Whether you’re in the middle of writing a novel, a report for school or work, or in the middle of The Writer’s Games, lack of motivation can be a real problem when writing. It can happen to the best of us. We start with a great idea, we write out an outline (or not), write as much as we can and then our fingers just… stop (typing or writing). Life (or a new Netflix show) gets in the way but eventually our motivation to write our next masterpiece dries up. What are you suppose

Many writers are wary of receiving feedback. I know I was, as a fourteen-year-old who had just finished my first story. It was a thinly veiled piece of fanfiction, short, and probably with many comma splices. I waited anxiously as my mother read through it, sipping her coffee and pursing her lips against the bitterness. At least, I hoped it was the coffee. It wasn’t. She put down the pages, barely glanced at me, and said, “That’s an awful lot of dialogue.” Somehow I lived to

My grandmother was the most creative person I have ever known. She could paint, draw, do just about anything crafty, beat me mercilessly at Scrabble and she always wanted to write a novel. She loved history and genealogy and spent years doing research to prepare for her novel. After she died, we found all of her old research laid out in boxes, covered in dust. She had collected mountains of information about our family and the time period she wanted to set the story in but sh

Internet research can be a…risky endeavor. Authors look up the strangest things so my search history is most likely a concern for the National Security Agency, or would be if I didn’t live in the backwoods of Mississippi. I was expecting to find a website I adored but lost the link to when I typed “word count tracker” into Google, and I was surprised when it didn’t pull up at all. What appeared instead was Pacemaker.press. It was the number one searched website that day and t

About the author: Sarah Perchikoff is working on a BA in Writing at Grand Valley State University and interning at The Writer's Workout. You can follow her on Twitter: @sperchikoff. Every writer has that one person who made them want to write; it could be a school teacher, a parent, a close friend, or a mentor. Any kind of work requires motivation, but writing requires so much of the writer that an outside motivator is crucial. When there are already hundreds, if not thousand

About the author: Leigh Davis is a Southern historical fiction author and cofounder of The Writer's Workout. You can find her on twitter: @leighdbooks and her blog: LeighDBlogs. The hardest thing about writing, for me, is finding the time where I can be completely focused on the words in front of me rather than distracted by the million-and_one things my brain says I should be doing. At the same time, I write so much better when I have a routine. It's a conundrum; one I decid

About the author: Robyn Cross has a BA in creative writing from Vancouver Island University. She is currently working on... way too many books. January is when all my motivation disappears. All my favorite things are over by January: National Novel Writing Month in November; the holidays in December; and the end of the year when we review our New Year's resolutions. January is when we must face the blank page and the dreaded blinking cursor. Writing is just like any other res