How to Start a Writing Career after a Break? 16 Powerful Tips
How long have you been away from writing?
Do you miss the old days when writing was fun for you?
There may be many reasons for you to leave your career behind (personal or professional). But, we have to admit, getting back to writing after a break can be the hardest thing for many people.
So, in this article, we will discuss some major hurdles writers face during starting their writing career after a break and how to overcome these.
Get Yourself Mentally Ready for Re-writing
Are you mentally ready to start writing again?
You should ask this question to yourself before you start your writing career after a break. You may be wondering why you should focus on mentally before rewriting. The answer is that your mental health is most important in starting anything.
Here’s a quick tip to get yourself mentally ready:
1- Change your working environment:
Do you live in a house where the noise of children and other members of the family can’t make you concentrate on your work? Then it’s time to change this environment for the betterment of concentration. Shifting yourself from a noisy to a silent environment is helpful?
This could be a library or some other place where distractions are less.
2- Don’t take the guilt for yourself:
Taking the guilt of quitting writing or not giving yourself a chance is the reason many writers feel hard to restart. Just forget about the past and believe in your strength, abilities to start writing again. Remember, you have your best version.
3- Spend some time with nature:
You may hear many times that spending time with nature can help you a lot mentally and physically. It is also true here that when you spend time with nature, it heals your mind and keeps you away from distractions.
Moreover, it produces new ideas for writing too. So, if you’re out of ideas and seek creativity, then spend time with nature.
4- Take a Healthy Diet:
Make sure to take a healthy diet and avoid junk food. It’s important to eat healthy food that makes your brain work quickly. Add healthy food to your diet, including green vegetables, pulses, eggs, etc.
5- Exercising:
If you want yourself to be mentally strong before doing any task or writing. You need exercising to heal your body before doing a task. Exercising daily can keep you mentally fresh and motivated before you restart your writing career.
6 Tips for Restarting a Writing Career after a Break
Restarting a writing career after a break, whether it’s short or long, can be cumbersome. It needs you mentally as well as physically strong to get back you on the right track. Here are some tips to keep in mind if you think about restarting your writing career after a break.
1- Making your Writing Schedule
As writers, all of us know the importance of a writing schedule that puts us on the right track. This is the major secret to becoming a great writer to getting yourself on a writing schedule.
Making a good writing schedule acts as an asset for many writers and when you are about to restart your writing career. Then, you should know that it’s important to keep all your writing activities on track.
These days lots of AI websites are introduced that can help you in your writing or writing skills. Some of these are ChatGPT, which can give you ideas about the topic to write and another one is Grammarly to proofread your document.
2- Establish a Reading Habit:
Establishing a reading habit is important for any writer (whether you are a newbie or looking to restart your career.)
Remember, “Good writers are also good readers.” If you can look back to any writer’s secret, then you find that they read a lot. The more you read, the more you get to know about things.
3- Revisit your Previous Work:
Revisit your previous work and see if your writing is worth reading for readers. After all, this was the writing that brought you so many appreciations in the past and you spent hours on this.
Moreover, revisiting your previous work gives you the enthusiasm to start again. It helps you find which writing skills of yours need brushing.
4- Start/Restart your blog:
When you get back to the old writing routine, then it’s good to show your previous work to the world. There’s no better option than to start/restart your blog to share your work with people and add your new writing to it that brings you, clients.
5- Join the Writers Community:
A Writer’s Community will lead you as well as show where you make mistakes. There’s so much to learn, share and adapt to this environment. After joining this, you find out a writer in you again that might be lost for some reason.
The writer community keeps you up-to-date and inspires you to re-start writing. You’ll be expected to attend webinars, Podcats, meetings, a personal session on writing, and helping other young writers with their work.
6- Start working on projects:
Start or return to a project can be tough after you have a gap. Take some time for yourself and your brain to bring your past writer into the present situation.
Start writing for journals, agencies, and guest blogs. This will allow you to work for others and bring money too. You can start freelancing in writing on various freelance networks.
Various hurdles during re-starting writing career & how to overcome these?
Starting or restarting something is never easy, as it takes your test to every level. If you are planning to start writing again, then it’s obvious that you encountered various hurdles during this.
Let’s see what type of hurdles various writers face during re-starting their careers.
1- Writer’s Block:
Writer’s block is a situation that is originally associated with writing, in which a writer or author is unable to write something new or faces a slowdown in creativity.
Writer’s block is not a result of lacking creativity and writing skills, but it is when you feel difficult to concentrate and write.
Your brain might be foggy, and you don’t know what to write.
Solution: takes a break, exercise, and read as much as you can.
2- Busy schedule:
For most writers, finding time from their busy schedules is one of the biggest challenges. You may have other professions or responsibilities.
Solution: Time Management and scheduling can help you in overcoming this hurdle. This doesn’t mean you should deny yourself from your responsibilities, personal life, or sleep. It means you should learn to re-schedule your time or manage it effectively.
3- Lack of creativity:
This is almost every writer’s hurdle, especially when you re-start writing. You are out of creativity now and struggle to bring creativity to your writing.
Solution: The only best solution to overcome this is to read other’s blogs, articles. Explore & research what is trending in your field.
4- Competition:
Competition is common these days, and you can see it in every field. There are many writers who have experience of years and continue writing.
Some writers accept the same project for only $20, which you may offer at $50.
Solution: Step into this world and make the most out of it. Don’t be afraid of competition, even welcome it. Remember, more competition, more opportunities.
5- Fear of Rejection by Clients:
Many of the writers who start their writing career after a gap have this fear the most. Rejection by clients and explaining their gap can be cumbersome for you. You may fear not getting real projects anymore.
Solution: To overcome this fear of rejection, you have to practice more, advance your writing skills to current trends. Most importantly, believe in yourself.
You just need to brush up on your skills and keep faith in yourself.
In the end, I just want to say there is no better time to start writing again. “STOP THINKING & START WRITING.” Hope you find this helpful for yourself.