How to Return to Writing After a Long Hiatus

Getting back into writing can be daunting. Life happens, and sometimes a writer can go for years — even decades — without creating anything of note. After not penning a word of fiction for over a decade, author Jordan Riley Swan decided to come back to writing with a bang, publishing numerous novels every year under the Story Garden Publishing banner.

In this tell-all, he shares his tips for reviving that creative spark.

1. Don’t Let Regret Stop You

“In high school, I remember doing a cooperative story with somebody, and their writing was so quantum leaps ahead of my own that it literally shook me to the point where I didn’t want to write anymore. It intimidated me. I thought, I’ll never be that good.

So, through my teenage years, even though I really wanted to write, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it because I knew I would never be as good as this person who was in freaking high school with me. It was probably a good seven years before I finally decided to write something, and what I wrote was inspired by a role-playing game I was playing with some friends.

The book was absolute garbage.

It was the worst kind of D&D fan fiction crap. But it had the one thing that every novelist needs to have, at least in my mind. To…