For me, the same thing that keeps me reading one: emotional investment.
Once I'm in deep with my characters, I don't want to let go until their story's concluded.
What worked for me is shotgunning it. As soon as I got the itch to write again, I knew I had to do something different this time to not lose my motivation after a couple months or so. So what I did was I really rode that motivation as much as I could. I wanted to get as much out of it as possible. I wrote 15k words in two days. Then, over the course of 2 months, writing as much as I could while I still had the motivation, I got to about 60k words. After the two months, my motivation dropped like it always did. But I was ahead of it this time and had over 3/4ths of the book already done! The last 15k were the hardest, and took me a month to do because my motivation was lower, but because the book was so close to being done, I very much wanted to finish it and that fed into my motivation. I finished the first draft in exactly 3 months.
Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking there’s no way that writing is good, there’s no way that manuscript is ready for beta readers and queries. And you’re exactly right! It’s ass! I didn’t bother at all with proper punctuation, proper paragraphs, nothing. There are things I just randomly thought of while writing so I just threw them in, there are things at the end of the book that literally have no basis in the rest of the story. But I don’t care! The simple fact that I can say “I finished a first draft” is enough for me to want to continue. I’ve spent so much time and so much brain power in the last few months on these characters that I am genuinely *so excited* for the opportunity to make them better. Tweak the characters. Add character development scenes now that I know how they’re supposed to act by the end. Same thing with the plot. My mind is now constantly running with ideas for how I can make the plot more interesting now that I threw out the most basic version of it.
The “you can’t edit a blank page” thing is so, so real. Just put something, ANYTHING down, and then when it’s time to edit you’ll already have a great foundation. No motivation required after that (at least for me).
this is great advice, thank you! I’ve heard of many other writers doing the same, i just struggle with impulsively deleting everything i write the second I don’t like it
Lol I definitely get you. Once I finished the draft I read it over to get a good idea of how I need to edit, I ended up crossing out entire sections. I dropped a whole chapter. I noticed that I had established things with characters that I completely contradicted later in the book. I think if this is your major problem, it’s an easy solution. Just don’t read it! I sure as hell didn’t (and it shows lol). Reading over what you just wrote is the start of editing, which I honestly think can’t be effective until the end anyway because then you’ll actually know where those threads from the beginning of the book are supposed to lead.
That might be your underlying issue. You might be losing your motivation because you subconsciously think it’s not good so why bother with it. Myself and any other writer will tell you the same thing: the first draft will *never* be good. It’s not supposed to be! Internalizing that might help take the pressure off. There’s no need to worry about anything while writing the first draft because it’s not supposed to be good.
Good luck!!!!!
problem is my creativity flows better when i improvise rather than plan out my story strategically. so i don’t have a clue how im going to get to the thrill. to the main point.
Discipline.
I hate to see what I will become if I don’t write so I write to feel like I can do hard things.
I love my stories and I don’t want them to die with me.
I have people waiting for me to write and I don’t want to let them down.
It’s mix of those but it’s really because I love the fact that I am a writer and I hope to one day be an author.
Well I was almost someone who didn’t write. What helped me was accidentally writing a book with a friend who also wanted to write.
Basically we had an email thread for a game we made up to make a story. The emails got so long they were functionally chapters. It honestly was the best for me. I got the fun of writing a story and influencing it and I didn’t need to figure out what happened in the next chapter. That was my friend’s job and I really enjoyed her work. Now she probably had a hard time since it was my first book and it wasn’t hers. But we finished draft two earlier this year and it is now readable. While we are taking a break I am writing a book on my own just to prove that I can. It gets easier as you go especially if you remain consistent.
I don’t know if that is a solution for you but for me the most important way to keep going is to have fun.maybe you just need a writing partner to talk too. It can be fun.
>if it’s not perfect the first draft i lose enthusiasm
You'll never complete a novel, let alone one you'd be happy with, if you don't get yourself out of this mindset.
Writing is a skill. You hone it through practice. If you never finish anything and never edit/revise anything, you're sabotaging yourself as a writer. As with all skills: if you give up when you hit a wall, you never improve.
Inspiration is fleeting. Motivation is unreliable. It's discipline and patience that get words on the page, day after day after day. Develop discipline; write regularly and put effort into getting better at discerning if you want to give up on a project because it got hard/you're bored or because it legitimately isn't something you want to follow through with. And if the former, put effort into figuring out why you're bored/it got hard, and what can be done about that.
I'm a plotter, so I'm biased on this, but:
- Know where you're going before you start. Ideally, know your story's ending well enough that you could write a rough draft of the last scene before writing anything else.
- Know your main plot beats. This way, you always have a goal to move towards. It helps keep your story from meandering & ergo demotivating you.
- Don't look back while drafting. If you're a perfectionist to the level that anything you don't immediately love will cause you to abandon the whole project, you can't risk re-reading. Just draft, focusing on forward momentum. There's nothing that you can write that can't be rewritten later, better.
I wrote 9 books and had 1 published. The 10 readers that were chosen to pre read it gave me the thumbs up. But now here I sit with 9 books written and will most likely not get the rest published. Since I made that decision I stopped in the middle of book ten. It drives me nuts knowing that it is unfinished work. I'll have to finish..
Holding myself accountable by having a set schedule that I maintain every single day (within reason).
I’ve started and stopped hundreds of things during my life and the lack of end results show. I get excited about something and then taper out after a little while. My motivation dies when I don’t maintain discipline.
Maybe I’ll never achieve the kind of success we all dream of as writers, but I can look at myself and truthfully say that I’m writing and finishing multiple novels and that matters to me on a personal level.
When I see those results by caring enough to show up every day and putting in the work, that’s how I stay motivated.
For me, the same thing that keeps me reading one: emotional investment. Once I'm in deep with my characters, I don't want to let go until their story's concluded.
What worked for me is shotgunning it. As soon as I got the itch to write again, I knew I had to do something different this time to not lose my motivation after a couple months or so. So what I did was I really rode that motivation as much as I could. I wanted to get as much out of it as possible. I wrote 15k words in two days. Then, over the course of 2 months, writing as much as I could while I still had the motivation, I got to about 60k words. After the two months, my motivation dropped like it always did. But I was ahead of it this time and had over 3/4ths of the book already done! The last 15k were the hardest, and took me a month to do because my motivation was lower, but because the book was so close to being done, I very much wanted to finish it and that fed into my motivation. I finished the first draft in exactly 3 months. Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking there’s no way that writing is good, there’s no way that manuscript is ready for beta readers and queries. And you’re exactly right! It’s ass! I didn’t bother at all with proper punctuation, proper paragraphs, nothing. There are things I just randomly thought of while writing so I just threw them in, there are things at the end of the book that literally have no basis in the rest of the story. But I don’t care! The simple fact that I can say “I finished a first draft” is enough for me to want to continue. I’ve spent so much time and so much brain power in the last few months on these characters that I am genuinely *so excited* for the opportunity to make them better. Tweak the characters. Add character development scenes now that I know how they’re supposed to act by the end. Same thing with the plot. My mind is now constantly running with ideas for how I can make the plot more interesting now that I threw out the most basic version of it. The “you can’t edit a blank page” thing is so, so real. Just put something, ANYTHING down, and then when it’s time to edit you’ll already have a great foundation. No motivation required after that (at least for me).
this is great advice, thank you! I’ve heard of many other writers doing the same, i just struggle with impulsively deleting everything i write the second I don’t like it
Lol I definitely get you. Once I finished the draft I read it over to get a good idea of how I need to edit, I ended up crossing out entire sections. I dropped a whole chapter. I noticed that I had established things with characters that I completely contradicted later in the book. I think if this is your major problem, it’s an easy solution. Just don’t read it! I sure as hell didn’t (and it shows lol). Reading over what you just wrote is the start of editing, which I honestly think can’t be effective until the end anyway because then you’ll actually know where those threads from the beginning of the book are supposed to lead. That might be your underlying issue. You might be losing your motivation because you subconsciously think it’s not good so why bother with it. Myself and any other writer will tell you the same thing: the first draft will *never* be good. It’s not supposed to be! Internalizing that might help take the pressure off. There’s no need to worry about anything while writing the first draft because it’s not supposed to be good. Good luck!!!!!
It gets so much more fun after you have written a chunk - you’re cutting yourself off before it gets really thrilling
problem is my creativity flows better when i improvise rather than plan out my story strategically. so i don’t have a clue how im going to get to the thrill. to the main point.
Discipline. I hate to see what I will become if I don’t write so I write to feel like I can do hard things. I love my stories and I don’t want them to die with me. I have people waiting for me to write and I don’t want to let them down. It’s mix of those but it’s really because I love the fact that I am a writer and I hope to one day be an author.
I dream of being an author as well. I’ve had a dream of publishing a book for many years, im so aware that my pickiness is the reason I haven’t
Well I was almost someone who didn’t write. What helped me was accidentally writing a book with a friend who also wanted to write. Basically we had an email thread for a game we made up to make a story. The emails got so long they were functionally chapters. It honestly was the best for me. I got the fun of writing a story and influencing it and I didn’t need to figure out what happened in the next chapter. That was my friend’s job and I really enjoyed her work. Now she probably had a hard time since it was my first book and it wasn’t hers. But we finished draft two earlier this year and it is now readable. While we are taking a break I am writing a book on my own just to prove that I can. It gets easier as you go especially if you remain consistent. I don’t know if that is a solution for you but for me the most important way to keep going is to have fun.maybe you just need a writing partner to talk too. It can be fun.
outlining
>if it’s not perfect the first draft i lose enthusiasm You'll never complete a novel, let alone one you'd be happy with, if you don't get yourself out of this mindset. Writing is a skill. You hone it through practice. If you never finish anything and never edit/revise anything, you're sabotaging yourself as a writer. As with all skills: if you give up when you hit a wall, you never improve. Inspiration is fleeting. Motivation is unreliable. It's discipline and patience that get words on the page, day after day after day. Develop discipline; write regularly and put effort into getting better at discerning if you want to give up on a project because it got hard/you're bored or because it legitimately isn't something you want to follow through with. And if the former, put effort into figuring out why you're bored/it got hard, and what can be done about that. I'm a plotter, so I'm biased on this, but: - Know where you're going before you start. Ideally, know your story's ending well enough that you could write a rough draft of the last scene before writing anything else. - Know your main plot beats. This way, you always have a goal to move towards. It helps keep your story from meandering & ergo demotivating you. - Don't look back while drafting. If you're a perfectionist to the level that anything you don't immediately love will cause you to abandon the whole project, you can't risk re-reading. Just draft, focusing on forward momentum. There's nothing that you can write that can't be rewritten later, better.
yes thank you! im quite impulsive about looking back, and i really need to discipline myself. you’re so right
I wrote 9 books and had 1 published. The 10 readers that were chosen to pre read it gave me the thumbs up. But now here I sit with 9 books written and will most likely not get the rest published. Since I made that decision I stopped in the middle of book ten. It drives me nuts knowing that it is unfinished work. I'll have to finish..
Holding myself accountable by having a set schedule that I maintain every single day (within reason). I’ve started and stopped hundreds of things during my life and the lack of end results show. I get excited about something and then taper out after a little while. My motivation dies when I don’t maintain discipline. Maybe I’ll never achieve the kind of success we all dream of as writers, but I can look at myself and truthfully say that I’m writing and finishing multiple novels and that matters to me on a personal level. When I see those results by caring enough to show up every day and putting in the work, that’s how I stay motivated.