Anna Mackenzie on Anna Mack's Stack

Yay that's awesome Sally, can't wait to hear how it goes for you! I lacked inspiration a LOT, so if you're feeling that way then don't worry it's completely normal (or at least it was for me). There are a few things that I found helpful: - Start capturing interesting ideas somewhere (I wrote about this in a previous post called Notice, Note-Take, Curate, Create). I'd start really simply, either using a physical notebook or the Notes app on your phone. Whenever I read or hear or think something interesting, I note it down, no matter how small. This way, if you're stuck then you have a bunch of ideas to draw from. - In order to have outputs (ie. writing) I need a lot of inputs (reading, listening to podcasts, thinking time etc.). On the days you're really struggling I'd dedicate 5-10 minutes of your 30 minutes to reading an article or a few pages of a book, and then use that as inspiration for the rest of your writing time. - Chat GPT is awesome for coming up with writing prompts. - I released ALL pressure from publishing anything last year. I wasn't writing to share or publish, it was purely for me to play around, experiment and build a habit. Having a more fun and playful approach really helped release any blockers. - Acknowledge there will be days when you don't feel like it and you're over it, and that's totally normal and ok. I remember on one of those days for me I wrote a letter to Writer's Block. It was so silly and not that great a piece of writing, but it didn't matter, because I stuck to the 30 minutes. - I also originally set end of Jan as my first milestone. Even though I wanted to do it the entire year, that felt really overwhelming, so getting to the end of Jan was the real original goal. Once I got there, the next goal was end of Feb. Once I got there, I felt confident I could keep going. I hope this helps xx