The Magic Cookie Method of Writing Motivation

There is a point in nearly every novel where writing begins to feel like trudging through wet concrete in boots two sizes too small.

You sit down to write. You stare at the screen. You rearrange your pens. You make tea. You answer email. You remember, with startling urgency, that the spice rack could really use alphabetising.

You tell yourself you have writer’s block. But most of the time, I don’t think that’s what’s happening. Most of the time, we aren’t blocked because we suddenly forgot how to write. We’re blocked because we don’t know where we’re going.

We’ve lost the trail.

And when you don’t know what you’re writing towards, every scene feels harder than it should.

You Need Something to Write Up To

What pulls you through a novel is not discipline. Not really. It’s desire.

You need a scene ahead of you that you desperately want to write. The confrontation. The first kiss. The betrayal. The terrible revelation. The dragon attack. The bit where Aunt Mildred finally snaps and poisons everyone at the church bake sale.

Whatever it is, you need that scene sitting out there in the distance, waving at you. Because then you aren’t writing Chapter Eight for the sake of Chapter Eight.

You’re writing Chapter Eight because Chapter Eleven contains the scene you cannot wait to get to.

That scene becomes your reward. Your cookie. Your magic cookie.

Why We Get Stuck

When I get stuck in a story, it is almost always because of one of two things:

1. I don’t know what happens next.
2. I don’t have anything exciting to write up to.

The first problem is a plotting problem. The second is a motivation problem. And often the two are tangled together.

If you don’t know where the story is heading, there is no momentum. Every sentence feels heavier. Every scene becomes a chore. You start wondering if perhaps you should do something sensible instead, like clean the oven or take up tax accounting.

But once you know there is a scene coming that you want to write, suddenly the whole book begins to move again.  You can feel yourself being pulled forward.

The Scene That Pulls You Through

The funny thing is that the scene doesn’t even have to be very far ahead. It might only be three chapters away. It might be tomorrow’s writing session. It might simply be one line of dialogue you cannot wait to put in someone’s mouth.

Sometimes that’s enough.

I’ve had days where I pushed through several difficult scenes simply because I knew there was one delicious scene waiting on the other side of them. One scene with tension, or emotion, or utter disaster. One scene where all the boring-but-necessary setup would finally pay off.

That anticipation got me to the desk. Not discipline, nor professionalism. Certainly not the vague knowledge that “I should probably work on my novel.”

The cookie got me there.

This Works for Pantsers Too

Outliners may be feeling smug at this point. “Obviously,” they say, polishing their colour-coded spreadsheets. “I always know what I’m writing up to.”

And yes, if you outline, you probably do have several scenes in mind that are carrying you through the story. But this works just as well for pantsers.

Even if you do not know exactly what is going to happen in the novel, there is usually still a scene ahead that excites you. Maybe you know your detective is eventually going to confront the killer.

Maybe you know two characters are heading toward a kiss, a breakup, or a fistfight in a rainstorm.

Maybe you have only the vaguest idea of the plot, but you can already see one scene vividly in your head and you cannot wait to get there.

That is enough.

You do not need the whole map.  You just need one bright point in the distance.

The Strange Creatures Who Write Out of Order

Now, if you are one of those writers who leaps all over the manuscript writing random scenes out of order, this may not work in quite the same way.

You know the type. Chapter Twenty-Seven on Monday. The epilogue on Tuesday. A scene from the middle of the book six weeks later. Bits of dialogue scribbled in seventeen notebooks and one receipt from the supermarket.

No judgement. Well, a little judgement. But even if you write that way, you can still use the magic cookie method.

Just don’t write the exciting scene immediately. Save it. Keep it waiting for you.

Deliberately withhold that scene from yourself and let it become the reward for getting through the scenes that need writing first.  Dangle it in front of yourself like a cookie on a string.

Cruel? Perhaps. Effective? Astonishingly so.

It Works Outside Fiction Too

I discovered recently that this trick works for non-fiction and unpleasant tasks as well.  I had hours of magazine work to do. Perfectly respectable work. Useful work. Work that involved writing, technically.

But it was not fiction. And fiction is my first love.

What got me through those hours of magazine work was knowing that when I finished, I could finally go work on my novel. More specifically, I could finally go write that one scene that had been quietly beckoning to me all day.

That scene pulled me through the boring work. The cookie worked again. Which confirms that procrastination is rarely about laziness. It is about not having anything tempting enough waiting on the other side.

Try It

If your writing has stalled, don’t immediately assume you need more discipline, a better routine, or a new notebook that cost more than your weekly grocery bill.

Instead, ask yourself: What scene am I writing up to?

If you do not have one, do not invent something random just to have a target. Usually, if there is no scene, beat, or moment pulling you forward, it means your plotting has not yet uncovered the real heat of the story.

Possibly, if we are being uncomfortably honest, you do not yet know why you are writing this book at all beyond, “I need to get the next book in the series out before my readers wander off and adopt another author.”

And that is exactly why you are trudging through the pages. So stop.

Read over your outline. If you are a pantser, think through the story as you know it so far.

Look for the heat.

Find the one scene, beat, or moment that seems to sit there glowing and whispering, This is going to be so good when I finally get to write it. 

Usually, that moment is full of emotion. The confrontation. The confession. The betrayal. The revenge. But not always. Sometimes it is a tiny thing.

I have written eagerly toward a single revealing action by the hero. I have positively drooled over writing the moment someone finally gets their revenge. I have even longed to write a quiet scene with no dialogue at all, just a sunset and everything it means. 

Very recently, I wrote the last two books of a very long series back-to-back and in record time. My cookie?  The author note that came at the very end.  I kept re-writing it in my mind, but I would not let myself write it out now, or even scribble notes.  I just let it drift, out there in the distance, beckoning.  In fact, I knew even as I started the series that this author note would finish it up, but it didn’t take on gravitas (heat) until I was only two books away from getting to write it. 

It does not matter what your cookie is.  Only that it matters to you. There is almost always one somewhere in the story.  Find it.  Think about it.

Turn it over in your mind. Let yourself enjoy it a little. Play the scene out in your head while you are washing dishes, standing in queues, sitting at traffic lights, or lying in bed trying to sleep.

Lovingly torment yourself with how wonderful it is going to be to write.

Then sit down and get to work.

Because now you are not pushing words uphill with a stick. Now you are following the smell of cookies.

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