The Stop-Stop Problem... Apologies for the ramble... Motivational problems to write. Long back story in the spoiler bit. Spoiler I loved the thread posted by @hmnut on his start/stop problem. The replies were fantastic. This is my version and my problem how to move forward. I’m old passed the half century now and never tried to write anything before. A couple of years back I wrote on STEAM several guides to a PC Naval Game. I used a short story telling structure to explain strategies and techniques through a light hearted manner. This seemed well liked and I thought it could be turned into a short novel. It started from there, with me knowing what I wanted to read from a book. Most Age of Sail novels are beautiful in description and detail, but how should I say it, lack pace. The book needs to be more like my guides rather than another Patrick O’Brian weak copy. From there I researched story arcs, plot development and first novel word count size, target of 100k. Built a structure of eight chapters reaching 70k words. I loved it, but knew it wasn’t good enough yet to do anything with it. The Game’s forum I sent out a PDF and got some brilliant feedback, but was all too positive. Friends liked it, but my best critique was the wife. She loved areas of the story, but then tore its construction to shreds. I knew then I needed some training... You would never buy a chair from someone who’d just cut down his first tree. A carpenter that’s learnt his trade is a basic requirement. The same is writing and I grasped this early on. How to write a Novel books and YouTube helped, but this forum was the real deal. Unlike many of you with years behind you in carpentry, I’d just arrived at the woods. At 52, my 10,000 hours learning curve seems horrific. The Forum I enjoyed contributing too on all sorts of my favourite subjects. Eventually I posted my prologue in the workshop. Now I’ve never minded harsh in your face criticism in any form. I always took it as something to learn from. I got three wonderful critiques that were hard and fair. In fact, the suggestions made were fantastic and with hindsight obvious. This hurt me somewhat in all honesty. I re-structured the whole start and then it slowly started to dawn on me. This was just the opening I’ve another 7 chapters and 60k words that’ll need this same treatment. Daunting or exhausting I’ve had real trouble diving in and sorting it out. My motivation is awful… Even though this is a hobby I feel I need some form of discipline structure to finish it. I also know I’m not talented enough right now to do it justice. Training on short story contests or something else. On reflection I noticed doing more volume of writing drunk on red while long marching powder. This needs to change into some form of daily routine with a 1,000word target sober. Motivationally I find this a struggle but know it’s absolutely necessary. Sorry for the confessional but thought I’d tell the truth here. I’m a complete amateur here and old. Can you recommend any books or strategies I should use for me to write and complete my first novel? Are there any set routines or disciplines you use to make sure you crank out the page’s day after day? Would you suggest using a formulaic business plan approach to writing? Do you think its probably better to forget the novel now and focus on the short story contests to help develop my writing craft? Will joining a creative writing course help? I understand the questions are very subjective. There is no actual Beginners Guide, yet am torn between an incomplete work and going back to the start. If this post is in the wrong place, ADMIN please move it at your discretion. Any advice or help much appreciated, thank-you MartinM
Are there any set routines or disciplines you use to make sure you crank out the page’s day after day? In my case yes but from managing copywriters I also know it's massively idiosyncratic and everyone has different little rituals and will swear theirs are the best ones. I warm up for the work-in-progress by posting lighter message board comments on the news, or more recently doing critiques on here. It's being aware of what part of the internal creative machinery is in rebellion and placating it. With me it is often how quickly the trees grow in the raw imagination, so I slow down the axework to let it catch up. I also push writing the WIP to the time of day when my brain feels fastest - which for some reason for me is after the evening meal. The morning and afternoon I spend limbering up. Would you suggest using a formulaic business plan approach to writing? Yes - but only at the level that the work and each chapter should have a purpose and a rough idea of how long it ought to be. "How do you eat an elephant?" / "In small bites." People always say to write every day - even if it is small wordcounts and I've found that to be true. Do you think its probably better to forget the novel now and focus on the short story contests to help develop my writing craft? No. The way the OP writes that sounds like displacement activity. Writing only slightly resembles other crafts. Online commentary (including often on this forum) tends to exaggerate a self-help approach of simple, easy things that everyone can do to improve. But this comes from a position of privilege that everyone here is already literate enough to be typing words on an internet forum. And the advice isn't working for an invisible majority (simply because most projects fail). Most of the craft is simply the way the writer communicates using their language. We need to write the story with the language we have - the improvements we can make to it with "show-don't-tell" and all the other stuff in a creative writing handbook are kind of like brushing our hair before going to a job interview. Novels are culminations of lives lived in language - if the craft isn't there already, there is no novel. But the OP's story of a stop-stop problem is crafted well - so I think it is there already and if a novel wants to be told it's best to crack on with it. Will joining a creative writing course help? There aren't any I can vouch for so no comment
As for learning craft that's something you approach bit by bit, and you definitely don't need to learn all of it before you write a book. Most if not all of us wrote enough material for many books before we started to think about craft. I think most writers approach it the same way. First and foremost you need to like writing, but that doesn't mean "If you aren't already writing everyday you'll never make it." It means you might be putting too much pressure, or the wrong kind pressure, on yourself. Just write. Have fun, write stuff you enjoy, Don't worry about structure or character arcs or any of that just yet. You want to get a first draft done before you look to get a bunch of critique or submit to beta readers. The first draft is a very (very) rough idea of your story, something you can then fix up and make better. Then do the same to your second draft. Put it away and write something else, then come back and look again at the first one, read it with fresh eyes, and see what it needs. Fix it. Along the way, as you become interested in various aspects of craft, look into them. Read articles and watch videos, buy some books about writing craft and read them. Enjoy the learning aspect as well as the writing aspect. Don't worry about your age. You act like you already have one foot in the grave. It isn't true. And so what, even it it were true? If you enjoy writing and if you know you'd die tomorrow, most likely you'd spend some of today writing, because it makes you feel good. You need to log those hours and build the experience, and you do that by writing. Finish some stories, it's not important if they're shorts or novel, but there is an advantage to writing shorts because they're much easier and faster to finish, you can crank out dozens in the time it takes to write a novel. And it's important to get some experience at finishing stories, not just beginning them. When you reach the end then you finally know what you need to say at the beginning and at many other points along the way. You'll need to go back and re-write parts of it, and that will spark ideas for how to change other parts. It's a process of a lot of revisions. To get over the feeling of "Oh god, I should write something today, but what?" just warm up with some freewriting. Just open a file and write, gibberish if you want to, or anything that comes to mind. A part of the story if you've already got it in mind, or just put a couple of characters together and let them interact with no end goal in mind, just see who they are and how they behave. A lot of people today find a message board like this or an article about how to structure a novel or something and they think they need to learn all that stuff before they can write. That makes them feel a lot of anxiety. I never even thought about all that stuff until I had written boxes and boxes full of strange stories and attempts at many more. Just write—write without fear and feel your skills growing day by day.
A couple of things I neglected to mention above: All the structure stuff and character arcs and all that—don't worry about it on a first draft. Just let the ideas and the story flow out of you sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph. The time to think about structure is on a second or even a third draft. Of course if you already have a clear idea (or a vague one) for a character arc or whatever, by all means use it. But if you don't, then don't worry about it. Just write and have fun. And when I say freewrite to get things flowing, I mean as a warmup. Once you've started writing the easiest thing in the world to do is just to keep writing—the hard part is getting started for the day. Once you've done that the rest just flows thanks to inertia.
This is the only one that really works. Put your behind in a chair and don't get up until you're done. If you want to produce work, you have to treat it like a job. You need to make writing a habit and do it whether you're motivated or not. The more that you do it, the easier it will get but it's never easy. Nothing worthwhile ever is. People like to make excuses for why they can't do things. Excuses are worthless. Put your butt in the seat and get to work. I just finished day 15 on a novel. I'm at about 107k and I'll be done Tuesday or Wednesday of next week with an estimated 120k novel. That will make 8 full-length novels for the year, pretty close to a million words. Lots of people say "I can't do that!" Sure you can. Butt, seat, work. Have realistic expectations. Set goals. Don't stop.
But writing a whole novel in just over 2 weeks is NOT "realistic expectations" for everyone. What works for you doesn't work for everyone. I can't speak for the OP, but I'm the type of person who cannot force myself to write if the motivation isn't there. I have to wait for the motivation to come to me. This is why I have no intention on being a professional writer, with deadlines and quotas. Let people do what makes themselves feel comfortable. OP: Do not set unrealistic expectations. If you don't write every day, learn to forgive yourself and not beat yourself up over it. It's something that's been hard for me to learn.
It wasn't for me when I started writing 40 years ago either. Now, it is. It isn't 2 weeks though, it's 4, working 5 days a week. Yet I never would have reached this point had I not put my butt in the seat 40 years ago and started writing. There's lots of excuses out there but excuses never actually get anyone anywhere. Ask any successful author. The key to writing is to write.
Wow thank-you all for your amazing replies and insights. Also, to those that sent me private messages as well, thank-you. I feel truly humbled by the honest knowledge given from such a weak OP made. I’ve re-read this thread several times already and am sure I will be returning back to it often. Time for me to start chopping...! Martin.
But this is only relevant if being an author is your job. For so many of us, it's just a hobby. There's a huge distinction.
@BlitzGirl Here you are sort of right, but @Cephus is giving his best solution. My OP problem is not unique and is asked several times in many different ways on this forum by different members. In my life whether it be work or playing pool or karate or whatever I know becoming a mechanic obsessive I could drastically improve at whatever I focused on. I highlight in the spoiler 10,000 hours which I believe true. There is no such thing as luck in my world, and here is my problem. It’s a hobby I have as an old man, but dissatisfied with my output quality which leads to a collapse in motivation. The Stop-stop problem. The output from @Cephus is incredible, but did take him 40years to achieve. At 50+ and a realist I know this task as odds stacked against. So, like dealing with the wife I manage expectations? Like the wife; my ego is not easily fooled, but a small routine at first is the answer. I’m trying this, after my Mon-Fri early morning run I sit down and force out some words. I’m complete by 11.30am and onto other stuff. It’s a work in progress, but @Xoic @Cephus @evild4ve and others have a common theme. Sit down and write something every day. I’m bad at my hobby, and the input needed to be average is fearful. I think its probably wrong to ever call writing a hobby…! MartinM
Man, that's what we do here... Being old is an asset for a writer. Plain style can be turned into an asset. A strategy, if you want... Just ask yourself what matters to you, or 'bothers' you. Find out what you want to say, or start a conversation with yourself on paper. Be honest. This is different for every writer, so if I were you, I'd try different amounts, see what you have the time (and the patience) to write. For instance, try a page everyday, make it a good one, and keep it like that for a month. Check out Nanowrimo, that's also a nice challenge (doesn't have to be November to test if you can pull it off...) A library card should be the first thing on that business plan. The novel will probably stick around, no matter what you do, until you finish it. Write as many short stories as you can, then expose them to as many beta readers as you can find. Also read. Read a lot. Have always a book around, carry a book with you, read on your phone. Ideally you should read five times what you write. Don't submit anything to contests until you are dead sure of what you are doing. What is really going to help you with writing is reading. I could have saved myself this Post, because someone has already said what needed to be said anyway...
