5 Writing Challenges to Tackle and Overcome
As a writer, overcoming challenges is an ongoing process and it can be really different depending on our experience, life circumstances, or projects. Like many creators and artists, writers should have what I like to call a ‘tool bag’—a list of strategies that you’ve heard about or tried yourself, things that can facilitate your writing process. However, it’s easier to find our way through challenges if we identify them first. Here are some of the most common ones, previously highlighted on our platform.
What follows is a list of five more challenges you might face and some ways to tackle them.
What to Write About
Starting a creative project is always difficult, especially when the project is solely yours. As a Creative Writing student, I learned that perhaps the most accessible tool writers have is reading. In order to stimulate our imagination and find the right words to express our thoughts, it’s important to read the work of others.
In this interview, Camilla Grudova, the author of The Doll’s Alphabet is told ‘There is an outsider artist quality to your stories—they are unmistakably your own’. Grudova explains how some strange aspects of her upbringing have played a role in shaping her idiosyncratic writing, but later she mentions her precursors: Shirley Jackson, Angela Carter, Clarice Lispector, and Leonora Carrington, to name a few, all writers who played with the feminine, the bizarre, and the macabre. This is an example of how influence leads to originality if you utilise it as a starting point or as a reminder, while developing your own unique style.
Lack of Inspiration
Inspiration as creative epiphany isn’t impossible, but it’s unlikely you’ll experience it regularly, so writing only when you have a big idea might bring you frustration and self-sabotaging thoughts. Instead, you can force inspiration by creating a writing diary, physical or digital. In your diary, record small moments from daily life. Make notes of the things you observe, hear, smell, taste. Write down conversations you overhear, or try to create fictitious scenarios where people talk about mundane things. The purpose of these exercises is to slow down your mind and to make you observe things you otherwise might not. A lot happens around us that can feed into our creative process, we just have to pay attention and look closer.
Something else to try is writing exercises from books such as 3 AM Epiphany or The Writing Experiment. The point of exercises like these is to bring material up from your unconscious, material that can be dream-like and more imaginative, which you can then use in your writing.
When to Write
The ideal time for writing doesn’t exist. The best time to write is the time that suits you and that fits with your schedule. For some, writing late at night works well, because the world quiets down after dusk and presents less distractions. Plus, our imagination is likely to run wilder when we’re a little tired and relaxed. Others swear that writing in the early hours of morning is the key, because their minds are clear and sharp at that time and not yet bothered by the anxieties of their daily tasks.
In an ideal world, we’d have the chance to plan our writing sessions as we please, but many of us have jobs, family responsibilities, friends, or other hobbies, and it’s easy to fall into the trap of ‘there’s no time for writing’ if you don’t create a routine and stick to it. You might find that—if you’re an eclectic person like me—having a constricted writing schedule might seem a little forced in the beginning, but in time your mind will accommodate to it, and you’ll feel much better about your work if you write regularly.
The Editing Process
Lots of writers I’ve talked to about challenges have said that editing is what they dread most because that’s when they have to face all the mistakes they’ve made. You need to remind yourself that behind nearly all the stories, books, and articles published and acclaimed are hours and hours of writing and rewriting. The editing process is not your enemy, but instead is your chance to improve your writing, to add or cut things, or to correct your grammar. To make sure you don’t get overwhelmed, keep separate the writing sessions from the editing ones. Or, if it’s easier, edit your last draft section before you start a new part. Read these suggestions for extra help.
Another important thing to do is to find yourself a trusted reader. Although it might not be an option to immediately work with an editor, especially if you’re an emerging writer, having someone you trust read your work can provide you with an invaluable alternative perspective.
What to Do with My Work
This challenge is perhaps the most difficult to overcome, partly because there is no straight answer to what you can do with your work, and partly because it depends on numerous circumstances. However, the first thing to keep in mind is that if you want your fiction or non-fiction to be published, you need to send it out. Lots of unpublished or unknown writers are nervous to share their work due to a fear of rejection. If you’re also dealing with this, remember that even the most established writers have had their work turned down, often many times. It’s all part of the process and it doesn’t make your writing any less good. You need to persevere and find the right audience for you. Try these tips to deal with rejection.
There is no harm in aiming high, but if you’re not being represented by an agent or a publisher, or if your work has never been published before, you might have more chances to be featured in online magazines and small presses that are often looking for new and emerging writers. Actively seek spaces that publish the kind of work you write. Make sure you read what they publish before you consider submitting, and always follow their submission guidelines. Poorly presented work, no matter how great, could cost your chance to be accepted. Consider creating a publication list by following these tips or check this to learn more about your options.
You can find more tips here!
