Discipline (Not Inspiration) Gives You Success in Writing

This is not an answer to the question “Why do you write” or “Why do you want to write”. This is an article to remind myself (and share with others) of the truth about long term success. We may write out of inspiration that comes from some excitement when our articles show some results that can be views, comments or earnings. But what happens when that excitement dies?

Don’t think that this won’t happen. When we are new to online writing, there is some unexplainable inspiration to write something or the other. You are just starting new and you don’t have the stress created by the clutter when there is no clutter yet. As you keep writing and accumulating articles, you will realize the need to start afresh regularly to keep the inspiration going. At one point of time you may reach the stage where inspiration just does not help you write anymore. Even if it motivates you to write, you won’t write because you have the feeling that what you write out of inspiration won’t be worth it.

That is when you start feeling that you know you have to write something that you just don’t like to write right now. Writing from inspiration is like a reactionary response to external stimuli. Whereas writing with discipline (habit/by force) is like a proactive response that is only in your control.

Before I applied disciplined habits in writing articles, I used to think that I repeatedly end up with writers’ block. I watched the movie Secret Window. The central character played by Johnny Depp was a writer, who murders his wife and buries in the backyard visible from a “secret window” of his house, just to get out of his “writers’ block”. The movie is made in such a way that it could actually be a part of his next story he is working on. The audience is left to wonder about that and I liked that. I liked it even more to see the central character being a lonely creative writer!

But I faced the truth after trying to find out what it is really about not wanting to write. If writing is like working then why don’t I write when I always like to do some work? If writing is relieving then why don’t I write when I feel the need to get relaxed after a day’s hard work? If writing is fun then why don’t I feel like writing and instead do some other fun giving activities? If writing is my passion then why don’t I feel like writing and instead read on topics that I am passionate about?

I found the answer to this after confronting the problem head-on. The answer is that writing is like working, relieving, fun, passion and all. And we don’t necessarily have any block to not write when we see that we always keep on doing some activity or the other. Even sleeping does not keep you without work (it gives you dreams). We always do something or the other. That means we can certainly put ourselves to write.

The reason we don’t write when we know we have to, is because we lack some discipline. Everyone has some discipline (hold on), some level of it. That is why you will find yourself writing at some frequency (daily, weekly or monthly). When you make a goal such as writing to reach 100/500/1000 articles on a set of certain topics without wandering on to other activities, it needs more discipline than writing a set of five out of inspiration. You need the discipline to make clear to yourself what you want to write and why and how. That is to make a clear plan on what to write, how to write and when to complete. You need the discipline to look into obstacles when you get stuck half the way rather than getting distracted onto other activities that make the day anyway.

Most often I notice that if I don’t feel like writing something it is because I lack a clear idea on what to write and how to write. So I make a separate document that lists down the tasks to do before I start on a new writing goal. They list various steps such as

• breaking down goals into sets of goals,
• planning time for each of the sets (or the first few),
• planning a definite writing style (pattern/structure) for the set at hand,
• listing down the activities that need to be done step by step for each article.

The last one does not only include the step of writing but the research and analysis part, what to do when some information can’t be found, with clear steps so I will be in automatic motion once started till completion.

What is surprising for me is that I tend to get back to the original state where I wait for some inspiration to write when I know where/what to write. Then I find that I failed to do the act of planning, from abstract level down to detailed level. Once that is done, there is no reason why I wouldn’t want to write. It is the same reason why we do other things than writing, because we have a clear idea of what to do at each step of the process. Not only writing an article is a process, writing many articles as sets is also a process which is more influential than a single article writing process. Now that I know this and post this article, I feel it should become easy to develop this as a habit.

Cover of Secret Window [Blu-ray]

The central character played by Johnny Depp was a writer, who murders his wife and buries in the backyard visible from a “secret window” of his house, just to get out of his “writers’ block”.

Next on my list is to watch “The Ghostwriter” movie. I am planning to frame myself as a ghostwriter for my own writing goals. That is an exciting plan, to play double role as the master writer and also the ghostwriter. Isn’t it?

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