How to Maintain Motivation When Writing a Novel

Writing a novel takes a long time. Unless writing fiction is your day job, you have to carve out periods of time when you can work on your novel, and this makes it even longer to get to that final page. There is a lot of revision and editing that you need to do after you’ve completed your first draft, but completing that draft takes a lot of work, and you need to maintain motivation as you write. This could be the case if you’re doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, in November), or if you’re writing at any other time of year.

Here are some tips to help you stay motivated as you progress in your writing project.

Establish a writing routine

Writing is like exercising. To maintain motivation, you need to establish a routine. This doesn’t mean that you have to write every day; for some people, this won’t be possible. But setting up a regular routine will prime your mind in advance for each coming writing session. We have some tips in this article about creating a writing routine.

Also, remember that creativity isn’t constant; some days will be more productive than others, so go with the flow and don’t sweat the slow days. When you don’t produce much, you’re still showing up, and that’s half the battle.

Set small goals

It’s important to have goals, but large, distant goals, such as “I want to write 80,000 words,” can be frustrating. Your daily and weekly progress toward a goal like that will seem too limited to keep you motivated. Instead, set small goals: a target for each writing session or each week. Or, decide that, for the coming month, you want to complete a certain number of chapters (the number of which will depend on whether your novel contains short or long chapters).

For some writers, this goal may be 500 words each day or session. Others who only write on weekends may set a goal of a couple thousand words for each day they write. It’s up to you.

Scrivener’s Statistics and Targets features can help you as you progress. And the Project > Writing History dialog shows you how many words you’ve written each day, week, and month, and can tell you that, even if you don’t think you’ve been productive, you may have written more than you thought.

Create a dedicated writing space

It can be helpful to have a dedicated space for your writing. This could be someplace in your home where you have a desk or table that you can work on, or it could be a coffee shop or other outdoor location. This writing space will put you in the context that you need to progress with your project. If you do have a dedicated space at home, think about decorating it with flowers, photos, postcards of paintings, or anything else that will motivate you.

Cut down distractions

Every writer knows what happens when you’re making progress on a chapter, and you need to look something up online, and the next thing you know, you’ve spent half an hour on social media.

Scrivener has great features to reduce distractions when writing, to block out everything else on your computer so you aren’t tempted to wander off to another app or website.

But don’t forget to take breaks while writing; your mind and your eyes need to rest every now and then. And don’t feel guilty if you need to stop for a while. Make a cup of tea or coffee, or take a short walk. Walking is a great way to boost creativity and come up with new ideas.

Get words on the page

In the first draft stage, it’s not about getting it perfect, it’s about getting the words on the page. Some writers like to edit their previous writing before moving ahead, and this can help maintain the flow between chapters. But don’t try to fix everything. If you’ve hit a sentence or paragraph that isn’t right, and you can’t think of a good revision immediately, highlight it or mark it for later. If you need to check some detail to describe a setting and you don’t want to look it up, type TK, a convention journalists use as a placeholder for something that is to come, or to be checked later.

Read motivating books about creativity

There are lots of books about creativity that can help enhance your motivation. Read 4 Books on Creativity to Jump-Start your Writing Project for some suggestions. The Creative Act, by Rick Rubin, contains dozens of short chapters, and it’s a great book for reading a chapter a day, or when you’re in a rut. We also have an article These Five Books Will Make You a Better Writer, which are more general books about writing that can give you some tips and help prime your pump.

Planner or pantser?

There are two types of writers: those who plan, who outline and develop the scaffolding of their novel before they start writing, and those who write by the seats of their pants, and wing it. You may be one or the other, or you may be a combination of the two.

If you’re a planner, plan as much ahead as possible so each day you know what you’re going to write; this will make it easy to get started as soon as you sit down at your keyboard. You can use Scrivener’s Outliner for this. If you’re a pantser, embrace the unknown and the surprise that occurs during each writing session.

Reward yourself when you hit milestones

Writing is tough, but it should be fun. After days or weeks of work, do something special when you hit milestones. Maybe take a day off and go for a wander when you’ve reached 10,000 words. Buy something nice when you get to 25,000 words. Or have a nice meal with a friend when you make it to 50,000 words. Celebrate your progress, and you’ll be more motivated to get to the next level. Above all, enjoy the writing. If you’re doing this seriously, it’s because you love it.