“At its heart, this book offers a liberating proposal: don’t play the game as it’s currently defined. Walk away from algorithm worship, punishing release schedules, and the grind of selling at 99 cents to churn-hungry subscription readers. Instead, write what you want to write, at the pace that suits you, and charge a fair price for your work.”
Creative inertia is real. Whether you’ve stepped away from your novel for five minutes or five months, restarting always feels harder than continuing. It’s not a personal failing—it’s physics. Here’s how to beat the resistance and get back into flow, one “Just Start” at a time.
Most writers think they’re breaking down their tasks—but if you’re still staring at “Revise novel” on your to-do list and feeling stuck, you’ve got a project, not a task. Here’s how to break your work down into do-able chunks that actually get done.
What if, instead of waiting for those rare marathon writing sessions, you fit your writing into the cracks of your day—one or two hours at a time? Puzzle-Piece Scheduling is about breaking your writing into smaller chunks that still add up to real progress. It’s not about being perfect—it’s about being consistent. Even short sprints can keep your story warm and moving forward.
Mark Manson recently released a 4.5-hour video on how to stop procrastinating—which sounds like a great way to procrastinate for 4.5 hours. At The Productive Indie Fiction Writer, we’ve tackled this beast from every angle. This post pulls together some greatest hits, a few uncomfortably true quotes, and a flexible mindset to help you find your way around the monster.
There’s a question that haunts a lot of indie fiction writers, particularly after the third burned-out book in a series they don’t even want to read anymore:
Am I selling out if I quit this genre and write what I actually want to write?
Short answer: No, you’re not selling out. You’re probably saving your sanity.
Longer answer? Let’s get into it.
I haven’t posted here in a couple of weeks, and there’s a good reason for that. Actually, there are several.
Ah yes, that question. “Why do you write?”
It’s one of those that gets asked a lot—especially in writing forums, interviews, and on the back covers of literary memoirs, usually printed in italics for some reason. It can feel a bit… woo-woo. As if the answer should be sacred and profound. (“Because the Muse demands it, obviously.”)
But the truth? Your “why” is probably a lot more practical, changeable, and occasionally downright grubby than the question makes it sound.
So, shiny new laptop in hand, I reinstalled all my software. And, of course, Microsoft Word came back with all its default bells and whistles cheerfully intact—including the dreaded live spelling and grammar check. Outlook, OneNote, the rest of the MS Office gang… same story.
Online editing tools weren’t far behind, either. And if you’ve got a grammar extension active while you’re writing in a browser, you’ll get treated to an assault of blue double-underscores that scream “BAD GRAMMAR!” like a judgy primary school teacher.
Ever feel like a fraud? Like you’re just pretending to be a writer until someone finds out you’re not legit? Or maybe you keep calling yourself lazy, undisciplined, or “just not that good.”
Yeah. You’re not alone.
