15 Productive Tasks You Can Still Do Even When You Don’t

Feel Like Writing

helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/productive-tasks-you-can-still-do-even-when-you-dont-feel-like-writing

K.M. Weiland | @KMWeiland April 27,

2020

If you find that you don’t feel like writing right now—
or perhaps that you just know there are other

1. Journal About Why You’re Personally Blocked

Sometimes there’s a lot to be said for making yourself sit there and stare at the blinking
cursor until finally the words come. But sometimes the more productive route is to stop
long enough to figure out why the words aren’t coming. If the reason you don’t feel like
writing has more to do with life than with the story itself, try devoting at least a couple
writing sessions to journaling. See if you can work through your emotions and fears until
you get back to a place where you’re happy to be working on your story again.

2. Brainstorm Solutions for Why Your Plot Is Blocked

If the reason you’re unable to write your characters out of that fix you got them into is
because there doesn’t seem to be a way to get them out—you’re probably dealing with good
old-fashioned plot block instead. This too can be helped, once again, by journaling. My
outlining process basically is journaling—a stream-of-conscious conversation with myself on

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the page about whatever’s not working. If I get really stuck in
the middle of a story, I’ll return to this same process—
sometimes by typing in a new doc on my computer,
sometimes by returning to pen and notebook.

Conquering Writer’s Block and

Summoning Inspiration

3. Create Something Else (a Story or Not)

Maybe you’re currently stuck because the story in front of you isn’t the right story for this
moment. If you’re an obsessive “finisher” like me, switching horses midstream can be tricky,
but sometimes a change can make all the difference. Moving on to a new novel or perhaps a
short story or poem—or even a new medium, such as painting or crafting—will help you
return to a feeling of productivity. You never know—it might be just the ticket for giving you
a new perspective on the old story as well.

4. Read About Writing

For most of us reading is so pleasurable it almost feels like a cheat. But it can be so
productive. You may be blocked because you’re lacking specific information you need to
find in a writing guide. Or you may have a backlogged TBR pile of writing books full of
inspiration and motivation you didn’t even know you were lacking (this happened to me a
few years ago). If the actual writing just isn’t happening for you right now, give yourself
wholehearted permission to use your writing time to read about writing. This time will not
be wasted.

5. Read Your Research Pile

By the same token, you may have a pile of research books waiting for your attention—or
maybe just a list of research questions you know you have to figure out how to answer.
Whenever I’m in research mode, I joke that I get to sit around reading all day and call it
work. But it’s true. Many stories can’t move forward until you’ve learned a great deal. When
the words won’t come, make use of someone else’s.
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6. Learn About and Apply New Story Theory Systems
There’s always more to learn. Whether it’s the principles of
story structure, the foundational elements of character arc, a
specific system taught by writing guru, or a new theory all your
own, you can vastly advance your storytelling abilities by
mastering a new perspective on story itself. This is how I’ve
been spending much of my writing time during the quarantine
—working through ideas about a progressive system of
archetypal character arcs, which will contribute to a future blog
series and will also, hopefully, help me move forward with my
own novel-in-progress.

Creating Character Arcs

7. Devote Some Time to Prep Work (Even if You’re in the Middle of

Your Novel)
Sometimes we get this idea that the only “real writing” is the
writing we do in the first draft and beyond. But outlining is totally
writing. Whether you prefer Roman-numeral outlines or stream-
of-conscious brainstorming, it’s all story development. Even if
you’re halfway into the first draft, you may find that one of the
most productive things you can do is return to do some prep
work, such as developing your story’s structural beats or double-
checking the progression of your characters’ arcs—or maybe just
re-working your way through some stubborn plot holes that have
cropped up in the first draft.

Returning to prep work can feel like taking a step back, but (I
speak from experience) it’s often much more productive to
swallow your pride, screech a recalcitrant first draft to a halt, and Outlining Your Novel
go back to shore up the entire outline before moving ahead.

8. Interview Your Characters

Although generally considered a part of prep work (for me, a vital part of the outlining
process), it’s never a bad time to stop for a chat with your characters. You can do this in a
formal way, using a list of questions to make sure you know everything important about
your characters. Or you can do it in a more freewheeling fashion, just throwing out
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questions on the page and seeing how your characters respond. This can be a great (and
fun) method when the characters seem as blocked as you do. Asking them about their
motivations can be especially revealing.

9. Analyze Your Story’s Scene Structure

If you’re not in the mood to write a new scene, you can feel just
as productive (maybe more so!) by stopping to map out the
scene structure of your existing (and future) scenes. Proper
scene structure asks that each scene offer six specific beats
(goal, conflict, outcome, reaction, dilemma, decision), which then
lead seamlessly into the next set of beats in the following scene.
Analyzing and double-checking your scene structure for weak
links in the chain can be game-changing both in terms of
tightening your manuscript and even in showing you plot holes
and blocks you may not have yet recognized.

Structuring Your Novel

10. Type Up Notes

If you’re a slave to your notebook, like I am, then you know the creative power of writing by
hand—but you also know the drudgery of having to type up your notes. This is often a chore
that gets put off and put off, until you hardly remember what’s in your notes to begin with.
But if right-brain creativity just isn’t happening for you, you can make great use of your time
by taking care of boring busywork like notekeeping.

11. Organize Your Notes

For many, organizing your notes may go hand in hand with typing them up. But if you have
a lot of notes—whether from inspiration, outlining, or research—you no doubt know how
easy it is for them to somehow sprawl their way all over your computer. Even the mighty
organizational powerhouse Scrivener can quickly turn into a rabbit’s warren of random files
and folders. At a certain point my brain explodes, and I have to take the time to consolidate
and reorganize notes so I can easily make sense of them when in a more creative frame of
mind.

12. Spring Clean Your Story Folders/Computer/Office/House

Technically this doesn’t meet my initial qualification that a productive writing task must
directly contribute to the creation of a story. But if you’re one of those people (ahem) who
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need an orderly environment in order to concentrate, then putting some time into cleaning,
tossing, and organizing anything from your Scrivener project to your entire house may turn
out to be a very creative use of your time. If nothing else, consider it “creative lollygagging”
and use it as daydreaming time.

13. Edit Your Story

There is always more editing that can be done . If you don’t feel like writing, you can always
scroll to the top of your document and start reading. Or return to a shelved project and
start tweaking. A change of pace can shake up your creativity, and you’ll never regret putting
a little more polish on what you’ve already written.

14. Edit for Someone Else

Again, this doesn’t explicitly qualify as productive creative work on your stories. But if you
just can’t write anything right now, then offering to read and/or edit another writer’s story
will allow you to at least keep yourself in a writerly atmosphere while also doing good for
someone else.

15. Dreamzone
Finally, don’t forget that sometimes the most productive thing you can do is… just stare into
space. Put on some music, go for a walk, lean back in your chair and close your eyes, build a
campfire—and work on your story via mind pictures rather than words for a while.

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