How to build willpower?

Yes. First of all, make the intention. Not: I will work on it and finish by this month. Rather: I'll work 1 hour every day. Also, cut out nonessential things from your life, one at a time, slowly. Pull yourself away from a show, and forget about it. But, that might be hard. It could be any time waster in life, not just a show. I think getting encouragement from friends and family to finish it can give motivation as well.

Oh sure, I'm a disaster. First, I recognize and always appreciate that for me anyway, it's a privilege to have that problem. For example, when I had to have full time jobs or had babies at home or whatever, my days were pre-determined and I didn't even have the luxury of choosing to be an ass, haha. (not to call you names, strictly speaking of myself there!)

Aside from that, I think some people are just naturally more organized and focused than others. I believe they are gifted, seriously. Hey, we can't all be gifted at everything, right?

I have a rough, simple schedule in mind, five standing things I am supposed to accomplish every weekday. I'm so scattered that I even use a chart on my computer to keep track of that. I can mix and match just so it all gets done within the week. Weekends, I can catch up or start early on the next week. Even so, I get it done about half the time. Then I say, whatevah. My family seems happy, my husband seems to like me, what needs to be done is done, my house is pretty clean, we eat, etc. In other words, don't forget there are far worse crimes than not being as "together" a person as you would like to be and/or believe you should be. Don't get discouraged, just keep trying and you get better at it over time.

For general home and life management habits, Flylady is great, too. http://www.flylady.net/

Good luck.

I am the same way. Procrastinator extraordinaire and probably chronically fatigued as well. I had to get really uncomfortable to finally buckle down and start writing. My day job is really hard, my mortgage is really huge, and my student loans are the raven that sits above my door.

It was depressing and overwhelming. I had to look at my writing as a possible way out. At one point even the possibility of escape from debt slavery wasn't enough to get me motivated to keep at it. It took me thinking that I was actually going to die to finally light a fire under my backside and get me to finish my first manuscript. I had to be down right desperate.

However, now that I have finished one manuscript and I know I can do it, I find the process a whole lot easier the second time around. It is kind of like child birth. Now that it is over I have forgotten how agonizing it was, and I want to do it again. LOL.

I can only speak for myself, but the cure for my laziness is to get uncomfortable and get desperate.

Another thought is to consider your health. If you don't get proper nutrition, enough water, enough sleep, or have (possibly undiagnosed) physical or psychological health problems of course that will show in your motivation for getting things done as well.

Fruitbat said:

Another thought is to consider your health. If you don't get proper nutrition, enough water, enough sleep, or have (possibly undiagnosed) physical or psychological health problems of course that will show in your motivation for getting things done as well.

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Yes, sometimes it's not about will but about energy.

If you own the energy, then you need to find a place where you can make the words flow with no interruption.
And finally, about will in general, it increases when you do what you really want to do, and decreases with... *sigh* pretty much everything else...

-I find getting into a routine helps. its easier to get up and write if you have been getting up and writing every day for a week.
-It also helps to get excited about your work again, instead of looking at it as a chore. Find that thing that got you excited about it in the first place.
-It also helps to just muscle through. You wont feel like working initially, but if you just sit down, put some music on and write for ten minutes, you build momentum and can just keep going.
-It helps to get rid of distractions. turn off your phone. unplug your internet.
-It helps to also try figure out what is stealing your energy and do something about it.
-And sometimes it helps just to head off to the clinic and get a shot of vitamin B.

I use a similar strategy to Maryn.

Try asking yourself 'What is the smallest thing I can do towards my life ambition today?' Then do it. It becomes addictive You will end up doing lots more than that one small thing. But even if you don't, it doesn't matter--one small thing is better than nothing.

THIS IS THE ANSWER:

I tricked all of my writer friends into joining a chat room where we can push each other into doing writing/editing/betaing rounds. Now they're all hooked and useless without it. Just like me. MWAHAHAAHAHAHA!

Um, if you'd rather write alone, what has worked for me in the past are:

-Setting daily goals. Mine was 1,600 words a day...but start small and build up from there. I started at 600 words a day and slowly added more to the goal as I got used to writing everyday.
-I'd go to a cafe with no wifi and force myself to stay there until I've hit my daily goal.
-When I couldn't go to a cafe, I'd go to writeordie.com and race the clock until I hit my daily goal.
-Word wars. (This was what led to the chat room idea.)
-Close the goddamned Firefox/Chrome windows. I didn't have to turn off my modem. Closing the browser windows was enough to stay off and only come on when there's an actual legit need like looking up words or checking facts.

Maryn said:

While losing fifty pounds or driving to Juneau seem impossible, I can use reduced-fat dairy products and drive to the highway's entrance ramp. . .

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Sound advice. Small steps. And I often use reduced-fat dairy products to increase my willpower. Not sure how it works but who cares? And entrance ramps are a source of joy and wonder for me. The anticipation of setting off somewhere far away sets my heart a-flutter, makes me antsy to DO something. Like write a book or send out queries or, at least, drink a glass of low-fat milk. . .

If nothing else, I hear it puts hairs on your chest.

kkbe, feeling unusually furry and frisky this fine February morn.

Fruitbat said:

For general home and life management habits, Flylady is great, too. http://www.flylady.net/

Good luck.

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I second this. The Flylady knows her stuff.

I'm also a disorganized mess. During the week when stuff has to get done I can handle it. It's on the weekends where things go to hell... I don't focus on getting something done around the house. I look around and figure out what is stressing me out the most and then I deal with it.

As for writing, every day. I also outline my stories and break it down into cue cards or sticky notes. That makes the story seem less intimidating.

I think as creative people, we all struggle with this to a certain extent. During my most effective times I make a list the night before of the top five things I need to accomplish the next day. I then make sure I accomplish at least three of these before I let anything else distract me. The momentum of lining them off my list almost always propels me to a more productive day.

That's a good question, and I never did really find an answer, other than spending my life doing things I don't need willpower to do. It always seemed to me that if I kept procrastinating, it was probably over something I didn't really want to do, anyway.

I've found happiness by only doing things I love doing so much that willpower isn't necessary. Fortunately, writing is one of these things.

I have this problem. I recently downloaded a free stopwatch for my desktop and I leave it running whenever I'm actually working. I can just see the little nano-seconds ticking up out of the corner of my eye and it reminds me that I'm supposed to be working or writing. I aim for a particular amount of time per day for each task, so if I stray off task I can look at the stopwatch (which I pause and restart frequently) and instantly know I have more work to do.

Morgan_R said:

Thanks, folks. Small things take less willpower than large things, for sure. Though as kkbe snarkily points out, that wasn't exactly my question... but maybe it'll help, if I can get in the habit of what I want to do, by virtue of lowering the bar, maybe I can work my way up to larger hurdles.

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Morgan, forgive me kiddo. I was snarky, yes I was.

Your original question has to do with persistence, or lack thereof. You know yourself better than anybody, Morgan. There have been a lot of threads about what qualities successful writers share, and what is "success," all that good stuff. You have to decide what your priorities are. You have to do that but only if you want to because you are absolutely correct--sometimes, writing is bloody hard and sometimes--a lot of times--life gets in the way.
I think you want folks to give you something that will keep you going when you don't want to, for whatever reason. But if you want to be published one day, first you have to write something. And if you want to write, I suspect you'll find a way to do it, Morgan. The motivation is intrinsic, though. Gold stars and attaboy's only go so far when you're alone on a Saturday night, with no ideas, looking at an empty screen.

Putputt said:

I tricked all of my writer friends into joining a chat room where we can push each other into doing writing/editing/betaing rounds. Now they're all hooked and useless without it. Just like me. MWAHAHAAHAHAHA!

Um, if you'd rather write alone, what has worked for me in the past are:

-Setting daily goals. Mine was 1,600 words a day...but start small and build up from there. I started at 600 words a day and slowly added more to the goal as I got used to writing everyday.
-I'd go to a cafe with no wifi and force myself to stay there until I've hit my daily goal.
-When I couldn't go to a cafe, I'd go to writeordie.com and race the clock until I hit my daily goal.
-Word wars. (This was what led to the chat room idea.)
-Close the goddamned Firefox/Chrome windows. I didn't have to turn off my modem. Closing the browser windows was enough to stay off and only come on when there's an actual legit need like looking up words or checking facts.

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Wow, these are awesome ideas. Definitely going to try the cafe w/o wifi thing and writeordie sounds super awesome. I have to try that out too. Internet is indeed one of the biggest distractions around.