Today’s Book Blogger Hop question is: At the end of a hard day, how do you get yourself psyched about writing a book review?
I guess…I kind of don’t? At least, on some level, I don’t. One of the best pieces of advice I ever read about trying to get yourself to do something is (paraphrased) that you don’t actually have to be excited to do it, you just have to do it. Taking the pressure off to feel positive about it makes it easier to just buckle down and do it, because you’re not putting willpower into trying to modify your emotions too.
How do I get myself to write a blog post though? Well, having a schedule is everything for me. I’ve had a set schedule of when I post since the first day of this blog–it’s shifted a little as my time allows, and I have missed posts occasionally (although I didn’t for years). It’s much, much easier for me to say, I need to write Friday’s post because it’s Friday and I post on Friday, rather than, hmm, I haven’t posted in a while, I should post…which could easily be put off until tomorrow, indefinitely.
It’s actually the same attitude I have towards writing. I write every day. Period, full stop. I’ve kept that up for…five years? Six years? I don’t know, I’ve lost track. But the key thing is, the question becomes not, do I have a good enough reason to write today? The question is, do I have a good enough reason to NOT write today? So far, I haven’t had a good enough reason to break the streak. Including my wedding day. Including my honeymoon. Including international travel and various illnesses. I won’t say that there haven’t been days when I edited one paragraph, or reread one page that I was revising, or wrote two sentences…but every day, something happened. Because the question wasn’t will I, it was will I not? [/end divergence]
So along with knowing when I need to write a blog post, inverting the question of whether to do it, I also remind myself that it usually goes faster than I imagine it will, it’s usually easier than it looks once I start, and I do in fact usually enjoy writing it. Or I probably wouldn’t be doing it to begin with!
For bloggers, how do you get yourself to post? Non-bloggers, do you have tricks you use for other tasks that you might find challenging to start?
That’s a great attitude, and although I don’t write ‘writing’ every day, I always write something, however trivial. I don’t much worry if I can’t fit something in, though. I have permission to do other things all day!
I think you are right that often, when you have a task you may not want to do, you just have to do it. I don’t look forward to the couple of hours a week I spend cleaning my house, and frequently would rather do something else than that, but I just start doing it and I get into it more once I’ve begun. I also enjoy the feeling of having a nice, clean, tidy house when I’m done. I listen to podcasts while I’m working and that helps, too. They are the “treat” I give myself while I work, since I don’t listen to them at other times.