ANDRE BEGIN

Have you ever woken up thinking you weren’t in the mood for writing? Who hasn’t?

Back when I worked for the public sector, I remember days when a deadline was looming and having to dig as deeply as I could to pull a rabbit out of a hat and produce my best-written work on time. Now, as a freelance writer, I have more flexibility in how I structure my writing sessions than I did back then, but there are still some days when it can be a challenge.

Throughout the journey, I did pick up some life lessons that I was able to apply to help get the ideas flowing again.

Working with the mindset, not against it

When I don’t feel like writing, it’s not that I can’t, it’s just that I might not be in the right frame of mind for a specific writing activity.

By taking a moment to stop and take notice of what my energy is like in that moment, I can adapt and work with that mindset, to leverage its benefits. For example, rather than working on new content, maybe I should be in editing mode instead. Then, once I get over the initial feeling of not being in the mood for writing, it doesn’t take long for momentum to return and for me to be back to my “normal” mindset, ready to pick up the torch and run with any writing task.

When I can’t seem to focus

On a day when I might have a hard time focusing, I find that those are the best days to become a one-person brainstorming session. When my mind feels a little scattered, this is a great opportunity to just buckle up, unleash the verbal diarrhea of ideas and to do my best to keep up in capturing them all.

Whether it’s collecting ideas to ratchet up the humour in a given piece or to generate alternate ideas when a character, storyline or train of thought is stalling, I can use this time to scribble and doodle anything and everything that comes to mind without judgement. The object is to just let the ideas flow.

After my brainstorming, the “all over the place” feeling seems to subside, leaving behind the satisfaction of having been able to harness it for a value-added, creative purpose.

When the complaint department is alive and well

On a day that my mind might be stuck in rumination mode over a situation and the critical switch is set to high, to me that is the best time to use that energy to take a work-in-progress and to mercilessly edit. The page may be dripping with red ink by the time I am done, but this is the perfect mood to channel any judgmental energy and to shift the focus of constructive criticism to my own work.

Imposter Syndrome day

On days when I might think that every work-in-progress is crap, to me the answer is to grab an idea from the running list I keep on my mobile device and to start developing a new story. For me, it shuts down the Imposter Syndrome voice and replaces it with something I can do easily, whether outlining or building a new story from the ground up, which builds up my confidence as well.

On a day when my mind is at a standstill

Ironically, to me this is the best headspace to be in and to which I go to great lengths to set the conditions to reach a sense of relaxation, calm and stillness. However, it is easy to misread this mood as one when nothing is happening which can lead to discouragement.

When ideas don’t seem to percolate as well as they usually do, I know that this may not be the best day for the generation of new material. It might turn into trying to get blood from a stone. But frankly, this is the mood I seek on most days for the calm and clarity to fine-tune existing work.

When that happens, I choose a work-in-progress and I review key passages, seeking opportunities to expand on a thought and to go deeper. Did I explore and express the full cognitive spectrum of this idea? Did I break down the idea into the layers of complexity of our tangled human emotions? If not, that is when I let my heart take over the keyboard in reiterating those same passages, layering on more of the complexity of what it means to be human.

Lesson Learned

When I wake up in the morning thinking, “I got nuthin’” I know that’s not true. Beneath the surface there is always untapped potential. It’s just a question of matching the writing activity to the headspace I am feeling in that moment, and adapting my routine to make best use of that time to produce my best work.

After pivoting to a productive writing activity that is compatible with the mindset I am experiencing, I often return to the original work-in-progress with a fresh pair of eyes.

Once the creative juices are restored and flowing again, it’s time to get down to business and to pick up where we left off with our masterpiece.

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Sincere thanks for reading!
Have a great day,
André