7 Steps to Recovering Writing Motivation After a Creative Setback

Welcome to “Ask the Coach.” As a writing coach, I answer questions from writers about making the work of writing happen, tackling craft, business, and personal questions along the way. (Have a question you’d like answered? Check the details at the end of the article about how to submit one.)

Today, I’m responding to a question about staying motivated and disciplined after receiving discouraging feedback.

I’m so glad you wrote in to ask. It’s a big part of my role as a writing coach to help writers navigate feedback and get back to writing smoothly and easily.

Here are my thoughts about how to handle setbacks and move forward:

First off, when you receive discouraging feedback — especially if it feels major — you need time to recover. This could mean taking a little time off from writing or switching to a different script to get some distance and perspective.

I’ll also mention that even positive or well-delivered, actionable feedback can take time to process — I find I need time to let ANY feedback percolate before I’m ready to put it to use.

Sometimes I’ve received feedback that has been downright biased, uninformed or has come from inexperienced writers. 

As a result, I’m extremely cautious about who I share my work with, particularly in early development stages. And even professional readers and story consultants can lack skills in the “bedside” manner department. Sometimes there's a genre, theme, or tone mismatch with a reader, too.

You may — with the new information based on this reader’s notes — realize this is not the reader for you and what you’re doing.

You might even need to process the feedback with a caring supporter, whether a fellow writer, coach, or therapist, depending on how it’s impacted you.

If it’s in the category of a “major setback,” as you’ve described, it may be worth talking to a creativity coach or therapist who understands the impacts of creative wounds and can help you clear them before they calcify into hardened armor or other creative blocks and paralysis.

If this is more of a minor blip on the radar, taking a weekend to get some space may well be enough.

Before you return to review the notes, reconnect with your earliest intentions for the story. What made you want to write it? What story do you want to tell? THAT’S where motivation comes from: Your passion, drive, interest, and caring for the story itself. What’s important to you about it? What do you love about it? What will happen inside you if you don’t write it or finish it, the way it deserves to be told?

You’re the writer of this script — you’re writing on spec! — so that means you are the final decision-maker. And staying true to yourself is your most likely path to writing the best possible script. 

Review each note and evaluate it as objectively as you can. Do you agree with it, or not? If not, can you see the underlying reason the reader gave the feedback (the “note beneath the note”)? And might there be a way you want to address it, or not?

Also — and this is important — check the feedback against your original intent. Is the reader trying to get you to tell the story they want to tell? Or are they helping you tell the story you want to tell? Not all readers (or audiences) will get or like your work, so one person’s feedback is not the be-all, end-all final referendum on your script.

Again, you get to decide. Analyze the feedback as objectively as you can and decide what to do with it, if anything.

As you work with the notes and decide what — if anything — to implement. Use this process to create a revision plan for your script. Having a specific plan for what you’ll do next is also a key part of staying motivated. Often writers can struggle to even sit down to work if they have the sense they don’t know the answers or what they should do next.

When implementing notes, for example, I like to start with the bigger changes first, so I don’t get caught in wordsmithing when I need to be restructuring.

Overall, as you recover, focus on building a consistent, regular writing practice. It’s the true foundation for staying “motivated and disciplined.” Habit and practice outperform all manner of other sticks and carrots we might invent for ourselves. 

Yes, you’ll have setbacks from time to time. The goal is to recover as graciously as you can and move back to what you were put here to do: telling your stories.

Warmly,

Jenna

We all face painful or challenging feedback as writers. Not everyone will like our work. The key is deciding if and how to use the feedback we receive for maximum effect after we’ve given ourselves time and space to recover so we can keep writing with clear hearts and minds.

Thank you for reading, and happy writing.

Screenwriters, what challenges do you run into that you'd love to see us address in our articles? Take our short survey here, submit your question to be answered anonymously via my online form here, or email me directly at askthecoach@calledtowrite.com. Look for answers to selected questions in my monthly “Ask the Coach” column on the third Thursday of the month.

Find me on Twitter @JennaAvery and Bluesky @jennaavery.bsky.social.