How to Pick Up Your Writing Where You Left Off

JeannettedeBeauvoir
The Startup
Published in
4 min readNov 2, 2019

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Steve Johnson for Unsplash

How do you face that blank page, day after day, with curiosity and enthusiasm rather than fear and dread? How do you begin each writing session with a sense of flow, of continuity, of creativity?

Different writers have taken different approaches to answering those questions. “I need an hour alone before dinner, with a drink, to go over what I’ve done that day,” writes Joan Didion. “I spend this hour taking things out and putting other things in. Then I start the next day by redoing all of what I did the day before, following these evening notes.” On the other hand, Tennessee Williams always had two or three pieces of writing going at the same time; each day he’d decide which one inspired him most to work on it that day.

What this is really about, of course, is momentum. You know the feeling when you have it — that burst of energy, that sense of being on the right track, the way the words just come to you. And you know, too, how it feels when you lose it, which happens more often than most of us want to admit.

So doing whatever you can do to establish that momentum is obviously one of your writing goals. Facing that blank page with courage and — dare I say it? — delight would be the greatest gift you could give yourself. Being able to come back to your work refreshed and ready will improve both your writing and your disposition. And of course there is no prescription that will work for everyone. But over time I’ve found some that work for me, for my students, and for my clients, and with a little luck you’ll find one of them works for you!

  • The day before, decide where you’re going next. Hemingway said to never end one sheet of paper and start a new one unless it’s the middle of an incomplete sentence — a clear momentum driver. You can have a figurative incomplete sentence by leaving off in the middle of something — a thought, a scene, a description, a bit of dialogue.
  • Work every day. Time is not your friend. Leaving something off on a Tuesday and getting back to it on Friday isn’t going to do much for flow. It doesn’t matter how much time you have: even ten minutes writing in the midst of a busy day can keep you in touch.
  • Don’t come to your blank page empty-handed: have a plan. Of course plans go astray, but they…

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JeannettedeBeauvoir
The Startup

Bestselling novelist of mystery and historical fiction. Writer, editor, & business storyteller at jeannettedebeauvoir.com.