Forum Starting and stopping, starting and stopping ...

The two of us should probably form a club, cause I've been dealing with this problem since the dawn of time.

OK, that's blown out of proportion slightly, since I haven't been writing for quite some time between my school days and today, but whenever I'd give it a go, I'd stumble into this problem.

However, I think I've found some answers just these past few days. Not just to that question, but to some others as well. So here's my guess, which I'll form in a question - do you outline? My guess is that you're not, cause many writers who start writing when they get a surge of inspiration (been there, done that, guilty as charged) often fall into the category of non-organisers.

The thing is, while it's great to write from emotions and that wonderful feeling that grabs you in the moment of inspiration, you can't count on that to carry you over the finish line. It might be possible if we're talking short stories, but not in case of any longer works of fiction. One problem arises, and that problem is that you end up without something to guide you once the inspiration is gone. Suddenly, you're not sure where were you going with the story, and don't really feel like continuing with that particular piece of work.

Of course, one of the most notable habit (or a personality trait) of the vast majority of writers is that they act on impulses and live for those periods of creativity, which is why they have shelves and closets full of papers with unfinished stories, left for another surge of inspiration, otherwise known as getting kicked in the rear by your muse.

That is precisely why many people will say that you shouldn't use those inspirational moments for writing - you should use that creative surge for planning. Cause a great plan, full of wonderful ideas and interesting twists and turns, fully developed characters and who knows what else, is what'll take you further down the creative road. It's a great long-term approach. You might want to give it a try.

Now all you have to do is wait for another wave of ideas, or try to cause it yourself by stimulating your own imagination.

Good luck!

No, not everyone has a blog. Theyre utterly pointless as I see it..

With regard to your stated problem, I think it sounds like a lack of structure. You make it sound like you think you can just have an idea, say, umm, I'm gonna write a Sting in the tail romance, and then you expect to be able to churn out 100 pages or whatever. I've never read a single author / writer/ screenwriter who says that's how it works. And the proof is in your post...it doesn't. Spend the time creating your characters. Aim for say 3 sides of A4 for each, with as full a history as you can dream up, not just "wears glasses". OK why does he/she wear glasses? What are the glasses like, metal framed? Snazzy coloured plastic frames? etc.

You might find, I certainly have over several years, that some people are great at beginnings. They have thousands of them, from bank robberies to the new version of Frankenstein.(TM Mary Shelley).

Others are great at wizarding up endings. Sublime creations that have us all bawling like babies, or finding a twist that no-one saw coming (except the liars with empty lives who apparently know everything). Some people have a single character and the know the entire life story for the character, but for the love of monet they cannot seem to build a world and story around this person.

The skill, and it IS a skill, with lots of staring at walls etc, is to sew those chunks together. We all have our foibles(spelling?)  mine is that I tend to have all the bits more or less, get somewhere near 100 pages and then lose heart because I've had many rejections, so I start saying to myself, "what's the point" "this is rubbish" etc, and then give up and start with my new greatest idea.

Someone famous once said "Get it written THEN get it right". There is no better advice than that. The hardest work is re-writing something that has become SO familiar to you that you are bored of it. But its that last re-write checking, say, paragraph lengths or something, that makes your tale.

Good luck and chin up.

TheSummerSon