In-Depth Articles About ... Motivation

This post was originally published in March 2016, and updated in August 2020. An email from an Aliventures reader landed in my inbox with the subject line, “Am I too old to become a writer?” I opened it up, assuming she was in her 70s or 80s. No. She was 37. Here’s...

What if you’re not good enough? What if you enjoy writing … but you’re actually pretty rubbish at it? What if any success you’ve had so far has just been a fluke? I’m pretty sure I’m not the only writer who’s ever…

“I work in excess of 60 hours during the week, not to mention what gets handled on the weekends. So my question is this: how would you balance that with a love and desire to write?” That’s what a reader wrote to me … and I wanted to address his question on the blog…

Wherever you are in the world, life is likely looking very different from how it did a few weeks ago. Here in the UK, everything except for essential businesses like grocery stores has closed until further notice. Schools closed two weeks early for the Easter break,...

You’ve probably heard of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), a worldwide November-long event each year where participants aim to write 50,000 words – a short novel – within a month. In 2018 (for some reason I couldn’t find stats for 2019), 287,327 writers signed...

This post was originally published on Aliventures in May 2016, and updated in September 2019. So you’ve made a plan for the next few months. For a month or two, everything goes fine. You’re writing regularly, hitting your targets, and feeling great about your...

Are you getting as much writing done as you’d like? Are you seeing the success you want? For most writers, the answer is “no” ... and that’s perfectly normal. Maybe, for instance, you thought that quitting your day job to freelance would give you plenty of time to...

Do you ever worry that your writing doesn’t really “count” somehow? The first time I felt this was back in 2008 – 2009, when I had two major strands to my writing: my freelance blogging that paid the bills, and my fiction that I was writing as part of an MA degree…

Do you have as much time as you want to write? Probably not. (If you’re in the position of having plenty of time but you’re still not getting much writing done, don’t feel bad — that happens too. Hopefully some of these tips…

We’ve spent the past few weeks taking a deep look at procrastination, from the issue of why writers procrastinate to specific tips for staying focused (and for refocusing) when you’re writing. I wanted to cover all of this before…

Do you find it hard to concentrate when you’re writing? Is it all too easy for your attention to wander – and for you to end up wasting time that should have been spent on your project at hand? While I’m not a huge fan of “tips to help you stop procrastinating” – they...

Picture this: You sit down to write, having managed to summon up the last dregs of your energy at the end of a long day … and your housemate pulls up a chair next to you to tell you all about the terrible date they went on the previous night. Or your spouse decides...

Reminder: you’ve got the rest of this week (until the end of Friday) to get your hands on Get Writing at “pay what you want” prices. You can pay as little as a dollar to get the whole ebook, plus all the bonus goodies. Another…

Making time to write can be tough. Whenever I ask people about their biggest writing challenges, "finding time" usually comes top of the list. For most of us, though, it's not that hard to make time. Get up half an hour earlier, write in your lunch hour, write...

What are your excuses for not writing? I’m sure they’re good ones, because I have plenty of good excuses, too! And I don’t want you to think I’m being dismissive or unkind about your excuses – our reasons for not writing are generally based on real difficulties, or real fears. So if you’ve used any of the excuses on this list…

This is a guest post from Tamar Sloan, registered psychologist, and author of Grit for Writers, plus several romance books. You can find her website at TamarSloan.com and her blog about writing at PyschWriter.com.au.  Writing can feel wonderful. There’s...

This is a question that comes up a lot for newer writers. When can I call myself a “writer”? Well, there’s no rule about it. Being a writer isn’t like being a doctor or a lawyer – you don’t need any special qualifications. That can be very helpful, but it can also be...

Most writers are reasonably pragmatic about the realities of writing. While they might daydream (secretly or not-so-secretly) about their talent being “discovered” by someone prominent in the writing industry ... they know that’s not really going to...

I’m going to be taking some time off over the Christmas and New Year period – so I won’t be blogging again until mid-January. In the meantime, if you want a bit of holiday reading, here are some posts from 2017 you might like to catch up with ... or...

December is always a big month for me: I love celebrating Christmas and the New Year, of course, but it’s also when my birthday falls (on December 12th). For me, this time of year always involves some reflection on how the past eleven and a bit months...

The hardest thing I’ve done in my life is having kids. I love them to bits ... but if you’re a parent, you’ll know exactly what I mean when I say that nothing prepares you for the reality of children! Some people stop writing altogether while they’re busy...

Do you have lots of great writing intentions ... only to find your day filling up with all sorts of other things? When you do sit down to write, are you easily distracted? Yes? Hey, me too! I’ve come to realise that this isn’t a weakness in myself: it’s...

Do you ever wish you could simply write and that somebody else would take care of all the technological side of things? I know a lot of writers do, just as a lot of writers wish that somebody else would take care of marketing for them. The truth is,...

I finished two full drafts of my novel, the third Lycopolis book, by mid-November 2016 ... the most fiction I've ever written in a year. This is despite 2016 being a pretty hectic year, with two small children, limited work hours, and fiction-writing...

One of my writer friends – and my fiction editor – Lorna Ferguson wrote some wise words in her email newsletter recently: Praise yourself for what you’ve achieved. Keep your promises to yourself when you say ‘I’ll have an early night’ or ‘I’ll go for that...

Do you spend as much time writing as you want to? Hardly any writers do. Most of us have a lot of non-writing things going on. Depending on the stage of life you’re at, that might be education (school, university, or evening classes), a day job (full time...

One piece of common advice in the world of writing is “treat your writing as a business”. But like the idea of striving to write faster and faster ... is it really such an equivocally good idea after all? I have a writing business: for eight years now, my...

Do you struggle to find time to write? That’s probably a silly question: almost everyone I talk to does. And many writers (me included) go through months or years of waiting. Waiting to have a free weekend. Waiting until the kids are a little older....

If you’re a novelist, you’ve probably come across two different camps of people: the “plotters” and the “pantsers” (seat-of-the-pants writers). While there’s no right way to approach a novel, I’ve definitely started moving from the “pantser” to the...

Welcome to the revamped Aliventures! If you’re reading this by email or RSS, you might want to pop over to the site (aliventures.com) to see how it looks. I've got a new tagline for the site, up there in the banner (along with the rather huge picture of...

Sometimes, life is so busy that it’s a real challenge to find any writing time at all. Right now, my two delightful little ones take up a lot of time and energy. We’re also about to move house and writing time has been hard to come by. [Edit: I spent so long trying...

I’m back from maternity leave! In fact, I’ve been sort-of-back for over a month. But this post maybe explains why the blog has been so quiet... Kitty and Nick, May 2015 I’m going to take a shot in the dark and guess that you’re pretty busy. You don’t...

The past twelve months have been exciting and busy ones for me. Here are a few highlights: March 2013 – Kitty was born! I blogged about her a couple of months later, here. June 2013 – I opened the doors of Writers’ Huddle permanently – new members can now join at any...

(Image from Flickr by Rennett Stowe) For the last six weeks, I’ve had a straightforward weekly writing target to meet: 3,000 words on my novel. And for two of those six weeks, I failed. Of course, there have been plenty of times in the past when I’ve...

(Image from Flickr by wendysoucie.) Want to know the secret? There is no one true path. There is no one right way. Sure, some bestselling authors / writing tutors / self-proclaimed gurus might insist that their way is the way ... but it isn’t. If you’re a...

(Image from Flickr by juliejordanscott.) Ali’s note: A big welcome to Nick Thacker, who’s been zooming around the blogosphere recently with guest posts on tons of the big writing blogs I read. I’m thrilled to welcome him to Aliventures with some great...

Image from Flickr by Dave Stokes One of the biggest problems writers face (80% of Writers’ Huddle members said they struggle with this) is finding enough time to write. You’ve probably tried some of the usual advice – things like: Write for 20 minutes...

 Image from Flickr by fakelvis The real secret is that anyone can write a book. There’s no initiation ceremony. No dues to pay. You don’t need a special degree from a fancy school. Writing is for everyone, and this is your chance to scrawl your name...

More bump photos here. As you can probably tell from the photo above, I'll be having a baby soon (due date is 21st February). This is our first child; my husband and I are very much looking forward to welcoming her into the world. So I can concentrate on...

“This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it’s done. It’s that easy, and that hard.” - Neil Gaiman Maybe 2012 was a great writing year for you. Perhaps you launched a blog, took part in...