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Motivation to finish writing a novel

Felix

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I got stuck for a while on one character. I was moving so quickly but lost motivation for a few days because I just wasn't connecting to her.

In my real job, I do a lot of photography and during a two-day stint of Lightroom immersion, I was listening to music. A song came on that made me think of her. Then another. So I made a playlist. Whenever something came along that made me think of her, I tossed it in there. Then I'd settle into my hour commute and scroll through these songs that lit that emotional fire. At home, I'd sink into writing and I felt like it went so much better.

I've done that for other character since. It helps me get over that speedbump.

Glad you're back in the game!
 

Poetical Gore

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I have seen your replies, but first off, did you do an outline? If so, one thing you can do is make a more and more detailed outline. Once you have a detailed enough outline you have everything you want but you just need to write it out.

My advice is you have to have a story that you NEED to write. Also, people start a story prematurely. I take notes at least 2 years before starting a novel. You really have to think a long time before finding out what your story is about before writing it. Also, you can feel when you are ready to write it. I will be taking notes for years and finally it clicks and then I am ready to write it. On some level your brain is giving you ideas you do not actively think of. You need to figure out what your subconscious is trying to tell you and why you have ideas about this story.
 

WeaselFire

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Any advice on how to stay motivated?

There are three motivations for any act - Glory, Gold and Girls. If finishing doesn't meet one of those goals, scrap the book and find something else.

Jeff
 

Eilyfe

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The three things that motivate me the most to sit down and finish a piece:

a) I get an idea/flash of inspiration and that gives me a push for another week or two

b) I read an amazing passage in a book and am on fire for the next week or so (although copying style is a thing there, and I've to be mindful of that)

c) I read a motivational passage from some writing book or another (or from a good blog post)

Mostly it's routine and habit, but I found the three options mentioned above can help out quite a bit, especially when it feels like a slog.
 

WriteMinded

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Just write the next chapter. If you can't do that, just write the next paragraph.

I don't hit the mark at 30K, I hit it long after that. The hardest part for me is when, like now, the end is in sight. I am so anxious to get there, but there are events which must unfold before I hit the finish line. Ugh. All that unfolding. It weighs a ton and must be pushed forward, one sentence at a time.
 

indianroads

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Sometimes stories just sort of beat on the inside of my skull, and demand to be written.

Currently I'm in the process of doing the last couple of editing passes on my WIP, but I'm already thinking about my next project. SciFi this time, and in my head now it may run to a series of 5 or so books. I'm dreaming about it already -
 

CalRazor

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Might be on to a "winning" character here. He's probably a ways off to seeing the light of day though.

*pounds on keyboard like drugged monkey*
 

catesquire

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I've found that setting a timer is helpful--I use 45 minute intervals, with the countdown set on my phone. I also get super easily distracted by the internet, so I've got a wireless keyboard I set up out of easy poke-the-mouse range of my computer. Much less fun to browse the interwebs if I can only use keyboard controls. ;)

And if you haven't heard it before, the number one tip I ever received was "stop writing mid-scene." Don't finish whatever section/chapter you're on: leave off in a place you know how to write, so that you're not faced with a blank page the next day.
 

Thanks Hermione

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I suggest watching videos on youtube by Jenna Moreci. She's the fiction writing guru that has wonderful advice on writing. (I'm not her and I don't know her personally. I don't want it to look like I'm doing self-promotion or spamming.)
 

ancon

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don't know anything but may help to instead of thinking outside of the box at times, etc.,to throw a box on of what you've written so far. what's really in there? what are your words searching for in that box. if you can't see it or hear it or smell it, feel around for it. it is inside there somewhere. and you know it is. you just don't know what it is yet. your hand is scared, your fingers feeling around in the dark. something may bite you.

what's in that box.
 
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LadyRedRover

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I'm still pretty new to the novel-writing business (finished my first novel in June) but, for me, the motivation to continue writing a novel comes from wanting to know what happens next. I always have an outline, but finding out what my characters are like on the page is always an amazing process for me that goes so much further than my planning. If I find my interest lagging, I try to think of the most interesting/worst thing that could happen and I write that until I hit my next plot marker. If I find my characters aren't cooperating, I have them sit and think it out as to what they're most unhappy about and what they really want.

In the end, the only way out is through. Find something to love about your novel, even if it takes you off-plan. But you have to keep writing because that's the only way to finish anything and finishing things is the only way that you learn what you really want to say and do with your writing.
 

BLMN

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When the writing is slow I make deals with myself. 1000 words or two chapters editing and then I get lunch or Facebook status or something. When the writing is hot it's the opposite. Finish the dishes and then I get to write. TV is the enemy so I avoid it when I'm writing. There's really only one way to finish a story. Ass in chair.
 

JinxKing

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I tend to stare at my book cover for a while when I need more motivation. I also find reading author interviews (or just any interview with an artist or creative person) can inspire me. When I'm really down and unmotivated I tend to read Grimes/Claire Boucher interviews to rejuvenate my creativity. (She gives good interview.)

Someone earlier in the thread mentioned Jenna Moreci, who I love. I'd also check out some of Marie Forleo's videos.
 

CalRazor

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Damn. Still haven't finished the beast yet. Need to get on this.
 

Liz_V

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CalRazor - Butt in chair, hands on keyboard. You've got this!
 

quicklime

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Currently at 34,000+ words. Now it's starting to feel like a slog, but I have to keep at it. It feels like I've been writing crap for the past...30,000 words though. It's really a struggle for me to write past even 15,000 (in general). Any advice on how to stay motivated? The only thing I keep telling myself is that once I finish a full-length novel, the second will be easier.


First off: Fuck McCardley et al. (runs to hide: I am actually very fond of McCardley and most of the AW crowd, but haven't been around much)

Second: If you think FINISHING 0ver 30,000 words is tough, wait till you have to EDIT that shit. Editing is what you do when watching paint dry is too exciting, and growing your own lymphoma isn't painful enough. So.....yeah. If you think you're hitting the wall, you aren't. You're hitting the little parking bump they put in front of the wall, to stop you from driving into the side of your local BP when you stop for milk.

Third: It will suck. Different things suck for different people, but it sounds like for you, you are a "short story ideas" guy. So....either you find ways to expand that, or you don't. Maybe you're SSFL (short story for life, yo -- throws most gangster salute he can manage as a Midwestern whiteboy) and your inclinations just skew heavily to shorts. Fine......sometimes things are what they are. That said, I believe, firmly, that The Stand could have become a 20-page vignette, and The Boogeyman could have been a 1,000-page doorstop of slowly-encroaching doom, a hybrid of Cujo and Rebecca (if these are unfamiliar, make sweet, dirty love to Google ASAP)....if you want to make your stories longer, and for that matter, if you don't but you want longer-format ideas, give your brain some quiet time. Not by smoking opium, silly, but by turning shit off--I used to drive 30 minutes to work and 30 minutes home.....and once I turned my radio off, both ways, for like a month, my brain got REALLY noisy: lots of stories gained 100 pounds once I started asking questions like "why would Aaron kill a guy, ro try to rape his wife?" or "OK, so if she wanted to kill Aaron and his friends, what would that actually entail--where would she get a gun? How would it go down? What would it do to her, as a person?" All these things take up page-space. In The Boogeyman you get inklings of it, from the MC's hostility towards his shrink, but it is a short story. Its a quickie: the entire end-goal of the story is busting a glorious nut, all over someone you barely know, in a rush to climax. That's not a bad thing, but that night could go either way: A novel-length story may tell 90% of the same shit, but in a vastly more intimate, measured way. Nothing wrong with either format (sometimes quickies are insanely gratifying, sometimes an entire night of exploration is.....) but they are 2 differing sides of 1 coin.

Maybe you only want to write shorts. That's fine. Maybe you just need enough quiet space to dig a bit deeper. That's also fine. Give yourself some quiet time, and perhaps you will add meat to the bones of your short stories. Or maybe you'll find shorts are all you truly have in you. But give it the space to find itself--find at least an hour of quite time, for 3-4 weeks. Let things percolate. and see if they grow legs of their own....
 

indianroads

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I treat my writing like a job - not a hobby (although technically that's what it is). Every morning I get up, take care of my chores regarding the brood of critters we're living with (we volunteer at a cat no-kill sanctuary), then have coffee with my wife out on our back deck. Once the first cup is gone, I go up to my office and start work. I usually stay upstairs for 8 hours or so - then come down and have dinner and enjoy the evening with my wife.

Admittedly, some days are more productive than others, but I enjoy every minute of it.

Before I start serious writing on a project, I play with it for awhile. The story may rattle around in my head for months before I start any 'real work' on it with the computer - if during that time I get bored with it, usually another idea hits and I start the process over with that. A good sign is when I dream about my story ideas - those dreams end up having a strong influence on the mood of the piece. By the time I start in writing, I'm like a rock falling out of the sky - focused, the story is all I think about, and getting it completed is pretty much inevitable.

If you're having trouble finishing, I wonder how much you love the story itself?
 
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ancon

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there are probably so many places where the story can be bloodied up or make a reader's eyes get teary, etc.

one thing that has helped me, and i am certainly no expert, etc, is to get rid of a lot of...things that almost happen. sometimes it is good for things to almost happen. but at other times---

have whatever IT is happen. don't be lazy or lose confidence in digging deep. write it out. it is those scenes, set up right, that are the bricks of your story. put a gun in the reader's face, yank their neck, try to drown them with your words, etc, not just pull them along a few more pages into your book with another scene. grab em. look them in the eye and have them see what your bloodshot eyes look like. it makes you get to know each other a little better. easier said than done, of course.
 
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BethS

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Editing is what you do when watching paint dry is too exciting, and growing your own lymphoma isn't painful enough.

But...editing is sublime. Editing (from rewriting to polishing) is where the magic happens. It's where you get to look at what's on the page and think, 'I can make this much, much better,' and then you do. Seeing the sow's ear you started out with and the silk purse you ended up with is one of the most rewarding aspects of writing.

Which is why I do most of my revision as I go. I enjoy it too much to wait, for one thing, and I like working with raw material in small pieces rather than huge, unwieldy chunks.

Ymmv, of course. :)
 
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WriteMinded

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I treat my writing like a job - not a hobby (although technically that's what it is). Every morning I get up, take care of my chores regarding the brood of critters we're living with (we volunteer at a cat no-kill sanctuary), then have coffee with my wife out on our back deck. Once the first cup is gone, I go up to my office and start work. I usually stay upstairs for 8 hours or so - then come down and have dinner and enjoy the evening with my wife.
. . .
OMG. I'm going to tell my husband we need to acquire a wife so I can write 8 hours a day. :D



But...editing is sublime. Editing (from rewriting to polishing) is where the magic happens. It's where you get to look at what's on the page and think, 'I can make this much, much better,' and then you do. Seeing the sow's ear you started out with and the silk purse you ended up with is one of the most rewarding aspects of writing.

Which is why I do most of my revision as I go. I enjoy it too much to wait, for one thing, and I like working with raw material in small pieces rather than huge, unwieldy chunks.

Ymmv, of course. :)
Sublime is the word. Knowing that the future holds many days of heavenly editing is what keeps me slogging through a first draft.
 
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pat j

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Currently at 34,000+ words. Now it's starting to feel like a slog, but I have to keep at it. It feels like I've been writing crap for the past...30,000 words though. It's really a struggle for me to write past even 15,000 (in general). Any advice on how to stay motivated? The only thing I keep telling myself is that once I finish a full-length novel, the second will be easier.

========

Deadlines got me moving when I did not want to be writing.

I would suggest you step back and make a detailed outline of your novel.
That would show how you could continue faster.
Maybe you need subplots if you have problems stretching what you have now to make it longer.

If you slice and dice the story down to acts, major events, scenes, and then finally beats, then the writing part should be easy.
You could focus on being creative with the scenes, description, dialogue, yada yada without being distracted by length or trying to ensure that everything fits together while you are trying to do the actual writing.