Remember that writing is like a river, it follows certain patterns and its behaviour depends on the rainy and dry seasons. The difference is, with a real river you have a constant and predictable pattern, but with writing, the seasons can change any time. So the best you can do is wait for the rainy season, and during the dry spells take your mind off it, that will speed up its demise. Here are some tips to successfully wait for it:

Don’t rattle your brain too hard if you get stuck, writing must come naturally, if you want write a couple of sentences without dwelling on them, sometimes they can lead to something great. But if you don’t feel they are right, move on, write another sentence or stop altogether.

Don’t lose your head if writing doesn’t flow, read something instead, or go outside, talk with friends, party, you never know what will inspire you back to writing.

If the dry spell goes on for too long, then maybe you ought to read your own past work, if it continues, then it IS time to stop waiting for it, write just for the sake of writing, eventually something might come out.

That is all, I think, hope you find it youseful, cheers.

If you like to plan before you write, then stick to that every time. Once you start writing you have to stop planning, and if you think you left something out, you can always edit your work at the end.

If you are not much of  a planner then just go with the flow, stick pen to paper and go along. You’ll be surprised how great some unplanned texts can be.

You don’t have to use everything you wrote. Sometimes you’ll get a fantastic text with some paragraphs that show as evident intruders, delete them and move on.

If you get any thoughts of a spinoff, don’t abandon your original story, stick to it and save the other idea for later. If you think they could contrast well, then you can always merge them later. Don’t digress.

Don’t worry too much about grammar and spelling. That is what revision is for (once you are done).

I hope you find something in here to your use, cheers.

Trying too hard can be done in many ways. Maybe you use too much jargon, or you use too many adjectives. It may also have no reflection whatsoever in the words themselves. Maybe it takes you a very long time to finish a story because you revise it too much, or you are too ambitious and are not happy with the result. Whichever you are doing, or none, these tips may be of help:

Keep your choice of words simple, or at least, use words you use on a daily basis (unless too coloquial). Don’t try to impress your readers with your awesome knowledge of vocabulary, they may very well end up hating you for it.

Don’t overdescribe. It is always fantastic for a reader when they can see the characters or the landscapes you talk about, but sometimes writers get so carried away that they forget about the story they are supposed to tell. What’s more, descriptions may bore if they get too long, or the reader may get lost in the storm of adjectives.

Be careful not to be too ambitious with your story. It is just not possible to write something evey critic in the world will love, so relax, and keep it simple. Write something you would read and forget about the rest (this only applies to creative writing, not to academic papers).

When you revise, do make sure there aren’t any mistakes, but try to keep the changes to the storyline or to the basic structure of sentences, paragraphs, and even chapters, to a minimum. Otherwise, you might end up caught in a vortex of fresh ideas you can apply. Remember, revising too much is exactly how you erase your soul’s esscence from your work.

And the most important, always hold in the highest regard everything you write. Don’t worry it’s not good enough or if anyone will like it, have faith in your soul. Worrying is just another path to over revising, and it is also stressful, so stop, breathe, and write.

Cheers