Motivate yourself to keep writing : ten tips on staying positive and keeping going

These tips on motivating yourself to write are gleaned from last year’s #AcWriMo tweets. There’s a lot more good, practical advice to be found amongst last year’s tweets, as collected and shared by the Wolfson Research Exchange, University of Warwick.

1. Have a (rough) plan and/or outline: A plan for what to write, & a plan for when to write it.
2. Join a writing group or find a writing buddy: share plans, problems & feedback. It sometimes helps to keep you focused if you will report to others. Why not find a writing partner on Piirus?
3. Stop being over critical: just write. Try Freewriting to overcome writer’s block. Remember, you can switch on your internal editor once you have a first draft!
4. If you are a procrastinator: set yourself deadlines, and take them seriously: envisage the future where you lose out because you didn’t take the time to do your best.
5. You don’t need to read every relevant source before you start to write: if you take notes on what you want to write about a source, as you read it, then you have already started writing, but don’t use reading as a substitute for writing!
6. Accept that perfection is not possible: every single edit attempt will find things to be improved.
7. Reward yourself for completing tasks along the way.
8. If you’re too tired to write: work on your references.
9. Consider writing with a pen and paper: switch off all Internet distractions.
10. Remember that academic writing is hard, so don’t worry that you find it hard!

What keeps you going when your desire to write flags a little? Leave us a comment below or get in touch directly.

You can follow @Piirus_com on Twitter, look out for our tips with the hashtag #piirustips