7 Common Excuses for Not Writing

“He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.” ~Benjamin Franklin

Stop making excuses, and start writing your story.

People make excuses for not doing things they don’t want to do. Writers with their creative minds can make a plethora of excuses for not writing.

While working in retail many years ago several of my fellow employees and I were sent to management classes so we could move up the ranks and become the manager of one of their stores.

One of the first things they taught us in class was, “Excuses are reasons for failure.”

That phrase has been stuck in my head for many years now, and it does have a ray of truth to it.

If you are just making excuses for your lack of progress then you already know why you have failed to write your story.

You are not a failure at writing, you just have to believe you are a writer.

Let’s go over 7 common excuses for not writing.

1: Fear

Fear is the biggest reason many people put off doing things, especially fear of criticism.

It doesn’t matter what you do, or how well you do it, there will always be haters around to belittle you and tell you, “You Suck!”

Don’t worry about them and their opinions. They are just bullies who have an inferiority complex who are jealous of your passion. Imagine how pathetic their life must be if they can only criticize others. They are cowards who can only criticize you from behind their keyboard.

For all you know, your troll could be a 12-year-old child playing with mommy’s computer. Are you going to let a twelve year old child dictate your destiny?

Let go of your fears of criticism, and choose your own adventure.

Write your story for you, not to appease your haters.

2: No Time

Lack of time is another excuse.

Don’t think you have no time to write, believe there is no time like now to write.

There are 24 hours in a day, and seven days a week to live our lives. That gives us 168 hours a week to get our writing done. You say you work 40 hours a week. Okay, that leaves you 128 hours a week to write.

It takes time to commute to work, okay I will give you an hour a day for that. That leaves 121 hours for you to write. You need your beauty sleep? Okay princess, six hours a night seven days a week for sleeping still leaves you with 79 hours to write.

Awww… you need eight hours of sleep. Well as Arnold Schwarzenegger says, “Just sleep faster.”

Is lack of time the problem, or your poor choices about what to do with your time every day that is stopping you from living your dreams?

3: No talent

If you believe your ability to spell correctly, and your proper use of grammar isn’t good enough for you to be a writer than consider yourself fortunate to be living in modern times. The word processing software we have today has virtually eliminated spelling errors, and can even find basic grammar errors.

There is a software program called Grammarly that you can access online. You can use their free grammar checker tool right on their website. They have a toolbar extension you can download, and a premium package as well.

Grammarly will show some of your errors in their free checker which is very helpful, and point out the number of other errors found, but finding out what they are is only available to premium members.

It is worth your time to run your article, or story through their free checker. You might even find their premium service is worth it as well.

Even the best authors will make mistakes in their writing. That is why they write the first draft, then edit it, and then edit it again.

Publishers have editors to look over an author’s story before it gets published. If well-known published authors make mistakes in their writing, don’t expect yourself to be perfect.

Let go of your thoughts of imperfection, and just write.

4: Too many distractions

Life is full of distractions. The internet is a big cause of these distractions.

The thing that matters most is what you choose to do in your free time. What is your priority in life?

Many will choose to play instead of work as it is more enjoyable, but playtime will not get your story written. I know social media, games, and videos are a great draw to distract our minds from our goals.

We will always make time for what we want to do the most. When we want to write more than we want to play, we will choose to write first, we will choose to write above everything.

Writing isn’t just putting words down for others to read, it is creating a work of art, something to be proud of. Some people have even made a good living from their writing, and you can as well, if you make writing your priority.

Practice writing every day, make it a habit, make it a priority, and soon writing your story will be your preferred distraction above everything else.

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs did not build their businesses by allowing distractions to dominate their daily activities. They made building their businesses the top priority above everything, and their results spoke for themselves.

Is writing your top priority?

Do you want to create through your writing as bad as you want to breathe?

5: Too tired

We all experience that brain fog when we first wake up from the last remnants of sleep known as sleep inertia.

According to Dolly Parton part of waking up, and overcoming that groggy feeling is…

Tumble outta bed and I stumble to the kitchen
Pour myself a cup of ambition
Yawn and stretch and try to come to life
Jump in the shower and the blood starts pumpin'
According to a certain coffee company, “The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup.”

In the top section of this article, I mentioned working in retail. I worked overnight for many years. When working the graveyard shift it is common to have waves of exhaustion overcoming you. You will feel that you are ready to collapse, but stopping and giving up was not an option.

We could only ignore our feelings of tiredness, and keep moving forward to get the work done. Soon we all found that we had a burst of energy called a second wind that enabled us to complete our task and finish our work.

Second wind Wikipedia.

How difficult is it to sit down and type words into a computer, compared to physical labor?

Writing is not just sitting there doing nothing. Your brain is very active and focused while you perform an exquisite ballet across the keyboard, but it is not physically demanding.

The only real problem with spending a prolonged time sitting down in front of your computer is your body getting cramped up and sore. Give yourself a break by going for a walk, and use that time to allow your creative energy to awaken.

6: Don’t know what to write about

We often blame writer’s block for our inability to write. I recently wrote an article on How to overcome writer’s block.

If you don’t know what to write about, just start writing, and your ideas will start flowing.

Think about a dream that you recently had, and write about it. Try to remember it the best you can, and embellish rest with your creativity.

Think about a situation that occurred in your life in the past, but rewrite your story so that it progresses the way you want it to, and ends with the conclusion you choose. I am sure you have countless life experiences that you wish you could rewrite. Stop thinking about them, and start writing.

7: My work will never get published for others to read

Amazon has made self-publishing easy with their KDP program. Now anybody can write and self-publish a book for sale to customers worldwide.

Never before has it been easier for someone to be a successful writer.

Believe in yourself, do the work, and nothing can stop you.

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