Why Writing Feels Difficult (& 3 Simple Changes That Will Fix It)

writing isnt hard. your process is defective.

Every writer imagines writer’s block happening in one of two ways. Either they simply aren’t creative enough that day, and the words refuse to arrive no matter how long they sit in front of the page, or they haven’t yet found the “right idea,” the one that will finally unlock momentum and make the next thousand words flow effortlessly.

The truth is usually much less dramatic, and therefore much more fixable.

In my experience, the main reason I stop writing is because I have, often without realizing it, made the process unnecessarily difficult for myself. Writing then begins to feel like resistance, and that resistance gets interpreted as a lack of motivation.

This is why your writing process can make or break the quantity and the quality of your writing.

Most of the difficulty you face when writing is often just a psychological bottleneck in disguise: your mind convincing itself to give up because it sees obstacles. But the obstacles are often the result of a path you have created for yourself.

If that’s the case, then the solution is not to wait for inspiration, and neither is it to force yourself to write.

You must identify where the process is breaking down. In practice, there are a few recurring patterns that consistently create this sense of being stuck, and once you recognize them, writing tends to become significantly more manageable.

Here’s how.

1. Stop always treating writing as a creative act. Sometimes it is a process of simply making decisions and problem-solving.

I hate to be the one to say this, as someone who romanticizes writing a lot.

Writing is often too mystified and not treated technically enough.

Don’t get me wrong, writing is overwhelmingly a cathartic, rejuvenating, invigorating process. However, there are certain times, when writing feels difficult because we refuse to see the importance of decision making and logical problem solving when writing.

Often times your so called ‘hard time writing’ can simply be fixed by resolving specific problems. Why does this character leave the room at this moment? What information does the reader need here? Why does this conversation feel flat? What is actually preventing the protagonist from achieving their goal in this scene?

Because often times you don’t feel like writing because you know that when you get to the page, you won’t be able to write unless you fix certain issues first. When you try to solve these issues as you write, or through the process of writing, the process naturally takes longer and takes a toll on your urge to write. A vicious cycle.

When writing is framed as a problem-solving exercise rather than a creative performance, the emotional pressure tends to decrease significantly.

So, to break the cycle, try to solve one specific uncertainty first, with no writing or story related stakes other than simply solving that particular problem. And then you can focus on producing good writing.

2. You are trying to write the story in the order it will be read, instead of the order it wants to be written.

This is a pretty common take, and yet I don’t agree with it most of the time. I prefer writing my stories linearly, and I don’t skip scenes. That, however, is a personal preference and everyone is allowed to have that preference. Of course, often times, your process may be broken because you are forcing yourself to write linearly, when you’re not a linear writer. You usually do not know the full shape of a story when you begin it. What you often do know is a specific moment, a scene, or a piece of dialogue that feels alive in your mind. But instead of starting there, many writers force themselves to begin at the beginning, which frequently means spending days writing transitional material that they are not emotionally invested in. And once you lose emotional investment, it becomes very easy to interpret that lack of engagement as “not feeling like writing,” when in reality you are simply not working on the part of the story that is actually interesting to you yet.

However, that is, again, a very common writing tip.

I’d like to go a step further and say that that writing non linearly can be not only a preference but also a tool. If you’re stuck on a scene or a point in the story, force yourself to expand upon or even write a scene that comes in way later. The scene your stuck on now begins to feel like a bridge that you must build. You know your destination, and that makes writing that scene a whole lot easier.

3. You are stopping at the wrong point in the process

There is also a less obvious but equally important issue that affects consistency, and it has to do with where you choose to stop writing.

Most writers tend to stop at the moment when they run out of momentum. They finish a scene, reach a natural pause, or lose clarity about what comes next, and interpret that as the correct stopping point. On the surface, this seems reasonable. You stop when the work is done.

But in practice, this often guarantees that every new writing session begins with friction. You sit down the next day facing a blank page, trying to reconstruct the direction of the story from scratch, and that initial reconstruction phase is where a large amount of procrastination quietly accumulates.

A more effective approach is to stop slightly before or after that point. Stop when you clearly know what happens next, or even when you are in the middle of writing a moment that you understand well enough to continue immediately the next day. Or, if you like to keep your momentum and finish the scene you’re writing, then write the next scene – a line, a skeleton, anything. Use the momentum from the scene you’ve finished to work on the next scene to setup for a better writing session tomorrow.

This changes the psychological structure of writing sessions. Instead of starting from zero each time, you are re-entering a thought that is already in motion.

It also has a subtle but important effect on your subconscious. When you leave a scene unfinished but clearly defined, your mind continues processing it in the background.

Why It Is Important To Fix Your Process.

Your writing process is like your home décor. You live in it. If your home and your process constantly agitate you, then you will grow a disliking for the activities that you carry out there. If you keep pushing through resistance every time, instead of working to fix the root cause of that resistance, then you begin to associate writing with resistance, even if the resistance is really only attached to specific sections of it.

Remember, your process doesn’t have to be perfect right now. Sometimes, writing will be difficult because of your personal life, mental health, burnout, or a story that needs to be shelved.

However, tweaking on your writing process will help solve a massive chunk of that “I cant write” feeling.

And isn’t that the fix we all need the most, even if only a portion of it is actually in your hands to fix.