waiting to be discovered. So go out there and discover them!
2. Make your letters HUGE
This tricks your brain into thinking you’re making triple the amount of progress. If you’re using size twelve, step it up to size eighteen. You’d be surprised at the difference it makes.
(But do not check your word count. That’ll just set you way back. I mean it. Don’t do it!)
3. Write for You
Who did you start writing for at the very beginning? I’ll sure as heck bet that it wasn’t your mom, or your dad, or your little sister, and it definitely wasn’t for that guy in Ohio who’s been commenting on your blog for a while now.
A lot of writers lose sight of what really matters—that writing makes you happy. Why else would you be doing it? If you’re in it for the money, I hate to break it to you, but there are so many better ways to do it.
Don’t write what you think other people will like. Write what you like. And if you’re passionate enough about it, other people will like it, too. I promise.
What are your tricks to busting writing boredom? I’d love to hear them!
PRACTICE
Freewrite for fifteen minutes using one of the tricks above. What trick did you use? Did it help any? If you wish, post your practice in the comments. Be sure to give your fellow writers a little love, too. Have fun!
When I get bored with my writing, I’ll start a new writing project. It could be that I’m getting bored simply because I’m getting too caught up in the mechanics of editing, which drains my batteries. If I move over to write something new and then come back to the original piece a little later, I’m able to read it as a story once again, more importantly a story that I HAVE WRITTEN. Even if I do still need to pay attention to mechanics, my excitement typically has returned by that point.
Ha ha, I do that all the time! 😉 I have a lot of unfinished writing projects sitting on my computer with no more than three chapters.
I have a little book, The Cream of Sentence Sermons, compiled by Keith L Brooks. Bored with what I’m doing, I may flip it open to see what wisdom I can pick up as an inspiration. And so I did for this practice.
Was there some truth I could apply to writing, or have I experienced something like this first-hand myself? Here’s a nice random quote: “A liar is a man who has no partition between his imagination and his information.”
Hmm… Well I’ve noted some people who make their fortune writing the facts, somewhat…plus, plus. One writer comes to mind who passes off his generous imagination for non-fiction. Like what really happened –s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d– big time. I say, “If it’s fiction, admit it.”
Then my mind goes to a woman I knew. Her “facts” fitted with what was best for you to hear to produce the results she desired. For example:
Pat called me late one evening sounding frantic, “I was attacked, my purse was stolen, all my grocery money for the whole month is gone!”
I grabbed some groceries from my own food stuffs, enough to keep her going for a few days, and we drove over – clear across the city, mind you. When we got there she seemed calmer – and there was her purse! She explained; a friend had found it sitting in a commuter train stop (quite a distance from the sidewalk where anyone would normally be walking at that time of night) and brought it back to her.
The thieves had thoughtfully replaced her wallet, so no ID was lost. But the cash was ‘stolen’. So I asked her, “Just how much cash did you have in your wallet?”
“About thirty dollars.”
Now if she’d told us she was broke because she’d gone on a drinking binge, bought drugs, or given it all to a begging friend, we might have scolded her. But this way, we were solicitous and rushed over to help. It was best for all concerned that we hear something more effective, right? She operated that way so long, I doubt she even knew fact from fiction anymore; truth was waht she wanted it to be.
Referring to her ‘flexibility’ I told folks, “Those who know how to milk the cow get the cream.” Pat had learned how to milk the system, how to pull everyone’s strings, say whatever would get her what she needed from whoever she was talking to at the time – churchy people, social workers, drug dealers – and her facts co-operated.
Hey, she could have been a writer!
Great story! 🙂 I have friends who like to stretch the truth. A lot. I often have to raise my eyebrows at them and ask what really happened.
If I’m bored with what I’m writing, I just stop. I think how you’re feeling translates through the page so if I’m bored writing it, chances are you will be bored reading it.
That’s a good point. Sometimes just taking a few minutes to step away is a great way to get back into it. And if all else fails, write anyways and rewrite it later so it’s how you want it. 😉
Empty. It’s nothing new. Every day, I pull myself out of the covers to a brain that’s gone cold. Up until four five nights in a row. Up again at six on the nose. A shower than doesn’t warm. Breakfast that doesn’t taste, while skimming a paper that doesn’t make sense. Then out, into a car. No talk. I prefer watching for the big houses on the side of the road.
Six hours in a room, then back to my own.
It’s the end of the week. I’m up till six, then remember practice at ten. I rest my eyes for a little less than three hours, then pull myself out of bed again. Cold shower. I don’t feel it. The house is still dark, as I like it. Twenty minutes of burnt toast, two sweatshirts and dabbing at the dark circles until they’re gone. My legs are heavy, but my mind’s gone blank. I forget my water.
The music’s low in the vehicle. Anna doesn’t talk. Neither do I.
Fast-forward half an hour. My team is a mix of tight shorts and slurred words. My coach has a shark shirt and another hair cut. He smiles at the others, but when I don’t move for passes his expression evens. At some point he brings me aside, but I’m far more focused on the spike of his hair than anything Nick has to say.
I make us all run. Twice. I don’t go for a ball. Then I serve three straight in the net. Nick yells my name again and again. I am confusion and tired legs, and I miss another. It’s like my head is in water and my limbs are in lead.
From a distance, Nick’s shout. “On the line!” It rings in my bones. Someone pulls me with them and suddenly I’m moving forward. Then we go back. And forward. Turn and do it again. Again. Back and forth with gasps of air and black spots. My legs guide me, but they aren’t mine.
Spots. More spots. More lines. They come in pairs and intermix where my blurry vision meets my blurry mind. Hand on my shoulder. “Kate?” I am not okay. There are faces among the spots, and I they don’t know me. I don’t know them. Kate. Repeated. Kate Kate Kate. Again. Over and over. Like my heartbeat. A throb. One face. Then black.
Then black.
(written for me!)
This was so much fun to read! I love that you added (written for me!) at the end. 😉
I like the change the font your idea Joe. Recently my students were trying out different fonts when they were working on their writing in the computer lab.Just looking at the fancy font-ed titles had my juices flowing. Of course, then I had to go around and fix all the structural errors–kids will try to indent without using the tab key. Results are disastrous.
I love cool fonts. 🙂 I also like to change the colors of my text. Blues and purples are great colors for me to write with. (Gah, that indent thing just pains me)!
When I get bored with writing fiction I write haiku or another type of Japanese short form poetry, or I work on editing my photos, many which I use for photo/haiga, a form using photography with either a haiku or a tanka. This activity, especially, relaxing me and gets my crreativity going again.
Adelaide, I love this idea. I’ll try this one myself. I guess there’s nothing like the discipline of structuring a haiku or a tanka to get you to think in more unusual, creative ways!
Writing haiku requires no plotting or character development, which always gives me headaches. Haiku is all about observation and is devoid of tension, at least, for me.
Adelaide
I love haikus. 🙂 I usually warm up with writing something shorter, like a poem or blog post. Haikus are a great way to get your creative juices going!
In my opinion, the best antidote for boredom in writing is to read. Understanding how other writers cover topics/issues is the biggest inspiration of them all. Really, if you don’t read, why would you expect anyone else to read what you’ve written?
LOVE this! 🙂 I totally agree with you! I like Stephen King’s rule: If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have time to write.
Great post Kate! I’m going to try the first option right now. 🙂
Joy, the most entertaining alternative font, for me, is my own hand-writing. Writing something down, and then trying to interpret it a few days later, certainly gets my imagination flowing!
I’m reminded of a time I gave my husband a shopping list. Both he, and the sales assistant, were scratching their heads, trying to work out what it was that I’d written. Oh, happy times!
lol! I’m used to writing through typing instead of handwriting. Some say that handwriting promotes creativity. But I can’t imagine myself writing my novel through handwriting and then type the whole draft again!
Glad you liked it! 🙂
Strange. I often do step 1 and 2. But I hadn’t realized that I was doing it out of boredom! Other than that a good Ambient Music–or EPIC such as LOTR soundtrack–also help me get out of boredom.
Music! 🙂 Yes! I often listen to music with lyrics, because I don’t get distracted by it as easily and the words subconsciously inspire me to write my own!
When you do something long enough eventually it becomes as mundane as any other task. That’s why I think it’s important to step back at times to take a break. I agree with Katie Hamer, that reading is one of the best ways for a writer to not only beat boredom but to become better at writing. http://www.andrecruz.net
Taking a break can be great and refreshing, just as long as you don’t take too long of a break. 😉 I often get way more distracted than I should.
Many people use a blackened screen so they are not caught up in the words already written. While this is good if you are in the flow of writing, so you don’t get caught up in the editing process, I find myself just closing my eyes. I can visualize the scenes, notes, outline and push the action forward without being bombarded by the editorial side of writing. I just make sure that my hands are in the right position. It has become automatic for me. The edits stand out more for me as I haven’t visually seen the words until I ‘read them for the first time’. Quite freeing.
Ooh, this is a great idea! 🙂 I definitely need to try this now. Thanks!
When I did Nano 2013 this very thing happened to me and I changed the color of font. That really helped me and pushed me along in my story.
You can take some ordinary occurrence and make it extraordinary, as a way to jumpstart your imagination and remind you of the fun of writing. Two days ago I was trying to find my other glove. While I found it after a long search, during the search I made up stories about what could possibly have happened to my lost glove (and here you can substitute keys, slipper, cup of tea, etc).
This is great. I so rarely see articles with this kind of simplicity and fun as suggestions. I, personally, am a big fan of changing the font when I’m bored.
I know this is an old post, but I felt compelled to comment.
When I get bored with writing the middle chunk of my story, I will sometimes break off to write fun little “alternate universes” of the same story. For example, a universe in which the hero and the villain of the story are best friends. It helps to have a good laugh over some silly scenario your characters will never be in.