I thought about that word for a moment. Now I know it's similar when put into the context of "losing a thought process", "Lost", and/or "Stuck". It's an act to move or drive, continuously. What's going through my mind is motion, gaining, and moving forward, even backwards. Motivation maybe? Encouragement? As writers we often lose that forward motion to continue whether it be through not enough motivation or encouragements, maybe even self confidence in ourselves. I'm not one to have a large vocabulary like my own personal dictionary floating around in my head. So please bare with me when I try to explain this topic I think would help a lot of us that struggle with this act of thinking. Through replies by other members in this forum, I hope to accomplish some peace of mind in others and myself, a bit of understanding too. I've also looked it up to make sure this has not been discussed, specifically. When I start my writing, it's always at such a slow pace as my mind builds up to that momentum where the pictures and dialogue become more clear. Soon, I'm taking off. Words fly across the screen as my fingers beat at the keys and the scenes unfold. Sometimes I can get a page or more done, but then suddenly I stop. There my momentum ends and I'm stuck once again. I've tried different things to help get that motivation, that drive to continue. I've asked myself certain questions over and over again. "Where is this story really going?" "What is it that I'm trying to get my characters to accomplish?" "Why are they here and where can I take them?" I realized they are the same just worded differently. Someone here mentioned something to me that has been stuck in my head for quite sometime now. "What is the "main idea" of your story?" This got me thinking hard. I knew what it was, but for someone that's trying to write a series where each novel is different and similar all at the same time, I found this difficult and challenging. I wouldn't say it's writers block, lost or stuck. It's that continuous drive to keep going, the motivation to move forward. You want to keep going, you want the motivation, and you want the encouragement to succeed. In my opinion it's that momentum that has been put on pause. Do you wait it out or keep trying? This is just my experience and thoughts on the topic. Feel free to reply for all to read and share some helpful ideas. You just might find that, it can only take a simple word, a phrase, or a sentence to change ones way of thinking. Psst: If I used the first few sentences wrong, I apologize. As long as you get the gist of what I'm saying it's what really matters. Thank you!
Hi MaryMO, I seem to have said this in so many contexts recently... What I'm doing now is... 1/ Create one-page summary of characters and time-line of events. 2/ Write out Chapter 1...Chapter 12. 3/ Add "Character X does this..." after each chapter heading. 4/ Start writing. 5/ Update one-page summary (it's probably going to end up a bit longer) as new ideas strike me, or I commit myself to character X having blue eyes. Also, in another post...Research shows that studying is best done in twenty-minute bursts, then the brain ceases to be able to learn stuff. Why would writing be materially different? So, when your fingers seize up, go and have a coffee, play Solitaire, check your eMails. Then get back to it when you're fresh. Also, a friend of mine used to swear by "turning it over to the subconscious" by which he meant, you can often find the solution to a problem when you're NOT trying to solve it.
Hello Shadowfax, I have this "momentum" problem sometimes while I'm writing. This was more of a "share your thoughts" topic. I'm a scatterbrain through and through, puzzles make more sense to me than graphs or planning. In my experience, I usually just plug my ears and blast some music to drown out some of the clutter. But I work slow anyways, it's rare for me to keep that forward motion with my scenes. Staying away was actually worst for me, I just finished watching "The internship"( which was a great movie by the way), that was my distraction. When I came back to my tablet to continue writing, my mind was a complete blank. Weird, I know, but we all have our little quirks.
