Why don't you write? (When you don't.)

How appropriate. I've been having trouble lately as well.

Its not a time issue; I've always made time to write when I'm eager to enter that world. I've got four different projects started right now but am just not feeling the 'juice' to push forward on them. Lets examine each one:

1) Book three of a series. The problem with this one is I have no clear direction for the story yet. I don't want to just re-has what happened in the last two.
2) A 'one-act' story set in a blizzard. I kind of need it to be wintry outside to have the proper feel to write this one. Or that is my excuse.
3) A story (in first person) about a woman on a solo adventure to find herself who meets up with a older man who she non-romantically becomes involved with. I hit 'pause' on this one because I honestly don't know who would ever want to read it. I'm reluctant to put the effort into it when there is likely no market for it.
4) The most frustrating is this final one, a story that is pretty clear in my head with a good MC and supporting cast. I began writing it in third person but something just wasn't gelling with it. Frustrated, I wrote the first chapter again in first person but can't say for certain which version is better. Now I'm stuck!

I want to write and have pounded out the occasional paragraph or chapter but the real burning drive I felt with my prior three novels isn't there right now. It isn't writer's block; it is a missing sense of...confidence?

 

My writing patterns often follow Newton's First law. If I find the time to get started on writing I'll never stop, even if my projects are obviously hopeless. Normally I will become fixated on writing a specific scene and my drive comes from trying to get to that point. Past that once I've got the ball rolling it'll just keep on going down, and I won't stop myself.

Then life gets in the way. Having school for 8 hours, 2 hours of homework, and anywhere from 4-6 hours of work make for either little sleep or little writing. On weekends, if I get the rare chance, I will spend time writing short works. For the most part though I just take this time to jot down ideas I have as to future projects. Not that I get many when I'm trying to do calculus.

 

Between my job, laziness when I get home, and carved-in-stone habits that usually involve gaming and internet surfing. I'm slowly working to break the mold and insert newer (better) habits.

 

Not been writing as of late. - Well not on my novel. - hence I've not been around much here either.
1) - I only really got into novel writing when I quit my job in the computer games industry for a few years, and needed a new creative outlet. Now I've got a new computer games industry job, I get to channel my story ideas into computer game form again, and get guaranteed to be paid for it.

2)Because I've not been writing my novel for a while I've lost momentum with it. I'm somewhere deep in the editing of it. I had some good ideas on how to change some structural things around, quite a big job, which I can only partially remember what I had planned. All feels very daunting now. I feel a touch of guilt for not having touched my novel in a few months, but not enough to do anything about it.

 

I don't write when I don't have ideas. That's it.

 

For me it's mainly a factor of excitement, it's continuously waning. I've lacked passion in my life lately, it reflects to a lack of interest in getting into the right thought process.

 

Stress. It's a serious creativity killer.

 

Acknowledging the problem is the first step to solving it, really.

I can relate to these struggles. Writing before work, or on days that you don't have work, seemed to do the trick. And then as others have mentioned, it's a matter of making that habitual.

Prioritizing writing as high as you *realistically* can, as far as your general daily routine, can do wonders. This includes taking out unnecessary distractions. I spent far too much time scrolling aimlessly through newsfeeds. Got rid of pretty much all my social media except for one (I kept most of the accounts, but I removed the apps from my phone). I also like to go out when I write, which seems weird, but my gaming computer at home is 100x more distracting than the white-noise of being out in public. Just getting out of the house is sometimes all it takes, for me.

Being critical of yourself can be a good quality, I think. But the dose makes the poison. Too much of it and you'll have self-worth issues like me. Depression is a constant battle for some, myself included, and that can always negatively impact your writing.

Just some thoughts. Hope my little advice helped somebody.

Cheers,

-Kyle

 

Lack of inspiration. I derive my writing mostly off emotion. I try to pour parts of me into my writing and as a result, when I'm not feeling particularly strong about a certain topic anymore, my writing ceases.

This forum evidently enough has provided me with a drive for writing, as I'd love to share it with people who actually give criticism. Not to be reliant on all of you, but I show my writing to my girlfriend and my best friend. One is too critical or doesn't respond after I send him stuff, and the other is in no position to criticize or can do it correctly, bless her heart. She tells me, and I quote.

" I'm not really good at critiquing writing, but I guess I could say you're really good with sentence structure/flow
You don't really have to go too deep into specific details
Or descriptions, but like you know how to form sentences that aren't boring."
-7's Girlfriend

Which, while reassuring, isn't quite exactly what I'm looking for.

Anyways, yeah, I only write when I feel a strong desire to and most of my writing goes nowhere. As of recent, I've wrote more because of my drive to share it with this general crowd.

 

For me it's identitcal to this problem:

https://www.writingforums.org/threads/but-does-it-have-legs.150330/page-2

When an idea I thought was really good 'doesn't have legs' it's usually more to do with my life than the idea itself.
I've not written much for a long time, but I'm finding it 'go' again now that I'm looking after myself and my brain.
I organise my day, carry a small notebook for anything from creative ideas to little to-dos, and I try not to compromise on my sleep. I think it's important to remember that attention and focus is a limited resource. If you overstimulate yourself in the day, you can't simply sit down for five minutes and then conjur some more. Being organised and simplifying my life where possible means that now I have more brain left when I get to my writing.

 

I haven't been doing much (non-comic) writing lately because it's just so daunting and the risk of ultimately wasting my time is very big. I don't exactly have anyone anticipating the finished work, so there's a very good chance no one will care when it's done, and there's also a chance that it will never be done at all. Writing my online comic doesn't quite come with that "huge investment, low/no reward" sensation because the pages feel like mini-projects and I have something to show every week. Larger-scale writing takes me years and trying to get the result out there has always just been a huge disappointment.

I've just become reluctant to sink a lot of time into something that will never bear fruit and will just make me feel like I should have been spending it on something else.

 

Writers write. Period. I'm not saying that people need to write every day or can't take breaks, but I think there is a difference between that and coming up with excuses as to why one is not writing. But what do I know? I seem to produce an insane amount of unpublishable material on a regular basis. I guess it might not matter too much if I'm writing or not.

 

Aside from writer's block here and there, right now the thing I'm writing more of are job applications. My current job is open to the public 16 hours a day on a weekday and I work half of that. Some weeks I hardly see my live-in bf because of it.

 

When I'm not writing, I'm usually home, in front of my computer, doing everything but writing. I think my problem is the computer itself. And not necessarily just the internet, but everything digital. I write best when I'm not home and have nothing to do but write. Then I pull out a pen and paper and lose myself. Though I rarely transcribe what I write and I don't think publishers accept barely-legible scrawls on notebook paper. Hell, not even grade school teachers accept those. Or literally anyone with any interest in presentation quality.

 

Ugh, yes me too. I spend far too much time online. Acutally, I'm going to log off now and do some writing.

@S A Lee I hope you find something better soon. I've had times like that with my wife, it's not the greatest thing. Good luck!

 

@Silent Lion Thank you very much.

 

I get what I think of as Writer's Doubt. I start to wonder whether I like any of my stories. Putting aside the question of the whether they're any good, I start to wonder whether the people and situations I've been writing about are actually interesting to me at all. Why did I pick them? Why write about that and not something else? I'll have been extremely excited about a story and then suddenly - it's not even a case of not liking it anymore - I won't have any idea how I feel about it.

That and my extreme laziness, obviously.

 

I get that too, not about whether I find the story interesting, but whether will anyone else find it interesting. I wouldn't have written in the first place if I didn't find it interesting enough (when I could be watching television instead, or reading, or browsing the internet, or trying new make-up, or baking a cake, so that speaks to my interest in the story). But will anyone else find it interesting? Sometimes I feel discouraged. True.

 

I return because I realize that another part is that I don't find writing--that is, "my" writing, working on fiction or nonfiction--relaxing. So why is that?

It's not the writing itself--I've wasted most of my Saturday reading and posting on forums, which involved writing.

It's not the thinking-about-creating something. I think. I spend more time planning the garden, or altering patterns, or doing beaded embroidery, than I spend writing fiction. And, to get back to the point, I find those things relaxing.

So why isn't it relaxing? What might make it relaxing?

Hmmm.

 

My dog needs cuddles, makes it hard to write.

Other than that, stress, life gets busy, tiredness. Right now though my dog is on my lap and pawing at my hands and won't let me write....

 

Your dog has been taking tips from cats.

 

Haha, I'm convinced that somehow a cat and a dog managed to breed and he is the result!

 

I'm too easily distracted (hello internet) and need to create deadlines to drag my focus away from all the pretty lights.