When you’re struggling to write, try this simple shift.
Have you ever thought to yourself, This whole writing life is just way more complicated than I thought it was going to be.
Not only is there learning how to write a good story, novel, or poem, but then there’s the author platform and how do we market our books and how do we find readers and how do we get reviews and pretty soon, it all just feels overwhelming.
When it starts piling up, it’s easy to feel like maybe you’re just not cut out for all this after all.
I’ve been in that place more times than I can tell you.
But recently, I heard something that helped me step out of the overwhelm and back into something simpler and truer. With all the pressure and all the noise and all the things we think we have to do to be successful writers, there’s actually just one thing that writing asks of us.
Just one. And once you see it, the weight starts to lift.
When You’re Struggling to Write: A Shift From Russell Crowe
A little while ago, I caught an interview with the great actor Russell Crowe. He’s been doing press lately for his new film Nuremberg.
You may know him from the original Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, or Master and Commander. He’s a wonderful actor.
In this interview, Crowe was reflecting on what acting really is, what the work really asks of him. Not the fame or the recognition, but the actual doing of it—the craft.
At one point, he said something that just lodged itself in my brain, and it was this:
“The only thing you’re required to do as an actor is to give.”
That line hit me hard because he didn’t say perform or achieve or be perfect or impress or even entertain. He said give.
Then he described what that really means.
He talked about how on day 57 of an 80-day shoot, you haven’t slept and you’re not eating right and you’re bone-deep tired. And still, the only thing expected of you in that moment is to give.
Sound familiar?
We Do This as Writers Too
I think you know that feeling because we do that as writers too.
Then Crowe said this, which was even better:
“Once you see it like that and understand that it’s more of a calling than a job, you know, a lot of people who are like, you know, Miss Idaho Potato Festival, or think they’re handsome or whatever, they don’t understand what the job really requires. The camera is inanimate, and you have to learn to feed the camera.”
That stayed with me because writing is just like that. The page is inanimate. It’s not going to spark anything on its own. It just sits there, cold and silent.
We have to give something to it.
And that’s not performance or perfection or polish. It’s not some dazzling display of genius.
We just have to give who we are in that moment. Our authentic presence. Our truth.
That’s the deal. That’s the calling.
And once we can see it like that, instead of as a test or race or some impossible mountain we have to climb—as a calling that only ever asks us to give again and again, it changes how we come to the page.
Maybe more importantly, it changes what we expect from ourselves once we’re there.
So what does this actually look like for writers? What does it mean to give to the page, and how does that relate to being a good writer, especially if you’re tired or uncertain or you have a lot of self-doubt?
It’s probably simpler than you think.
When You’re Struggling to Write: Give Emotionally
Number one, we give emotionally.
Writing asks us to be present fully and emotionally with what’s happening on the page. And that’s not always easy.
If we’re tired or stressed out or tangled up in our own heads, it’s hard to drop down into the world of our characters.
But we have to be willing to feel what they’re feeling and to stand beside them in the scene they’re in.
Imagine a friend calling you after they’ve lost someone really close to them, or maybe they’ve gotten a horrible health diagnosis and they really need someone in that moment, so they call you.
If you show up distracted or preoccupied, they’re going to feel it.
But if you can set your own stuff aside, even just briefly, and be fully present with them, it’ll make all the difference to both of you.
I think writing is like that.
It’s about offering a moment of real presence, meeting the work with whatever emotional truth your characters need at that moment, setting everything in your life aside for just the time that you’re going to devote to the page.
And if all you can give is 15 minutes, then that’s what you give.
But it’s 15 minutes of true emotional presence without all the other stuff in the way, which is worth a lot more than 30 minutes of distracted effort.
This is part of the job.
To give emotionally to the story, the characters, and the page, selflessly and as best we can.
This is one answer to how to be a good writer: you offer your emotional truth to the work you’re doing today.
When You’re Struggling to Write: Give Your Energy in Small, Steady Ways
There’s a kind of quiet stamina that writing requires.
If you’ve written a complete novel, you know what I’m talking about.
When your schedule is packed, your mind is full, and your body just wants a break, you show up and you give.
This kind of giving is about energy.
I think of this like Frodo and Sam and their long journey to destroy the ring in The Lord of the Rings. It’s a long, difficult slog.
They get tired and discouraged, and at some points they feel like they’re never going to make it. But they just keep going.
I think that’s what writing a book is like.
We just keep showing up and giving whatever energy we have.
All we have to have is a willingness to offer something, anything, to the work at that point.
Even if all you do is move a scene forward by a few lines or jot down one more sentence that might not survive the next edit, that effort still counts because it still moves the story.
We sometimes forget that these small repeated tasks build momentum. Showing up with whatever you have to give, even if it’s not much, is still a kind of generosity because it keeps the story awake and keeps you connected to it.
Over time, that consistency starts to gather into something substantial.
So another layer of how to be a good writer is this steady willingness to offer your imperfect, tired energy to the story so it can keep breathing.
When You’re Struggling to Write: Give Your Attention
There’s one more kind of giving that I don’t think we talk about enough.
In a world that’s constantly pulling us in a dozen different directions at once, attention has become one of the rarest things we can offer.
And yet, writing depends on it.
It asks us to notice and to listen and to stay with something long enough to see what it’s really trying to say.
Sometimes that means paying close attention to a character, to what they want or maybe what they’re not saying or how they’re changing over the course of the story.
Other times it means watching your own reactions and following the thread that makes you feel alive so that you can actually get the writing done in the time you have.
This kind of giving doesn’t always look perfect.
You might spend half an hour staring at a paragraph or walking around thinking about a line, but that attention is part of the work.
It’s how the story starts to trust you. It’s how you stay tethered to something deeper than the checklist of what you’re supposed to be doing.
Even when you’re too tired to write or too overwhelmed to revise, you can still give your attention to the story.
You can keep it flickering in the back of your mind. You can stay close enough to it that you can still continue to move it forward.
So, part of how to be a good writer is learning to offer your attention in these small, persistent ways, even when the rest of your life feels loud.
When You’re Struggling to Write: Focus on Giving What You Have
After all of that, what does it really come down to?
What’s the one thing we need to do as writers, no matter where we are in the process?
All writing is asking of you is to give the best of yourself that you can in that moment. That’s it.
Whether you’re writing a new scene, finishing a newsletter, figuring out how to share your book, or stumbling through a draft that refuses to cooperate, you’re giving.
There’s a kind of sacrifice in this.
When I think over Russell Crowe’s quote, I think that’s what’s at the core of it.
No matter how you feel in the moment or what else is going on in your life, when you come to the page, you give to it.
That is the sacrifice in that moment.
You’re willing to come to the page and sacrifice whatever energy, attention, and emotional presence you have to this story that you’re creating.
Later, that giving goes to the reader and to the world.
And that’s your only job.
It’s not to beat yourself up if the book doesn’t hit a bestseller list.
Your job is not to go viral.
Your job is not to pretend to be someone that you’re not.
Your job is simply to give, to meet the work with what you have, to finish the thing and share it as best you can and then to keep going with the next one.
When You’re Struggling to Write: It’s Not About the Numbers
This isn’t about chasing approval or hustling for validation, although many of us thought that way at first. I was one of them.
But after doing this for a long time, there’s a kind of quiet peace that comes when you realize that the real joy is in the writing itself.
The more we’re willing to come to the page and sacrifice and give, the more of that joy we feel as we go.
I think that’s what Russell Crowe was talking about, because at the end of the day, this is about service.
This is how we are fulfilling our purpose, or at least part of our purpose, in service to life in general.
We’re showing up with whatever heart and energy and attention we can manage, and we’re offering it again and again and again.
And I think if you keep that in mind, if you stay focused on giving instead of proving or performing, you’ll start to realize how much of the rest is really just noise.
What matters is what you have to give and that you give it. Because when we treat writing as an act of giving, it changes the energy completely.
In a way, it makes it easier, calmer, and less stressful.
There’s less pressure.
We’re just there to give what we have to give that day.
As long as we come to the page and we do it, then we’re good.
Note: If today’s message struck a chord and you’ve been wondering why you even write at all or whether any of it really fits with who you are, my book Your Writing Matters might be exactly what you need right now.
Featured image by gpointstudio on Freepik.