The Secret to Unstoppable Writing Momentum

Writers tend to be very susceptible to the double-edged sword of New Year’s. On one hand, you have all this renewed energy and determination to really get it done this time. You have been thinking about it for so long. You’re going to set your word goals for each week high because you just know you’ve got this amazing story and truth to share. We imagine how great it’s going to feel to hold our book in our hands. It’s intoxicating. But then the third week of January comes. Already that writing tally feels like it might be too big of an ask and the celebration at the finish line just too far away. How do you keep up that writing momentum and energy through to “The End”?

Was finally writing that memoir your New Year’s Resolution, but you’re not sure where to start or how to measure your progress?  We have a great free tool for you here. Download our free checklist to give a start-to-finish overview of the process.

Writing is a Marathon

That finish line you are dreaming of is great and everything, but if you’re really just getting started…it’s pretty far away. Sure, you’ll see some big-promise methods saying you can write a memoir in 90 days. Technically it’s possible. But if those headlines are giving you “Lose ten pounds in ten days with this one simple trick” vibes, your instincts are right. We find that on average, it takes at least nine months to a year to fully plan, draft, and revise a book. More often than not, before those months even start, people have spent a lot of time just thinking about it before they get started.

The only way you can maintain an effort over that period of time is by having a writing momentum that is sustainable and rewarding in itself. We avoid, quite naturally, sticking to things that require continuous work but only have a pay off in the distant future.

The problem is not, however, that we don’t have the talent or speed to make it satisfying. The problem is by only focusing on the finish line, we are depriving ourselves of satisfaction in the process and successes along the way.

Celebrating Every Win

Every step in the process should be celebrated and honored. After all, well before you finish the book, you’ll need to finish a chapter. And before that, you’ll need to finish a page. And before that, you’ll need to plan out the structure, gather your notes and/or research, figure out a writing plan that works for you long term, and start logging consistent time dedicated to your book. All of these steps deserve celebrating.

Inspring Memoirs Connect to Readers of All kinds of Experiences.

Neuroscience of Habit

You might feel like these accomplishments aren’t “big enough” to celebrate. There’s this cultural myth that if we reward too small of an accomplishment, then we’ll become self-satisfied and never push ourselves to finish anything.

That’s not how the brain works.

Neuropsychology and neuroscience tell us that we are truly creatures of habit, right down to our brain chemistry. Every day, our brains fire off thousands of neurotransmitters with each thought, creating and reinforcing neural pathways. Essentially, our brains become adept at following well-worn paths of thought. When we celebrate and focus on the small wins, we come back to what made us feel that way. We come back to the keyboard the next day so we can celebrate that little win all over again.

When you withhold that celebration and joy in what you’re doing, it may feel like you’re trying to push yourself to have higher expectations for yourself. But internally you’re telling yourself that you’re not really good enough. Sure, you wrote a thousand words today, but you meant to write them last week. And you can already tell they’ll need to be revised because the section didn’t even come out as good as it was in your head.  Many of us spend so much of our writing time firing off those neurons that are just telling ourselves we are not good enough. That is the neural pathway that is being eroded into a rut in our brains.

Embracing Writer as Identity

When something is part of our identity and integrated fully into our self-image, it’s easier to do it all the time. The negative self-talk tells us that we are not really authors yet. It tells us that we haven’t yet earned that identity and won’t until we cross this distant finish line. That creates this distance between our daily identity and what we want to do, which brings this massive internal effort to overcome that sense of self-doubt to every single writing day. That is a sure-fire way to kill writing momentum.

Affirmations can go some of the way. “I am a good writer” is a start. But to believe that we need to reinforce all the things that make us a writer by celebrating them, even—and especially—when our book is still in development.

When we allow ourselves and train ourselves to celebrate each little step, we let go of negative thoughts and focus on joy. This is crucial for developing writing momentum. Consistently celebrating each win trains our brain to seek and embrace joy. This positive reinforcement makes sitting down to write less of a chore and more of a joyful process, because it’s part of who we are. It also helps us revise with enthusiasm instead of dread. Because after all, writers write and then they revise.

It would be absurd to think of a revising writer as a failed writer—it’s all part of the same beautiful work. So why does writing something that needs to be revised make us feel like someone who’s not quite yet a “real” writer? That negative self-talk blinds us to our progress.

Celebrating teaches our brain to love the process, making it enjoyable regardless of the outcome. This shift in mindset allows us to focus on the joy of creating, rather than the end product. Embracing celebration as a regular practice can transform our creative journey into a joyful and fulfilling experience.

Wins that keep the writing momentum going

When we say celebrate every step of the way, we do mean celebrate every page. But we also mean more than that!

Writing is more than putting one word in front of another. Don’t just celebrate words and pages. Celebrate finding that bit of research that’s going to be helpful to you in chapter ten. Celebrate making progress on your outline. Even celebrate that hour you spent just thinking about the book.

Development, outlining, and research all count as progress. If you are the kind of person that finds a lot of motivation in tracking, be sure to track days you spend on these steps as progress. Working with authors we find over and over again that the outlining and development stages take longer than writers expect, often two or even three months of dedicated time. There are a lot of decisions to make during this process—how to define your key message, where your book should start and end, how to think about your audience, and so many others.

These decisions can come with a lot of anxiety, but they can also give you a lot of satisfaction if you let them. You might not have a lot of pages to show for it, but that progress can be exciting because you can feel it coming together. As you are developing your ideas in pre-writing, this amorphous idea in your idea starts to take real shape. Don’t discount that progress, celebrate it! Take that excitement and run with it.

When you’re further along in the process, don’t forget to keep counting small wins. Celebrate each chapter. Celebrate getting to each bracket. Celebrate each problem you solve in revision. Celebrate each submission you send. Celebrate, celebrate, celebrate.

Happy Writing

When we make this a real habit, something amazing happens. It doesn’t happen all at once, because patterns take time to set in. But eventually, the time you dedicate each week to writing isn’t something you have to do in order to get your book done. It’s something you get to do as part of being a writer.

Labors of love are labors that get done. Love every part of the writing process. Not just those days when the words flow out like water (there will be those days, too!) but the wrestling with hard decisions, the stubborn transitions, that idea that comes in the middle of the night, that terrible first draft, that great sentence that just didn’t fit anywhere. Working through every one of those little battles is what makes you a great writer. Every single victory matters.

This is why we sign of each blog with “Happy Writing.”

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