I think the main problem is trying to sit on a donkey. You have to get comfortable, being relaxed is very conducive to writing.
Everyone has a process. I do not write every day though I do agree with those that suggest it. When I do write, it is because I have formed the section I need to. While I don;t type per se, I do spend lots of time formulating things in my head and gathering elements I need to continue. Writing for me is more along the lines of gestation and not a discipline. I am writing in my head and accordingly, making notes in a writers file I have. Then when I've developed what I have been formulating, I get to typing. I have a hard time infodumping. Doesn't ever turn out well for me. If you are not writing and only seeing what you want to write at a distance, then minstrel is right that you could be 'one hundred million would-be writers'. I think at minimum, you have to be actively doing something for what you are writing if not actually typing out the story...
Join a writing group. I am with two. I meet one every Tuesday and the other every third Saturday of the month. The second one we set goals. One of my goals is coming up and that's January 4th I should be done with my first edit of my novel (first book in a trilogy). I'm about 50 pages away from being done. The accountability in groups helps push me to do what I say I am going to do. As someone else suggested doing a few minutes a day will work as well too. One writer I went to a workshop to hear...said that he wakes up early and writes (just writes) for two hours each morning. He does zero editing. All he does is write for two hours. No one bothers him because it's early in the morning. You can do it. No one can force you. You have to do that yourself.
I come up with so many ideas...I write them down or save them in a file. I have a lot of them. I refuse to touch them until I finish the trilogy I'm writing. I suggest you look at what you have and push through and finish. It's not a matter of it being perfect when you're done, it's a matter of finishing. No novel or story is great first run. It takes edits. Maybe the story won't rock the world, but you finished it. You can put it away and start something else. Never finishing something sets up an okay in your mind. Oh if I don't like this I won't have to finish it. It's allowing yourself an out. Sometimes we have to be strict with others...and sometimes we have to do that with ourselves.
There is an awesome site that gives you a text-box where you can write (and periodically copy-paste into your word doc). If you stop writing, the site will blast annoying music that will not go away until you keep writing again. You can choose different time periods for which it will let your keyboard remain inactive (5, 10 or 15 seconds I believe) before blasting the sounds, and you can choose what the consequences will be: annoying music, a gentle popup reminder, or the program slowly erasing the words you've written until you resume typing. If you want to know more PM me lol. (I don't think we're allowed to post other links on here). This is a real tool and it's free and awesome and it works. Aside from that, my tip is to avoid leaving off at the end of a completed scene. When you save your word doc to end the current writing sitting you're on, stay in the middle of a scene so you have momentum to pick up from when you come back to writing later. If you leave at the end of a scene, you've got to start a new scene on your next session, and this can lead to Great Blank Word Doc Syndrome. Hope I helped!!
In life I've been working in the field of psychology for over twenty-one years and I'm a psychotherapist and evaluator. My favorite type of therapy is called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy which is related to Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT), which is really a great set of common sense ideas. The theme is that our thoughts shape our emotions and behaviors. If you have irrational thoughts, which are defined in the literature, you will experience emotional highs and lows that create suffering. Albert Ellis the creator of REBT based his ideas in part on Greek Stoic philosophy, which was geared to create happiness/contentment through emotional calm. Ellis discussed procastination in detail and wrote a book about it, if I recall correctly. I learned a lot and broke my own habit to put things off by learning this info. The quick explanation is that people who procastinate are irrational perfectionists. A perfectionist wants to achieve 100% and the pressure to do so can blow your energy out and you end up doing nothing, thus achieving failure. Of course, that makes you feel badly, and that's a huge blow for the perfectionist because it proves pathetic imperfection! The cure is to go for "excellence" which is doing the BEST job you can at the moment. Getting the job done at 80 or 90% is damn good and better than most people who aren't doing anything. Writing: I used to think writers were some kind of geniuses until I started talking to a favorite one online. He's very famous and I found out that he just writes off the top of his head, when I thought he had some planned out world building system. He does not edit his work but just submits it to the editor and he does not care what they do to it, and he has never read his own work. In other words, he has zero anxiety about his writing but just sits there and wildly creates! That broke my writing procastination further because I CAN DO THAT TOO, and it felt great. Also, I've read countless books in my time on Earth and many of them just sucked, like really, really sucked, but they got published and entertained people. I'm confident that I can write better than the suck level, which is a 60% "D level" effort. I can easily, in my mind, produce C to B level material and meet my goal of telling entertaining stories. So, I do not have to agonize about writing the "perfect sentence" on the first page, and never achieve it or any of my dreams. Hope some ideas there help you.
Bloody hell you guys are useful! Even all of you with the "no sympathy" type responses, really a nice pin in the behind. Thanks and would love that link.
That's where the hunt is more exciting that the kill, so to speak. Growing up, I knew a lot of guys like that. They'd get excited about some girl, pursue for dating, then after success, suddenly, they're bored and it's time to hunt some new girl. I realized that was likely caused by a fear of real success, which is a relationship. Thus, the serial dating may fear the completion of the dating process. If you buy that, then it's not hard to believe starting art projects and not finishing them may be about the fear of how you will handle the "adult" work of what to do with that completed project. I know I have a bit of that.
Wow I feel like a moron as I completely missed this post. That was beautiful, exactly what I needed. Thanks
That's great to hear! Being useful is like a drug to me. If you feel like it, look up Albert Ellis. He's fun to read and I actually got some training from the guy!
Ironic too, in my novel(another issue for another thread) I plan on painting human emotions and reasoning through my characters. The human brain is simply amazing.
Jo Rowling had a great idea for a novel about a boy who finds out he's a wizard. Took her five years to start writing. Maybe you aren't writing because you aren't ready to write. You could write down the idea. Start some character sketches. Make a few notes about place and time. Look up a few references. There's a lot to working on a book that have little to do with actually writing the book.
Promise yourself you'll write for eight hours a day? Post each chapter here or to a blog as soon as it done; or maybe just send to friends?
Colorthemap – you just have to write. The best way (I think) to get started is to write anything, doesn’t matter if it will be used in the book you’re thinking of or not – writing is a craft and requires practice, so writing anything – just getting in the habit of transferring your thoughts from mind to laptop or journal – is never a waste. I wrote Project Northwest in a month and quite often I was stuck, not sure what the next line would be, I would then read a short news story and without re-referencing it, try to write a similar short news story with my own characters. Sure, that day I didn’t work on my book, but I practiced.
I don't know if anyone has mentioned something like this already, but I've always written my writer's block away. If I sit down to write and absolutely nothing is coming to me, then I write a short narrative about me not being able to come up with anything. I start adding in little dramatic details until the creative juices are freely flowing then move on to my original project. The bottom line here, and this has been said already, the best cure for writer's block is to write.
..ok so I love to write but am having the hardest time getting started..not that I don't hav ideas because I do..I just cant get past these sick thoughts I have in my head saying I cant write then when I actually start its like its not good enough like it has to be perfect at the first go..any ideas on how to help get over it?
Just write. Sit down and just write whatever comes out, whether it's good or bad. As you go on, you'll find that it gets easier. Keep writing as long as you feel you have something to say, then go back and read through it. One of two things will happen. You'll either like what you've written, and can take off from there; or you'll find that it's all jibberish, and not worth fooling with. Whichever you find won't matter. What you'll have is something that got you writing, and I'd almost bet that when you read through it, you'll find yet another idea to write about. And you just may have something in that writing that will lead you to a good starting place. This helps me at those times when I feel that I'm stuck. Give it a try. It just may work for you too.
We all have those feelings. Usually those feelings show up before we write or during the editing process. For me, those thoughts show up during the editing process. You are not alone. However, if the voices/thoughts become a true hindrance, seek medical attention
I try that about it might take a hour or so to get the normal flown going. And it's so bad sometimes I do write for a week..
It sounds like the biggest hurtle you have is self-doubt. Every writer feels, at some stage, that they're not a good writer or what they've written is imperfect, but those feelings are never going to go away unless you start writing. Once you have something to work with you'll improve it and become more confident. You would not believe how many times I've redone my prologue or cut paragraphs or redone locations. It's all part of the writing process. Practise makes perfect, I know it's a lame old saying but it's old for a reason. Good luck!
Steven King was just sure that the book he was working on was junk. Just flat out garbage, so he tossed it in the trash. Gave up on it. Until his wife pulled it out and read a few pages. She convinced him to go ahead and finish it. The book was Carrie.
Don't be put off writing because of these thoughts. Carry on despite the self-doubt. Most of us experience this when we write at times. When you sit down to write, even if those negative thoughts come, just ignore them - don't let them stop you. Write whatever it is you want to write - whether you think it's good or bad - and then at the end, you can always work on improving what you don't like. That's the wonderful, magic thing about writing: what you have written on your page can be transformed until you're happy with it... Through editing, re-writes. So don't allow yourself to be blocked from enjoying writing. No matter how bad you think it is, you have all the time you need to work on it until you're happy with it. I can't even count the amount of times I've written something in a story, only to end up unhappy with it - then I always go back and change whatever is bothering me. The best thing is to just try. Keep answering those negative thoughts with positive ones. It's better to try to do what you want than to give up and always wonder what could have been Good luck!
Try and sit down with the thought this is fun - find a character you love that you enjoy spending time with. Also don't read it back straight away like Lot's wife you will turn into a pillar of salt Give it some time then you can be more objective.
This is just a crazy idea I just came up with, but how about writing about an author who can't get anything down on paper because he thinks it isn't good enough?
Above is a great advice, used by many. I heard that Hollywood is flooded with manuscripts about screenwriters who struggle to get a story through in Hollywood.
