Recapture Your Storytelling Joy

Find the fun and fuel your creative drive

What brings you joy in your writing or other creative work?

Many of us start writing because it’s fun to create and tell stories. It’s fun when

• We dream up interesting characters, settings, and situations.

• We watch the scenes play out in our heads.

• We tell people about our story and receive encouragement.

• We write the scenes and it feels like being immersed in a good movie.

• Our characters talk to us and tell us what they will or will not do.

• The story seems to materialize on its own as we write.

For a lot of us, it doesn’t stay this way. It becomes hard work to finish the book when

• Inspiration takes a vacation.

• The plot ties itself up in knots with no clear way forward.

• We can’t decide between one option or another.

• The characters stop speaking to us.

• Edits and critiques keep coming back with problems to fix.

• The book’s problems are so big we need to start over and rewrite almost everything.

The pressure to release a “good book” can knock the fun right out of us.

All of the hard work is necessary to finish and publish a book, but it can kill our motivation and creativity if we stop having fun entirely.

How can you recapture your storytelling joy?

If you are in a part of the book writing or publishing process that you don’t enjoy, could you find some extra time to have some creative fun with a different story, or even a different type of storytelling or art?

For me, I have found this fun in creating tabletop roleplaying game adventures and running them. I don’t have any ambition to be a great game master or for the adventures to be unique or amazing. I don’t want to publish them, either, and that might be the thing that frees me the most.

It’s okay if there are plot holes and clichés in my rpg stories as long as everyone at the table is having fun. It takes me back to a simpler storytelling joy, the kind I had in childhood when my friends and I would imagine and act out stories together.

I didn’t run any tabletop rpgs last year, and the work of revising my novel weighed me down. Now I’m creating a new rpg adventure and rediscovering that fun and joy. This, in turn, fuels me to want to write another novel.

This Easter season, give yourself permission to play and have fun with your writing or other creative pursuits.

What brings you joy in your creative work? Share in the comments!

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Thank you for reading! If you’re new here, I’m Katelin Cummins, a Catholic writer, book coach, gamer, and fantasy fan. If you would like to know more about what I write, check out this post. If you want help planning, writing, or revising your novel or nonfiction book, check out my services on my website.

Events

The Catholic Writers Conference Live is coming up!

April 29 - May 1, 2025 in Naperville, IL

I will be running a Meals with Mentors table about planning and outlining your next book and I am also coordinating pitch sessions. I hope to see you there!