Hello and welcome back to the part of my blog where I document my journey as a writer, and write about how much I both love and hate writing.

It’s been a bumpy couple of months. There have been many reasons – global pandemic notwithstanding – why I haven’t really felt like blogging, and writing itself became a battle I was fighting (and losing) every day.

The good news is that I am coming to the end of my short story collection that will be submitted as my final project for my Creative Writing MA. My dissertation is also nearing the end, although I still need to do a few tweaks and write that important thing called the conclusion.

I’m sure I’m not the only one to say that everything has felt much more difficult during lockdown. As the weeks went on, I could see my motivation draining away slowly in front of my eyes. When all you have is time, sometimes it’s even more difficult to make time for what is important – or to split your time in a productive way. I know a big part of my lack of motivation has been the fact that I have been working on the same collection and themes for the past two years, and I could feel myself desperate for a change, but not quite sure what that could be or how to facilitate it.

So, in order to boost my inspiration, I have challenged myself to write a poem every day in July. I know a lot of writers use ‘morning pages’ as a way to tap into that early morning sleepy creativity, and I thought that making my own spin on it could hopefully be a way to motivate myself, and start feeling like a writer again – or one that writes about something a bit different to my short stories.

I’ll be the first to admit that my poems aren’t very good. They’re little snippets of my thoughts and life and are totally meant as a way for me to process things, as opposed for any kind of artistic purposes. But I’ve already felt the benefit of forcing myself to look inside myself and put physical pen to paper once a day. And I’ve enjoyed it too! I’m not hoping for a miracle, but I am hoping to kick start something within me. And to write for myself – which I think that is always the key to being happy in your writing.

Have any other writers tried morning papers? I’m usually not very good at writing prompts, but having five minutes to myself and my thoughts every morning has been a nice way to start the day. Let me know if you have any similar tricks and routines to boost creativity.