Staying motivated to write
 

I've been working on a novel for about 5 months. It is slow going and sometimes feels like a grind, but I genuinely enjoy working on it. I am about a third of the way complete with 130 pages done and about 250 to go (aiming for 400.) Sometimes I have ideas of what to write, but I just can't bring myself to sit down in front of the computer and do it.

My question is this - how do you guys stay motivated to finish something to the end?

Hmm...I try to split the remaining pages/chapters into little baby steps. "I'll finish half of this chapter this week and then I'll get the other half next week, etc." Making it a habit and incorporating it into a schedule helps. Another thing you can do is reward yourself after completing a certain amount of your story. Reward yourself with a special trip somewhere, buy something you've been wanting, or just take a well-deserved break. Sometimes stepping away from a story and letting your mind rest will make it easier for you to focus on the story afterwards. :)

That's the best I can think of. :XD

Sometimes going to a different place to write is a good idea. Taking walks with the intention of clear-headedness helps too.

Sometimes the issue for me is that I can't sit in front of a computer to write the whole time, but when I'm away from it i feel inspired to write. I've written whole chapters on scratch paper because of that.

Good luck!

Sometimes when you are stuck, the best thing is to leave it for a while. It's like baking a cake, if you take it out of the oven too soon, you wind up with doughy mush...

lol, I love your analogy Alexandra. I actually have set that book aside and am working on another one.

I realized that I didn’t have a strong main character and that writing her was starting to feel like moving around a paper doll with no personality. I may return to my novel, but it was my first serious attempt into writing, and I feel like I’ve learned so much from it that I am better prepared to write my next novel. Only way to get better is practice and persistence!

Sometimes you are not ready for a character; sometimes a character isn't ready for you. I had written a couple of short stories -- had the beginnings and the endings done, but no idea how to connect them together. I left them both for years, then one day, I wrote them both in a day, and had them both published. One story was called the Footnote and I couldn't do it because it was tricky -- how do have a main character in a story who is just a footnote? The other I had to figure out a strange relationship between a boyfriend who was a paranoid conspiracy theorist and his girlfriend who believed every urban myth imaginable. How do they interact? Why are they together?

Sometimes you have to stay back and look at the whole; other times, you don't have a certain experience or understanding, and that's okay. And sometimes, you have a weak character, but then go off to write another story -- and somehow, this character would come to life in a different story with other characters -- so you scrap one story and then weave the character into another one.

That's the great part about writing fiction -- you can change things as you go along...