I Can Only Write for Course Credit (Finding Motivation Amid College Burnout)
By Kristen Caruso, written August 2025
I don’t think I’ve ever said that to anyone, including myself, before now, but it’s true. It’s been almost one year since the last writing course I’ve taken, and apart from the occasional scribble in my notebook, it’s also been one year since I’ve truly written anything. Now, coming up on the first semester of my junior year, and taking an advanced fiction writing course, I questioned myself: will I even be able to write for that?
Before this summer began, I envisioned myself spending hours with a notebook or Word document, inspired by the possibility of the next three months without a lecture to attend or paper to write. Then there I was, with just a few weeks before school started, and the only thing I’d written was my first blog post for Yellow Arrow. Which I was happy to do—but it was also an internship-related task. And I couldn’t remember the last time I sat down to write without having to.
Clearly I needed to be motivated, but not for an end goal. With this in mind, and inspired by Yellow Arrow’s Invitation to Write course, I decided that what I needed was structure: a writing routine. Each week, I set aside just 30 minutes a day, logging that time on my intern timesheet as blog 2 work, to write. A flexible, attainable amount of time I could weave between all my work and going to the beach.
As I was scrolling through different writing routines and challenges, I realized that I had to make one that was more customized to what I need—fitting for a burnt-out college student forcing herself back in, and with only a few weeks left of the summer. Here’s what I came up with:
Week One - Writing Prompts and Challenges (Any Genre)
Each day, I spent the whole 30 minutes responding to a writing prompt or challenge from a list I made ahead of time. For this week, there were a couple of rules I set for myself. Firstly, I couldn’t stop writing for more than a few seconds at a time. And I couldn’t go back and edit or expand upon something I’ve written previously. Only moving forward.
Week Two - Focus on Fiction
Although I let myself play around with different genres and styles in the first week, I knew I had to force myself to practice fiction writing to prepare for my upcoming course. It’s (fairly) easy for me to start writing poetry or poetic prose, but fiction feels more definite. I needed this push to get me into the right head space.
Week Three - Expansion
To me, an important part of fiction writing, especially when the professor has a minimum word count, is being able to expand on an idea or starting point. I needed to not just get in the mood to write prose, but practice fleshing out a whole story. For this week, I chose one of my drafts from the week before to expand on. It didn’t need to be complete by the end, just longer and more complex than how it started.
After crafting my new writing routine, the only thing I could do was start—and hope I was up for the challenge.
WEEK ONE
The first week had some trial and error. At first, I wasn’t sure what time of day I would prefer to write at. I thought I’d be pretty flexible, being able to easily slip in and out of the writing mindset at any time as long as I had it set aside in my Google calendar. This was not the case. I realized within the first few days that I wrote more and felt more confident when I wrote in the morning. Freshly made iced coffee and a whole day in front of me, I was able to let myself get lost in the prompts.
WEEK TWO
Focusing just on fiction was harder than I thought it would be. I kept using the list of prompts each day, but now with the prose lens, I found it tricky to find inspiration for stories rather than personal pieces of poetry. That’s when I had to tweak my routine just a bit. Before jumping right into writing, I let myself do something inspiring for at least ten minutes. This varied from reading a chapter of a current read to scrolling on Pinterest to rereading older pieces I’ve written. It wasn’t until I was in the right headspace that I could begin.
WEEK THREE
The last week of this challenge was my favorite. Once I smoothed out some kinks and problem-solved to get motivated in the first two weeks, I was glad to expand on something I wrote on earlier. I picked a work-in-progress that I was most excited about and had lots of ideas for already. This is also a week where I was allowed to revise and edit. This challenge wasn’t about hitting a word count goal for me—just finding motivation and inspiration for writing again, which I really felt at the end.
Challenging myself to write every day forced me to not just write, but also pay attention to my writing needs, and learn how best to create a writing routine that fits them. I feel much more confident in my ability to get started writing, and more in-tune to who I am as a writer. My brain feels warmed up. If you want to start a writing routine for yourself, I suggest doing a trial period. Try different times of the day, before and after work, in different locations, with or without having just eaten. I tried this in the summer, but I also imagine that the different seasons may play a huge role as the weather and schedules change. I didn’t realize before I started this challenge how impactful these factors were in how I felt during and after writing. This probably isn’t true for everyone but listening to what makes you perform at your most comfortable and confident level goes a long way in creative spaces. While I tried this over the summer, without classes or being on campus, I knew a writing routine for the school year would look drastically different. But now I know how to approach it in a way that works best for me and my writing, and I’m ready to take on the semester.
Kristen Caruso (she/her) is a junior at the University of Rochester but calls New Jersey home. As a double major in English and business with a minor in French, she hopes to combine her areas of study in a publishing career. Kristen’s interest in publishing began as the editor-in-chief of her high school’s yearbook organization and continues to thrive on the editorial board of her university’s art and literature journal. She enjoys coffee, the color green, poetry, nonfiction about trees, the ocean, Rochester snow, New Jersey pizza, music that’s somewhat bad, and lists that are too long. Find her on Instagram @kris10caruso.
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