I’m not exactly sure what this post is going to be. I’m literally typing it on a bus, so that’s why it’s so unformatted. Sorry about that.

Also, I may have already posted something similar to this. I don’t remember. But if I did: shhhh.

But anyways. I have a lot of rambly thoughts about this.

So, I’ve been trying to write a story for the past . . . oh gosh, I think I started it back in June for the 100-4-100 challenge. :1 Great. It took me just over seven months to write a 55k first draft.

It wasn’t necessarily because I write really slow. After all, I wrote 50k in less than a month in NaNoWriMo.

The thing was, I just didn’t care that much about the story I was writing. I had to force myself to write it, and although I assigned myself multiple due dates, I didn’t really finish it before any of them.  I finally told myself, "Okay, I’m going to finish it in the next week."

And then I wrote around 10k in three days. (And to the people who can write that in one day: HOW DO YOU DO IT. TEACH ME.)

All this to say: of course, you shouldn’t work on a story that you don’t love, that you’re not passionate about. (That should probably be common sense.)

But what if you have to? What if you don’t have a choice but to write this story? (Please, don’t ever put yourself in this scenario.) Or what if you’ve just lost interest in your story? What if you used to love your story, but just . . . got bored?

Here are a couple ideas that might reinvigorate your love:

(and no, this is not because Valentine's Day was Thursday. It's coincidence, I promise.)

Switch POVs. In my story (we'll just call it Story for the sake of this post), the POV switches four times. During two of those POVs, I could barely bring myself to write it. So whenever I finally got to the end of a POV, it was like a breath of fresh air.

If your story needs something different, maybe switch things up. Is there a side character who could have an interesting perspective on the scene? Or maybe your villain might have something to say. . . .

Add a new character. I reached a point in Story when I just didn’t care about what happened to my main character, so I added a mysterious, conflicted character in. BOOM. Instant interest.

Now, obviously, you shouldn’t do this EVERY time you get bored. But if you’re not sure where the plot should go, maybe a character can help you get somewhere interesting.

Add a plot twist. After all, if you’re surprised, the reader will be too! Granted, this may mean that you have to go back and edit your novel. But! If you really want to make your story cohesive, you’re going to have to eventually.

Take a short break. If your unmotivation is because you’re burning yourself out, stop. Step away from the project. When you feel refueled, come back. I promise, it’ll still be there.

If you have a time limit in which you have to do your project - don’t take too long of a break. But don’t stress out during your break either. You’ll do better work with a clear head.

Go back to the beginning. Why did you begin this in the first place? (If you had no choice, just pretend that you did.) Rediscover why you began doing it in the first place. Was it a plot line? A character? Everything?

Don’t go through the same scene multiple times in your head. I do this all the time. Whenever I get a new scene idea, I literally go through it so many times that I get sick of it. Not a recommended method. If you’ve come up with a scene that makes you squeal and fan girl endlessly . . . don’t think about it endlessly. (If you’re a plotter, this advice may not work for you. But for pantsers or plantsers, we don’t like to know everything, so keep some loose ends in your scene, just in case.)

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Yeah, sorry, this is a very disjointed post. I’m currently running on five hours of sleep and don’t have time for a creative topic or pictures. I do promise that next week WILL be back to normal. Don’t worry. :)

But in the meantime, have a great week! (AND WHO’S EXCITED FOR HTTYD 3 HITTING THEATERS??)

-Nicole