When Writing Stop While You’re Ahead

Now at face value this piece of advice makes no sense especially if you’re like me when writing. If you don’t get out the idea it will just disappear and you’ll be left to search and search for it and never find it, but this philosophy has saved me from writer’s worst nightmare: Writer’s block.

Photo by Esther Jiao on Unsplash

The idiom, ‘stop while you’re ahead’, is kinda adjacent to what I was talking about. It expresses the idea that continuing would ruin what you already have going. Now you may be thinking, what does any of this have to do with writing and writer’s block? Let me paint a picture for yah. You’re writing, and you feel the ideas flowing and the clock strikes 12 and you have work in the morning and an appointment, but the ideas won’t stop coming. You figure out the perfect dialogue so you keep writing and then go to bed. Then the next day when you come back and sit down where now that momentum is gone and it takes a while to get back.

Photo by Super Snapper on Unsplash

But stopping and saving that thing you want to write so badly for the next writing session can be a useful way of always being in the momentum of writing because you get excited about what you’re writing and want to finish it.

Give it a try and see what you think especially if you feel yourself getting into a writing rut. Thank you for reading.

Here’s an affiliate link for a list of books I recommend:

Resources for Writing Well

Now go forth and write, I believe in you!