Writing Tips For The Struggling Writer

Do you sometimes struggle as a writer?

I sure do.

When I can’t seem to motivate myself to plunge into the pool of creative creation, I ponder the obstacles obstructing my way.
I take those ponderings and mold them into writing tips I tell myself so that I can actually use them to construct something someone can actually read.
Otherwise, they float around in my head and eventually grow tired and die.

Hope reflection on writing  helps some fellow writers jump-start their writer’s block.

I was pondering this essay as I was helping out with the ecumenical church ministry Church Beyond the Walls in Burnside Park in downtown Providence. They feed the less forninite with the Word of God and then actual food and give out clothing. It’s a good group of people that has been doing this non-stop for close to a decade and is led by a Lutheran female pastor who works at a Catholic college and we meet in an Episcopal church.

At the moment I’m starting my first drafts of this essay I feel like sleeping. I don’t want to be awake. But I am restless and can’t force myself to shut down. So I might as well write these ideas that has been brewing and simmering all day in my head.

If I don’t write it all down I may forget the great suggestions I have formed and I will then have to try and rethink them all and start the process of pondering once again, perhaps never remembering the great points I conjured up on the first go through.

My litany of ideas starts off with this very simple question.

When is the best time to write?

Right Now is the perfect time to write.

And if not now, when?
Ethics of the Fathers –Avot 1:14 Hillel the Elder

Don’t wait for the perfect mood, inspiration or write feeling to hit you.

Write Right Now.

“Decide what you want to do. Then decide to do it. Then do it.”
― William Knowlton Zinsser, On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

If you wait for all the pieces to align correctly and perfectly you’ll just continue to wait and never produce that piece you want to write.
Don’t continue to wait for the taxi of inspiration to stop in front of you.
Sometimes you have to make it stop in front of you.

You should…

Write when you feel like it.
Write when you don’t feel like it.

Sometimes when you start rolling down the hill of writing the gravity of the project will pull you along.

Whenever you decide that now is the time,
whenever you want to begin the journey
you should try and push through and actually start.
Starting with one sentence is a start somewhere.
Follow through.

This is the time to remember
‘Cause it will not last forever
These are the days to hold on to
‘Cause we won’t, although we’ll want to
This is the time
But time is gonna change
-This is the Time: Billy Joel

If you crash project into a wall, you can STOP
and START again.
But keep on going.

Ain’t nothin’ gonna to break my stride
Nobody gonna slow me down, oh no
I got to keep on moving
Ain’t nothin’ gonna break my stride
I’m running and I won’t touch ground
Oh no, I got to keep on moving
– Break My Stride: Billy Wilder

Do nothing and nothing will result.
Give up and nothing will result.

“Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

Now that we have established that you shouldn’t wait for the perfect storm of ideas to shower over you, there is something you need before you can actually put pen to paper or keyboard to screen.

The One thing you need before you can write is an idea.

Where do you get ideas?

Anywhere and Everywhere.

Film producer John Sacchi believes a good story idea or concept can come from anyone and anywhere. He calls himself “an equal opportunist”, and knows that this philosophy has served him well. There can be missed opportunities if you don’t listen to everyone around you in both your professional and personal lives. Listening and hearing the voices of others can open many doors and help facilitate long term success, as it has for him. – Listen Up! Good Story Ideas Can Come from Anywhere – video – Brainstorming – I have an Idea! – Author Learning Center

From Nowhere

Let’s get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up. –Stephen King

From Others

“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface
what they take, and good poets make it into something better,
or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft
into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from
that from which it was torn.” -T. S. Eliot

From Experience

“A real writer (or artist or entrepreneur) has something to give. She has lived enough and suffered enough and thought deeply enough about her experience to be able to process it into something that is of value to others, even if only as entertainment. A fake writer (or artist or entrepreneur) is just trying to draw attention to himself. The word “fake” may be too unkind. Let’s say “young” or “evolving.”
― Steven Pressfield, Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t: Why That Is And What You Can Do About It

I had my recent experience pondering my writing while volunteering at Church Beyond the Walls. I can then work it in to my essay on inspiration for writing.

Remember

“If you copy from one book, that’s plagiarism; if you copy from many books, that’s research.”-Prof. Notestein of the Yale
–Quote Origin: If You Steal From One Author, It’s Plagiarism; If You Steal From Many, It’s Research – Quote Investigator®

Also Remember

Originality is the art of concealing your source.—Franklin P. Jones
Quote Origin: The Secret to Creativity Is Knowing How to Hide Your Sources – Quote Investigator®

Why Do I Put So Many Quotes In This Essay About Writing?

“I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have,
beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.”
– Marlene Dietrich

Why are your tips on writing so long?

I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter. – Blaise Pascal
Quote Origin: If I Had More Time, I Would Have Written a Shorter Letter – Quote Investigator®

If You…

live life and do things you have material to write with. Take writer Jack London for example. His…

experience behind bars persuaded him to leave America. After a spell on a seal-hunting schooner bound for Japan, he found the inspiration he was looking for as writer by joining the Gold Rush of 1897. He spent 11 months in the foreboding wilds of Klondike – a region of the Yukon territory in Canada, near the Alaskan border – among an odd cast of prospectors. “It was in the Klondike that I found myself,” London recalled. “There nobody talks. Everybody thinks. There you get your perspective. I got mine.” Jack London: The reckless, alcoholic adventurer who wrote The Call of the Wild | The Independent | The Independent

London went on to craft his popular book that has been assigned to many a school kid, The Call of the Wild (1903)

Readers of The Call of the Wild (by Jack London) experience the story through Buck, the canine protagonist of the novel. Buck is based on a dog London met while adventuring in the Yukon. This real-life Buck (coincidentally named “Jack”) inspired London. London combined his real-life experiences with Jack-the-dog and his imagination to create his protagonist.  –The Call of the Wild | The Huntington

Experiences are the first and foremost way of gaining material for writing.
So live a life worth writing about.

If you wou’d not be forgotten
As soon as you are dead and rotten,
Either write things worth reading,
or do things worth the writing. -Attributed to Ben Franklin
Quote Origin: Either Write Things Worth Reading or Do Things Worth the Writing – Quote Investigator®

After you live a life worth writing about, which can be ordinary or extraordinary you can make that experience come alive for people who live far away or many miles into the future.  Just like Jack London whose book about Buck the dog can still be read by us today in 2025.

Experiences become the material for books and reading books can give you ideas, information and examples of writing for your writing.

Jack was inspired by reading books and his…

conclusion was that he would have to make his fortune as a “brain merchant”. He’d always had a good imagination and was a voracious reader. As a teenager, he signed up everyone in his family for lending cards at the Oakland Free Library so he could take out multiple books. He was engrossed by the stories of Herman Melville (Moby-Dick), Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), Washington Irving (Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Rip Van Winkle), and Rudyard Kipling (Jungle Book, Captain Courageous). –Jack London: The reckless, alcoholic adventurer who wrote The Call of the Wild | The Independent | The Independent

Experiences and Reading are your two primary sources for gathering information for your ideas to write about.

If you want to write about the Gold Rush you can’t do it unless you find a time machine and go back and experience it like Jack. It’s most likely you won’t experience life in the Yukon but you can read Jack’s books  or other historical books both fiction and non-fiction and learn about it. Reading will help you learn what happened. Reading will let you also know how it was written.

“Can I be blunt on this subject? If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

I say reading as a primary umbrella that can include any gathering of information whether it be a podcast, video, movie, music, a play, a story teller, bard or lecture. These can be both a source of information and an experience.

Ok.  You’ve lived a life worth writing about or you watched, listen to or read something that inspired you to not wait, and start writing.

One night, I was lying in bed and I was very tired, and I was just sort of channel surfing on television. And, I was going through, flipping through images of reality television where there were these young people competing for a million dollars or a bachelor or whatever. And then I was flipping and I was seeing footage from the Iraq War. And these two things began to sort of fuse together in a very unsettling way, and that is when I, really, I think was the moment where I really got the idea for Katniss’s story. – Suzanne Collins Author of The Hunger Games

You’ve worked hard and labored putting sentences together into a coherent narrative. Now that your writing idea is fleshed out and has been typed into your computer and you have published it for the world to see, you can reach out and grab readers with your words that they read themselves or are read to them.

Another big question may arise in wake of this new reality.

What Do You Do If People Don’t Read Your Stuff?

You naturally want others to read what you wrote.
I hope others will read this essay on how to write.
But there is a good chance others may not read what you write.

You have fierce competition from

•  life
• other writers writing better about the same subject then you do,
• other writers that are just more popular than you are,
• the latest Youtube Video,
• the latest intriguing podcast,
• the brand new talked about TV show
• the latest cool thing on  social media
• the latest outrage on social media.

These things will limit your readership.

I’m not and your not the only game in town.

In the real world, no one is waiting to read what you’ve written. Sight unseen, they hate what you’ve written. Why? Because they might have to actually read it. Nobody wants to read anything. Let me repeat that. Nobody- not even your dog or your mother- has the slightest interest in your commercial for Rice Krispies or Delco batteries or Preparation H. Nor does anybody care about your one-act play, your facebook page or your new sesame chicken joint at Canal and Tchoupitoulas. It isn’t that people are mean or cruel. They’re just busy. Nobody wants to read your sh*t.
― Steven Pressfield, Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t: Why That Is And What You Can Do About It

So what do you do if you don’t get a lot of clicks on your blog or buys of your book?

Write anyway.

 “Draw the art you want to see, start the business you want to run, play the music you want to hear, write the books you want to read, build the products you want to use – do the work you want to see done.”
― Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

Perhaps someone will read it and be inspired.

Perhaps you will touch someone with your essay, poem, or story.

Having low numbers can be discouraging.

If your writing for

• fame,
• glory,
• honor,
• the opposite sex
• oodles of cash

this can possibly break you.

If you write because it is

• fun,
• exhilarating,
• exciting,
• and you burn to get your ideas or story out to read

then it shouldn’t matter how many people read it.

Did I write this piece so that other people could click a ‘like’ button? No. I wrote it because I love writing. I wrote it because there is something in my head that I want to get out. And regardless of whether somebody reads my article or not, I am already achieving this goal.
–5 Things To Do When Nobody Cares About Your Writing | by Tim Rettig | Medium

There’s ways to fix this but my thoughts end here on this particular topic.

It can be tough when no one reads your articles, but you can make it better. Look at what you wrote, share it on social media, and connect with others. Keep an eye on how you’re doing, try new things, and don’t give up. If you need help, just ask. With time and effort, more people will start reading your articles and liking what you write. –What to Do When Nobody Reads Your Articles: Easy Steps to Get More Views | by Muhammadsaqib | Medium

Be content with your audience size and learn to live with a lot of readers or few readers. Your self worth comes from being made in the image and likeness of God. When your dead your not going to care how many people read your book or who is reading it now. Although…

G.K. Chesterton: Look there Lewis, another reader is delighted by one of my Fr. Brown Stories.
C.S. Lewis: Oh  Boy, they want to turn Aslan into a female lion in the new TV adaptation.

Bad writers can have lots of people read their stuff and good writers may never be read.
The vast majority of people who have written things never get read.

Your book may be published today and be put in a prominent place in Barnes and Noble.

But it may be found in the used book store, yard sale or donation pile to the library tomorrow.

A 100 years ago Francis Brett Young (June 29, 1884 – 28 March 28, 1954) wrote the book Sea Horses (1925) which nobody remembers today but can still be read. It was made into the Paramount Pictures‘ silent film Sea Horses  It was directed by Allan Dwan and starring Jack Holt, Florence Vidor and William Powell.  It has also been forgotten about because it is now considered a lost film.

But of course you could end up with an enduring classic, where people generations still read or watch the movie version of.

What If I try and Fail. Again.

If you’ve tried before and didn’t succeed, you can give up and move on to something else.
Sometimes we need to move on.
Sometimes we need to dust off the failure and if were really motivated to write,
Try once again to start it up.

Don’t give up.

Whether you’re thinking of starting your first novel, or you have five half-finished manuscripts scattered across your office, you can’t give up. You’re not a failed writer. All of this work, this struggle, this creative suffering serves a powerful purpose: It tells a Story that you and your reader will love.

A shift in expectations must be required. Our “instant gratification” culture conditions us to expect immediate positive feedback, thumbs pointing up, and likes. We see any negativity as an attack, or as proof of our deep, innate shortcomings.

It’s how we learn, grow, and become great at our craft.

So no matter what your goals are this week, or for [next week] commit to persevering through failure and viewing it as an opportunity to strive for greatness.

Feeling Like a Failed Writer? Here’s How to Keep Writing After Failure

I’m sure I could have said more or less in this essay.
For Better or Worce, now it’s time for this to end.

Finally, I have This To Say…

Or Jack London Does, the Jack London who wrote

Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-water dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego. Because men, groping in the Arctic darkness, had found a yellow metal, and because steamship and transportation companies were booming the find, thousands of men were rushing into the Northland. These men wanted dogs, and the dogs they wanted were heavy dogs, with strong muscles by which to toil, and furry coats to protect them from the frost.
–The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Call of the Wild, by Jack London

Also he said this to would be writers (which I have slightly altered)…

I had no one to give me tips, no one’s experience to profit by. So I sat down and wrote in order to get an experience of my own. I wrote everything—short stories, articles, anecdotes, jokes, essays, sonnets, ballads, vilanelles, triolets, songs, light plays in iambic tetrameter, and heavy tragedies in blank verse.

[By doing this I was studying and imitating] the tricks of the writers who have arrived. They have mastered the tools with which you are cutting your fingers. They are doing things, and their work bears the internal evidence of how it is done. Don’t wait for some good Samaritan to tell you, but dig it out for yourself.

Keep a notebook. Travel with it, eat with it, sleep with it. Slap into it every stray thought that flutters up into your brain. Cheap paper is less perishable than gray matter, and lead pencil markings endure longer than memory.

And work. Spell it in capital letters, WORK. WORK all the time. Find out about this earth, this universe ; this force and matter, and the spirit that glimmers up through force and matter from the maggot to Godhead.

Without [this, your writing is] without avail; with it you may cleave to greatness and sit among the giants.

Jack London: The author’s writing advice.