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Jay's Motivation Tips



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Thu Jan 16, 2020 3:32 pm
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Mageheart says...



Jay's Motivation Tips

( This thread was originally a reply to this post on @Wisteria's wall. I liked what I came up with, and I thought it was something that would fit right in with the Writing Tips threads! It's been slightly edited, but you can see the original version there by clicking that link. )

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I admit I've been struggling with sticking to my own writing projects recently, but I started and finished writing a 40k+ fanfiction back in November and early December. I'm not sure how helpful my advice is, but I thought it had to be a little helpful if it helped me finish a story.

One of the biggest motivators I had was a goal to finish writing by the time winter break started. I was writing my project as a pseudo-NaNo; my original goal was to write around five hundred words a day, but I keep writing more. So I think that the first step would be setting some kind of goal you want to reach - and to make sure it's one you can honestly see happening if you put the effort in.

Once you have a goal, it helps to have some kind of minimum word count/scene count that would help you reach it. For me, it was five hundred words a day in the beginning and a 1k+ chapter a day by the end. There's actually this really cool challenge @ShadowVyper's running called the #20in20 challenge. The goal is to write for at least twenty minutes day and log your writing somewhere on your wall. Doing something along those lines would definitely be a good motivator - the 100 Words Daily club also holds you to a minimum, though the minimum is a word count and not a time one.

My other pieces of advice are to find someone to geek out about the project with, and to find a story that's full of things you're excited about writing. My fic started with a "what if" conversation I had with my friend after seeing a post on Tumblr, and scheming up story ideas with her was what helped to keep me motivated as I was working through plot holes and boring parts of the story.

And, most importantly of all: take a break when you need one! There's going to be some days where you can't reach what your goal is, or you're just unable to write the scene. You don't want to take too long of a break from your story, but you also don't want to force yourself to write when you can't even begin to imagine the next scene.

Good luck on all of your writings, and I hope this helps motivate you!
mage

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Thu Jan 16, 2020 4:47 pm
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Mea says...



(Piggybacking on this to post my response to @Wisteria too! May or may not be adaptable for general use - this is just what I do. :))

Firstly, the biggest thing for me is to wake up every day and say to myself "I'm making writing a priority." This is hard when I have classes and friends and other hobbies demanding attention, but I want to be published so it has to happen. One thing that makes this easier is having a set time to write every day. I'm currently terrible about this because the school semester just started and I haven't found my groove, but ideally this is a time of day that you always have AND that is not so close to when you're waking up or going to bed that you're exhausted (this is my current problem). So at that time, every day, you write, end of story.

Something that helps me do this is that I'm extremely motivated by numbers. I love watching my word count tick up, and I also use a productivity tool called Toggl, which is basically a fancy timer you can use to track the time you spend on various projects. (This is how I know I wrote for 365 hours last year.) I really like keeping a record of my progress like this - maybe it will motivate you too. I'm a slow writer, though, so I don't usually do word count challenges as they stress me out. Consistency is much more important than speed.

Of course, all that gets more difficult when you start running into problems with the story and it's all horrible and you hate it. This is literally the hardest thing for me about writing a first draft. Something that helps me get through it is focusing on one really cool scene that I can't wait to get to and write. Another thing is external commitment - having friends check in with you about your progress. That doesn't mean you have to let them read it (I don't let people read my first drafts) but having someone who asks you about it and whom you can bounce ideas off of is really helpful.

But honestly, getting stuck in your story sucks and it's the biggest thing I struggle with. A lot of the time, I have to pause writing words for a couple days and instead spend my writing time untangling the plot mess I caused, and this still counts as writing! It's a completely valid mode of making progress. (I find long walks really, really helpful for generating ideas when I'm stuck.) Celebrating any time you spend working on your writing, no matter how unproductive it feels, helps me remember I *am* making progress.

Finally, during my first draft, I don't let myself revise. I may totally change stuff about the characters or the world partway through, and I just have to keep writing as if that was the way it's been all along. I may relax this restriction on myself eventually (right now I'm dealing with the inconsistent mess of a novel I made by forcing this method, and it's difficult), but it's an extremely effective way to stop yourself from starting over over and over again.

But at the end of the day, a lot of it is experimentation and trying different things until you figure out what works. Maybe you need to spend a long time outlining beforehand, or maybe you just need to jump right in. Similarly, adjust your intermediate goals (like writing x amount of words every day, or whatever) when they're becoming more millstones than motivators. These intermediate goals are meant to be steps for your long-term goals, and if they aren't working, change them. Eventually, you'll find the ones that do work.

One last thought - even if no one ever reads your writing, even if you never get published it's still a super valuable endeavor for *you* to be able to express yourself and create. It's always okay to write for just you.
We're all stories in the end.

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