Eight ways I trick myself into writing when I don’t want to.

(I refuse to call them ‘hacks’, I’m a writer not a tech bro)

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

A few weeks ago, I put a post up on here to express my joy and happiness that I was halfway through writing my second novel, and how thrilled I was at the progress I was making. Then this week I hit the wall. At full speed. Head on.

Admittedly it’s a busy time of year. I am bookselling in Waterstones, while preparing for Christmas, at the end of a pretty full-on twelve months. But that isn’t the reason. What’s creating my ‘writers freeze’ (I prefer that term to ‘block’ as it describes how it feels to me) is the realisation that the paperback of my first novel is about to land and that actually that’s quite a big deal.

Don’t get me wrong, I did know this already; in that I knew the date and what would be happening. What I didn’t factor in was how porous I am and how the lead up would affect me emotionally, and my writing as a consequence.

My first experience of ‘freezing’ was after the hardback of The List of Suspicious Things had launched in February this year. It was the most exciting, wonderful time, and the reception of the novel surpassed all my expectations.

But then I started to worry. As is my wont. Questions began swirling around my already tired, overactive brain. How would I top it? Anything else I wrote would surely be a disappointment, right? Second books never do as well, do they? Maybe I only have one book in me? Maybe I should quit while I’m ahead?

It took some months, and some serious work and reflection to un-freeze me enough to even have an idea about what I might write next. Yet here I am again, and I have realised that the rather addictive cocktail of adrenalin & expectation are not my writing friends. Suddenly the idea that I felt so passionately about a few months ago feels like the worst idea in the world. Every word feels as though its being mined from granite. I am no longer sure of where I am going or how I am going to get there, and I am finding every possible reason/excuse NOT to write.

Luckily - having been through this before - I do have some strategies this time, and I thought I would share them here in case they are useful for anyone else, and I would LOVE to hear yours, if you have any. Some of these are quite obvious/basic, but I am, including them anyway because in my experience they WORK!

1. Timed short bursts, no phone

This first one probably sits in the ‘obvious’ category but the pomodoro technique really does help (if you haven’t come across it, this is essentially where you do close, concentrated work in twenty-five-minute bursts, breaking between each one).

There is a phrase we use in Alcoholics Anonymous ‘I can do something for twelve hours that would appall me if I felt that I had to keep it up for a lifetime,’ and it is the same principle here. When the task of writing a novel feels like it might overwhelm me, writing - without phone distraction - for twenty-five-minutes feels possible.

2. NOT sitting down at my desk

This is one of my favourites. I often write on the notes app in my phone while doing something else/sitting in the car/ lying in bed. I sent email and voicenotes to myself, and there is something in the freedom of not being sat in my study in front of my computer that frees my brain up and makes me feel less pressurised to come up with something ‘proper.’ I outline all the scenes in my novel this way and sometimes write them too.

3. Breaking everything down

This links to the first point but isn’t quite the same. It’s more of a mental trick. I spend a lot of my time negotiating with the voice in my head that is always worried/anxious/telling me I am no good/there’s no point. I tell it that ‘I will just write this chapter (or scene, or sentence, or paragraph, depending on how loud it is) and see how it goes.’ and it somehow gives me permission to do that.

4. Turn the volume down

Sometimes the voice is REALLY loud, and I literally tell it to shut up or visualise myself turning the volume down. I had to do that today, as it was on at me not to write this, as there was no point (‘who wants to listen to you going on and on?’). But I ignored it and wrote anyway. I seem to remember that Mo Gowdat - who wrote the book ‘Solve for Happy,’ calls his voice ‘Becky’ to right size it, and turn the volume down. I love that idea.

5. Parking the scene

I have been stuck on one scene this week. Every time I think about it my mind goes blank. It’s not even that important, it’s one of those transitional scenes which is just logistically challenging. So, I’ve parked it. I’ve made a note and given it to my subconscious to work on while I move onto stuff that doesn’t make my mind go blank. I don’t always do this (for fear I will end up with a whole novel full of notes saying ‘WRITE THIS LATER’) but after spending three days without writing a word, I’ve decided I am going to come back to it, and that’s fine. Which leads me onto the next trick…

6. Reminding myself of the purpose of a first draft

As a recovering perfectionist this is something I have to do often. The first draft of The List of Suspicious Things was 67k words. The final draft was 107k. I am an under-writer, and I work best once the scaffolding is there to support the story, so my focus is on getting that scaffolding in place. This means it doesn’t actually matter too much what is in that first draft. It certainly isn’t going to be beautifully crafted sentences at that point. Reminding myself of this is what is keeping me going right now!

7. Read, listen

This week I reminded myself of one of the major ways I got unstuck while writing my first novel, which was by listening to In Writing with Hattie Crisell podcast. I find listening to and reading about other writers’ process and struggles incredibly helpful, and this entire podcast is devoted to exactly this, as well as allowing us to nose into other people’s physical writing spaces (Hattie has written a book called In Writing too which I am liberally gifting this Christmas). I have listened to the whole of the latest series this week and found the episode with Sara Collins particularly helpful.

8. Write about it!

Starting this Substack was instrumental in unfreezing me earlier this year. There is something in the process of being honest about where I am in written form that releases me from it (the same is true of journalling about it or completing my morning pages). It also somehow makes moving onto writing the novel less daunting; almost as though through writing this, I’ve had a runup to it/or done a warmup session.

I will finish on this. There are days when none of this works. Sometimes weeks. And sometimes I need to just give myself a break. I’m definitely in need of one now and hope to get some proper rest over Christmas week (I will be taking the week off from writing this too, though I am excited to be contributing to

Anna Wharton

Twelve Days of Christmas Writing Advice) and so I have forgiven myself if I am not writing as much as I’d like to right now. Knowing this is as important as all the mind tricks in the world.

Am wishing you all a fantastic festive season, whatever you are doing. Here’s to a wonderful 2025 for all of us. Thank you so much for subscribing to The Crow’s Nest. I am honestly SO grateful for the support.