Trying to find motivation to get over that last hill

[Seurat]

Years back I wrote. Not all great or even very good, but I wrote to get some stories out there. I hit a rough patch and things shut down for me. I kept writing, however, even if it was simply to get that plotlines out of my head. I wrote new chapters for ongoing storylines, wrote new stand-alones, and wrote alternative finishes to stories I really liked but had difficulties with the authors endings.

And I didn't finish any of them, nor did I have much inclination to do so, let alone publish them.

So there they sit in a folder on my computer: dozens and dozens of three-quarter stories that may never see the light of day.

My questions: what do I do to get over that last hill? I'd like to publish again, I think, but how do I push myself to do so? It took a while before I could even come back to the forums, not that I ever did much here; is it a common thing for a writer to suddenly lose interest or ability in writing? How long does the funk last? I'm coming up on nearly a decade; should I just write it off (ha!) and move on to some other hobby?

 

[ChloeTzang]

Ask yourself if you really want to write and if you do, stop procrastinating. Sit down in front of your keyboard, pick the story you want to finish and write it. Forget about motivation and inspiration and all that crap. Words. Type them. One at a time. Start writing the story you want to tell. Start with a short one. Don’t get fancy. Don’t screw around with plotting or characterization or getting all arty. Just write the story, and if it’s for Literotica, write sex. Hot sex. Something that stirs the blood and gets you wanting to..... whatever!

Go write it, it’s Thursday. Have a short one written and submitted by eod Thursday next week. Or I’ll come over and kick your ass - does that help? If none of your existing stories gets you going, start a new one. And remember, this is Literotica. You don’t need a story. Sex will be fine. Write it, hot enough to blow my socks off. If you get stuck, plagiarize one of my sex scenes with my generous permission and encouragement and make it your own.

Now, get to it. Chop chop!

 

[MelissaBaby]

I'd pick one, go back to the beginning and start reading it, as if it was the first time I'd seen it. Then, when I got to the part where I'd stop, I'd either start writing where it goes from there, or toss it. If I wasn't interested in continuing it, I wouldn't push it.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I'd pick one, go back to the beginning and start reading it, as if it was the first time I'd seen it. Then, when I got to the part where I'd stop, I'd either start writing where it goes from there, or toss it. If I wasn't interested in continuing it, I wouldn't push it.

Exactly, if it’s a motivational hump, it has to be something that grabs you and that you want to finish!

 

[Fingerfuxs]

One baby step at a time ......

Pick a day of the week , say , Thursday. Yes today's the day.

It's get write Thursday !!

Say it in your head , it's get write Thursday !!

All the other six days do as you will , but on the seventh day.

It's get write Thursday !!!!

Say it in your head. Today's the day , I get outta my head , jump on lit , read what they said.

It's get write Thursday !!!!

 

[PoisonPen33]

Write a story or I will NOT pet this cat.

I've been in your shoes before, and when that happens I try to sit down and write a page of something. Just a page. I've found that if you keep writing, even if you think it's garbage, eventually your brain pulls the plug on your imagination and a whole torrent of ideas comes pouring out.

 

[SimonDoom]

My motivation comes and goes. I usually enjoy writing once I get started and I always enjoy having completed a story, but sometimes it's hard to make myself sit down and do it.

Chloe's right, though. You have to make yourself do it, motivation be damned. Pick one of the stories that you like and that's almost done so there's not too much to do. Focus on that one story. Sit down, give yourself an hour, and make yourself write for an hour. Then see how you feel.

That should be doable. Don't think of it as a big insurmountable project. Just make yourself do it for one hour.

 

[ChloeTzang]

My motivation comes and goes. I usually enjoy writing once I get started and I always enjoy having completed a story, but sometimes it's hard to make myself sit down and do it.

Chloe's right, though. You have to make yourself do it, motivation be damned. Pick one of the stories that you like and that's almost done so there's not too much to do. Focus on that one story. Sit down, give yourself an hour, and make yourself write for an hour. Then see how you feel.

That should be doable. Don't think of it as a big insurmountable project. Just make yourself do it for one hour.

Yep. It’s like the military thing about one step at a time. Just focus on that one step. Then the next. Then the next. Before you know it, you’ve walked ten miles.

 

[NotWise]

Life and all have never locked me up for ten years, but I have locked up for a few months at a time.

I got out of it by picking a story (a new story, in my case) that would be short, erotic, and just complex enough to hold my interest. Then I didn't give myself a chance to bog down on details. I wrote it in three days.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I saw your submissions page, and you were doing pretty well (no 2.70s like I have more than a couple of). You had eighty-eight followers, which is more than twice as many as I've collected over a similar period of time. So people do appreciate what you were doing.

Maybe try writing a non-fiction essay as a warm-up. They'll accept it as long as it isn't hard-core political, I think. Something interesting must have happened to you in your life, or maybe you witnessed something. You may not have realized it at the time, but you may find that it is worth writing about. I've been slowly adding to a series about driving a taxi years ago, and I've been surprised at how much I remember about it.

 

[ChasPHX]

Maybe try writing a non-fiction essay as a warm-up. They'll accept it as long as it isn't hard-core political, I think. Something interesting must have happened to you in your life, or maybe you witnessed something. You may not have realized it at the time, but you may find that it is worth writing about.

This is great advice. I find that basic journal writing can get you over a lot of humps, just getting words on paper. No creativity required, just narrate a day or event in your life. Once you get into that, you're better primed to tackle a story.

Like OP I have a few stories half finished in the hopper, but if I get seized with actual motivation for a different/new story, I don't worry about tossing them aside and diving right into the new one. That can't go on indefinitely of course, but more often than not I can get into a groove hop-scotching like that.

 

[Fingerfuxs]

There's always taking a character out into the thread boards , bumming around writing mindless posts.

On Thursdays of course

 

[8letters]

I'm someone who just submitted his first story in over a year. I don't write if I don't have a story idea that excites me enough to write. It sounds like the story ideas you have on your hard drive don't excite you enough to finish them. And that's fine. Writing is fun, and you enjoyed writing them to their current state. I wouldn't worry about them. To publish one would probably take a major rewrite as you are now a different person than the person who wrote those stories so many years ago.

So, I'd suggest getting focused on a new story idea. It could be the idea behind one of the stories you didn't finish, spun in a new way. Or it could be a completely new idea. Watch a bad rom-com with good music, and write up the way the movie should have been.

 

[gunhilltrain]

So, I'd suggest getting focused on a new story idea. It could be the idea behind one of the stories you didn't finish, spun in a new way. Or it could be a completely new idea. Watch a bad rom-com with good music, and write up the way the movie should have been.

That's a pretty good idea - take a movie plot and redo it as you think it should have gone. There are even some scripts on-line for existing movies, although they might not be the absolutely final version used for the film.

I tried that a number of years ago - redoing a movie - but I tried to do them as screenplays which was a mistake because I couldn't deal with the formatting and the tight time requirements of a script. I may try them in the future as prose.

 

[Seurat]

Thanks for the advice

I stepped away from rehashing/re-editing/rewriting one of the stories I thought I would like to finish, and instead wrote something I knew I wouldn't probably publish: my own editing the GeorgeAnderson's latest, "February Sucks". I don't know the writer, have no permission to publish, and both the style and topic aren't things that I would write about. Four (collected) hours later I had most of the story, but at least I had something. Forced myself to write per the advice above, and I think it helped.

Much thanks all. Maybe I'll be able to get something out on to the shooting range soon.

 

[patdown]

I have the same problem. I come up with either great characters or storylines and introduce the characters and situation but have trouble finishing the story to publish. Mostly it's that I don't want the sex to seem repetitive and sound like the other stories that I have finished. These are fresh characters in a fresh situation so I want to the sex to be fresh as well and not just follow along with what characters in previous stories were doing. I doubt anyone is double checking my new stories against the old and would notice but I'd just rather know each story is unique.

 

[jehoram]

I currently have three stories (OK, one one-chapter story and one two-chapter story) that have been sitting on my computer for a while. I go back and tweak them now and them, but they seem to lack the magic that a really good story has. There's potential, but I haven't figured out how to tap it.

Most other stories flow more or less freely, and I know when I'm finished with them that they're as good as they're going to get. Those get published right away.

And then there are the stories that are stillborn. Those I delete without a moment's regret.