1) Just Start

This may seem like a fairly obvious one, but you have to start somewhere right? Admit it, for months every time you’ve set aside time to write you’ve chickened out at the last minute. You suddenly find yourself very busy with chores you’ve invented or… hey, who put that remote in your hand? Don’t you dare start a new Netflix show… If you want to get out of your writing rut, you need to set aside time to write and actually stick to it, no excuses.

2) Start Small

When you’re picking up a pen after a long absence, it may be too much to expect yourself to jump right back into working on your manuscript. You’ll never fully lose your writing mojo, but you’ll definitely be rusty. The easiest way to get some practice without putting so much pressure on yourself is to do some writing exercises. Find some fun and short writing prompts and set aside an hour to challenge yourself. Perhaps the exercise will task you to use a character from your book or maybe you’ll have to write something entirely new. Either way, it’ll get your creative juices flowing again and it’ll help you start to get your confidence back.

3) Make a Schedule

One of the excuses you’ve made over the past few months is likely that you ‘weren’t feeling inspired’ enough to write. Not only do you know that’s just a poor excuse, but if writers only wrote when they felt inspired it would take five times as long for them to finish their books. Instead of continuing to use that as an excuse to let yourself drift off schedule for another few months, create a diligent schedule that you know you can stick to.

When it comes to making your writing schedule, our number one suggestion is to be realistic with yourself. If you realistically can only write once a week for a few hours, just put that on your calendar. The last thing you want to do put too much on your schedule and then keep missing your writing appointments that you set for yourself. Because every time you miss one you’ll beat yourself up, feel like you’re not a real writer, and before long you’re back to where you are now. It’s much better for your schedule and your writing confidence to make appointments you’re sure you can keep.

4) Join a Writing/Reading Group

Look into local writing or reading groups in your area. If you can’t find a good one, start your own with a few close friends! It may feel intimidating, especially when you’ve been out of the game for a while, but these groups can be a great way to hold one another accountable and bounce ideas off of each other.

If you’re planning on starting your own, there are a few options on how to structure it based on your needs. If you want to try to read more books to help improve your craft, you can start a book club and hold discussions about the material. If you want to workshop some writing, you could do a writing workshop where you take scenes (from either your book or specific prompts) and read/workshop them. Finally, if you have a few friends who are working on books/scripts/etc. you can host a group to simply bounce ideas off of one another. You can meet once a month, run each other through what you’ve been working on briefly, talk about any points where you’re stuck, and see if they have any suggestions.

5) Forgive Yourself

This is the toughest one because, ultimately, it’s the reason your absence from writing got so out of hand in the first place. Is your writing always going to be perfect? No. Are there going to be weeks where you genuinely don’t have time to write? Yes. That doesn’t make you any less of a writer than anyone else. Every writer has written bad prose. Every writer has taken absences that have stretched out longer than they should. You have to forgive yourself when you miss your writing days and on days where you feel like your writing is bad. Don’t let these things make you feel bad and don’t let them make you too afraid to pick up your pen again.

The post How to Pick Up Writing Again appeared first on Dorrance Publishing Company.

Step One: Start One

The first step is obvious before you can host a Book Club you need….well… a book club. You’ll need to decide whether you want it to just be family and close friends or if you want to make it something open to the public. If it’ll be more open, you’ll want to post the gathering on websites like Meetup to find potential book enthusiasts in your area. It may also be helpful to find a public space like a coffee shop that would allow you to meet every so often.

Step Two: Don’t Overcommit

The last thing you’ll want to do is push both yourself and your fellow book club members on what they can read. During your first meeting, ask everyone what a reasonable reading goal would be for the group and use their input to decide what would be best for your group. Book clubs can be like New Year’s Resolutions- they’re abandoned all too quickly if the goals are unrealistic. For most book clubs, typically a reasonable reading goal would be one book per month. If that’s what the group ends up agreeing on, you can either meet up once every week/two weeks to go over progress or just once at the end of the month to go over the book at large. Again, ask for everyone’s input to see what works best for each group member’s schedule.

Step Three: Decide what your book selection process will be

Now, to decide what books your group will read. If you want your Book Club to exclusively read books of a specific genre, that’s OK. Just make sure you put that in any advertisement or notice for your book club so potential members will be readers with that specific interest. If you’d rather your club be open to all genres and reads, that’s great, too.

Though you’re the group leader, the last thing you want is to be the only person choosing the book club books. Book clubs are tight-knit groups and you’ll want each person to feel their voice is heard. Typically, books are selected one of two ways. At the end of the month (during your month’s discussion) everyone brings a new book to pitch for next month’s read. After everyone has the chance to pitch their book, the members vote on which one they’d most like to read (not being allowed to vote for their own). This selection process makes sure the majority of the group is excited about each month’s read.

Another method you could use is a rotation. So select a rotation order for the group by giving them each a number (or month) and, whichever number they draw will be the month they choose the read for the group. This may mean there are some months where the majority of the group doesn’t enjoy the monthly read, but it also means everyone will get the chance to choose a book.

Step Four: Come to each meeting organized

As the host, one of the most important jobs is to come to each meeting organized. This partly involves coming prepared with your thoughts and questions for the group already written down. As far as your overall thoughts on the book, construct them in a way that is conducive to conversation. It may be helpful to break them down into the positive and negative aspects of the read. So start by asking yourself: What did I like about this book? Think in terms of characters, character development, plot, arc, themes, writing style, character choice, tone, etc. Next, ask yourself: What didn’t I like about this book? Break it down by the same categories and perhaps use bullet points as well.

When you’re going through each of your bullet points, don’t just lecture the group- open it up to the discussion. For example, let’s say you’re talking about how you felt a particular character didn’t necessarily add to the story. Open it up to the group by asking, “Did anyone else feel similarly? Did anyone else feel differently and why?” Make sure you let the group know that they’re free to jump in as you’re going through your list. The list isn’t meant to just allow you to get your thoughts out, it’s to give the group things to talk about.

After you go over your bullet points, ask the group if they had any thoughts on the book that you haven’t covered. Typically this will lead to more discussion, but if not make sure you have a list of questions prepared to keep the conversation going. Some fun questions to ask would be: “Who was your favorite character and why?” or “What was your favorite part of the book?”

If you wouldn’t always like to be the one leading the discussion, you can also have a rotating discussion leader. This person will fill the same role of bringing in bullet points to talk about, asking questions to the group at large, and keeping the conversation flowing. Though, if you started the group, we recommend you going first to give the other members an example of the discussion leader’s roles.

Step Five: Make sure everyone is heard

There are a few different ways to handle group discussions, but the most important part of them is to make sure everyone in the group is heard and feels like an active member. There are a few different ways you can conduct the group discussions. The first is to keep them structured by going in a circle and having one person talk at a time. So, every time you ask the group a question, you’d go clockwise around the circle so everyone gets a turn answering. Though this may take a while, it assures everyone has their opinions and thoughts heard.

The other way would be to have more of a free-form discussion, allowing the group to answer questions freely. Though less organized, this allows people with similar thoughts or ideas to bounce off of each other, rather than having to wait their turn to speak. If you decide to go this route, keep in mind that your more introverted members may struggle to be outspoken on their thoughts. We suggest that, should you go with this strategy, make sure (if you notice someone has been quiet for a while) to call on them and ask their thoughts on the question being discussed. Through time and experience, every member will grow to feel more comfortable speaking their mind and the conversation will flow more naturally with each meeting. And, before you know it, you finally have a group of like-minded book lovers to force all of your passion upon. And your other friends can breathe a huge sigh of relief.

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