I joined the site 5 years ago because I was fascinated by the idea of writing novels and being able to share chapters with people as I was working on the story. I've wanted to be a writer since I was a kid. I've attempted to write novels since I was 14 and I've started writing dozens of stories but I've never finished writing anything. I always get excited about a new idea, spend weeks planning things out, write about 15-20k words and then give up the moment that I reach a plot point that I'm not sure how to write. I joined the site intending to share fictions on here and after all this time I've never uploaded a single chapter.

Part of the reason why I can't finish writing anything is that I've built up some of these stories in my head too much in my head and I'm afraid that I won't be able to do them justice with my writing. This mental block has gotten so bad that for the past year or so I haven't even been able to bring myself to start writing anything. I'm trying to get over this by planning out a brand new story that hasn't spent years in my mind as "the greatest story ever" but I'm already feeling myself falling into that same negative spiral of thinking that it'll suck and I shouldn't bother trying.

The other major problem I have is that I'm addicted to entertainment. I spend way too much time watching tv & youtube or playing video games. I have more than enough time to write but its so easy to come up with excuses not to do it. I hate that it's so hard for me to stay disciplined. 

How do you motivate yourself to write? I'd really appreciate any advice or tips that you have on how to trick or force yourself to start writing and keep on going.

I'm forcing myself to write at least 1000 words a day otherwise I won't write for a couple of days, and it won't do. It won't do because I need my books to release fast if I want to pay my bills. But I took the hard way by committing to my starting author career full time, wouldn't recommend it especially because I'm living in France and we have a couple of financial helps here for people in my case. So writing became my job and if I don't do my job I won't eat. Easy and efficient haha. Forcing yourself to have a tight schedule by publishing it (freely) can be a nice way to achieve that so don't hesitate to get your chapters online.

Just try to write a few words every day, even if it's only 500. Put some good music to get in the right mood, turn off every distraction, and keep your hands on the keyboard.

As for the mental block in your head: Your first stories usually won't be your best. And I don't mean only with your writing. Your ideas, how you plot the story, it will all get better with experience. How do you get experience? By writing and completing books. Maybe you won't do justice to your greatest ideas, but you will never anyway if you don't build up experience. 

You can keep your best ideas for when you have a little bit more experience and focus on an easier plot. That's what I did because my first problem was the same as yours: I couldn't finish a single story. So I took themes I liked and started writing a story with an "easy" plot and decided that if it turned out good I could always add more complexity in book 2/3/4/whatever. 

Or you can dive into your best ideas because honestly we always think we have the idea of the century and once we completed it we have an even better idea of the century. You'll get other ideas, better ideas, different ideas.

Just write, the first draft is not about perfection, it's about completing the story. You'll edit it to perfection once you'll finish it.

Honestly, on a totally technical perspective, a game changer for me was getting a second screen for my computer.

I'll be doing something on my main screen while just to my side my novel will be there waiting to be written, so if I ever get an idea or a burst of creativity, I can just jump on there and write.
When I was younger, I did the same with my phone, but as I grew older I found that I strained my hands and neck too much doing it that way.

On a more mental level, having a release schedule does night and day for me. If I dont feel any pressure, I will straight up forget about writting. Knowing I have to post every week really keeps me on my toes. 
I also went a step further for myself and setup a Patreon. The objective isn't really to make money, it's to intensify this mental need to write. I only have 5 Patreon, but the idea that somehow I could miss a week and leave my precious 5 Patreon without a chapter makes me ridiculously motivated to write.

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NellielDC Wrote: I'm forcing myself to write at least 1000 words a day otherwise I won't write for a couple of days, and it won't do. It won't do because I need my books to release fast if I want to pay my bills. But I took the hard way by committing to my starting author career full time, wouldn't recommend it especially because I'm living in France and we have a couple of financial helps here for people in my case. So writing became my job and if I don't do my job I won't eat. Easy and efficient haha. Forcing yourself to have a tight schedule by publishing it (freely) can be a nice way to achieve that so don't hesitate to get your chapters online.

Just try to write a few words every day, even if it's only 500. Put some good music to get in the right mood, turn off every distraction, and keep your hands on the keyboard.

As for the mental block in your head: Your first stories usually won't be your best. And I don't mean only with your writing. Your ideas, how you plot the story, it will all get better with experience. How do you get experience? By writing and completing books. Maybe you won't do justice to your greatest ideas, but you will never anyway if you don't build up experience. 

You can keep your best ideas for when you have a little bit more experience and focus on an easier plot. That's what I did because my first problem was the same as yours: I couldn't finish a single story. So I took themes I liked and started writing a story with an "easy" plot and decided that if it turned out good I could always add more complexity in book 2/3/4/whatever. 

Or you can dive into your best ideas because honestly we always think we have the idea of the century and once we completed it we have an even better idea of the century. You'll get other ideas, better ideas, different ideas.

Just write, the first draft is not about perfection, it's about completing the story. You'll edit it to perfection once you'll finish it.

Yeah, I'm trying to write a simple idea right now. Its probably the most bare bones premise that I've ever come up with and that's because I just want to finish it instead of worrying about making the most amazing thing ever.

Waurpel Wrote: Honestly, on a totally technical perspective, a game changer for me was getting a second screen for my computer.

I'll be doing something on my main screen while just to my side my novel will be there waiting to be written, so if I ever get an idea or a burst of creativity, I can just jump on there and write.
When I was younger, I did the same with my phone, but as I grew older I found that I strained my hands and neck too much doing it that way.

On a more mental level, having a release schedule does night and day for me. If I dont feel any pressure, I will straight up forget about writting. Knowing I have to post every week really keeps me on my toes. 
I also went a step further for myself and setup a Patreon. The objective isn't really to make money, it's to intensify this mental need to write. I only have 5 Patreon, but the idea that somehow I could miss a week and leave my precious 5 Patreon without a chapter makes me ridiculously motivated to write.

The pressure of having people waiting for new chapters was one of the things that drew me to this site. I kind of want to have a huge buffer before I even start publishing chapters though, so I haven't gotten to experience that pressure. I guess I need to just suck it up, write some chapters of questionable quality and publish already.

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VB3 Wrote:

Xavier Wrote: I joined the site intending to share fictions on here and after all this time I've never uploaded a single chapter.

Why don't you just upload every single story you've ever written?

I don't think people would respond well to a bunch of stories that just have the first act haha. My current plan is to work on this new very basic idea I got a week ago and then if I manage to finish writing it then I'll go back to the biggest story I've been planning for years and finally make it a reality. 

I don't. It's the least undesirable activity.

Honestly, that's what I did for a while. 

It doesnt feel the best, but it breaks you out of that over perfectionism and never publishing.
In time you'll learn what's an acceptable quality and it'll help with procrastination 

Xavier Wrote: Yeah, I'm trying to write a simple idea right now. Its probably the most bare bones premise that I've ever come up with and that's because I just want to finish it instead of worrying about making the most amazing thing ever.

You know, sometimes it's your simplest idea ever that actually will work the best for your career. It worked for me at least lol

Xavier Wrote: The pressure of having people waiting for new chapters was one of the things that drew me to this site. I kind of want to have a huge buffer before I even start publishing chapters though, so I haven't gotten to experience that pressure. I guess I need to just suck it up, write some chapters of questionable quality and publish already.

Look at the bright sight. Publishing your chapters right away will get you (if you're lucky) comments and reviews. You will immediately know if something you thought was bad is actually good and vice versa. You will know what works and what doesn't BEFORE making the same mistake in your 30 next chapters if you have someone reading your story right away. And sometimes you will learn that your greatest idea is actually not so good and no one is interested in it (sadly happens). 

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Screw perfection. Piss on "doing your story justice". 

The story in your head is just for you. So I don't care. When you put it on paper (or pixels) then I get to read it, and then I care. And I don't want perfection, i just want to read that story in your head, at whatever level you can it out of your head and onto my screen. 

My first couple of dozen chapters need re-writing. I see the flaws now. People complain about things, give me a low score on chapter 2 or 3. But...If I hadn't written those chapters, I'd never have written the next 250 chapters. And writing made me a better writer. 

I've got two stories going, and I like writing them and interacting both with my characters, and with the people reading and commenting. 

But by all means, get started so the rest of us have another story to read.

I 100% feel like you, thread creator. At least I did in the past. I had a lot of ideas, different interesting plot lines, even wrote the first chapters. But I'm a non-native speaker and I'm not writing much in the past, just enjoying Anime, Manga and all sorts of entertainment. I also did some planning for one story, like an outline with all chapters planned out already in a synopsis that I thought was great but didn't write it. Hell, I even forced myself to write a dungeon core story in the last Writathon. But I felt like I wrote too much garbage filling because I needed to keep up with about 2200 words per day for the 50k goal.

But I figured I could just "simple down" the story and write 300-600 words per day and so far it's worked great. It also helps me as an exercise for writing. It also only takes 30 - 60 minutes (except for the ideas I come up during the day). Getting some comments also encouraged me to write a second arc to the story instead of putting it on hiatus on the first.

Hell, and I try this currently for fun. If I would go professional mode at some point, I would write 1500 words chapters per day with a filler and end chapters on a cliffhanger. But I currently don't. My "goal" is to write a good book the future that might be read for centuries. It's a long shot but if I don't try getting there I will never achieve it.

Maybe it can help you as well?

The Wrote: Screw perfection. Piss on "doing your story justice". 

The story in your head is just for you. So I don't care. When you put it on paper (or pixels) then I get to read it, and then I care. And I don't want perfection, i just want to read that story in your head, at whatever level you can it out of your head and onto my screen. 

My first couple of dozen chapters need re-writing. I see the flaws now. People complain about things, give me a low score on chapter 2 or 3. But...If I hadn't written those chapters, I'd never have written the next 250 chapters. And writing made me a better writer. 

I've got two stories going, and I like writing them and interacting both with my characters, and with the people reading and commenting. 

But by all means, get started so the rest of us have another story to read.

I feel like I really needed to hear that, so thanks!

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Personally, I motivate myself to write by putting on the right music. Not too loud, otherwise I can't hear my own thoughts. But also not something that makes me feel nothing. Sometimes I need music that evokes feelings of a specific scene. Sometimes I listen to 8h soundtracks of ambient whale sounds. Whenever I need something to get in the mood, music usually does the trick.

Another useful method I have found is to find a time where you are in a relaxed mental headspace. In the morning before or after breakfast, after finishing homework and necessary chores, or in the evening when the world slowly turns darker and quiet. Whatever time works best, use it.

As for publishing the story on Royal road? Do it. Put in as much or as little preparation as you are prepared to give and just do it. In my experience, writing 20k+ words just for yourself and writing those for an audience, even a quiet one, has made me look at my work from many new perspectives. I have improved, I dare say. And to me, that's what matters.

As a last tip: Don't make your first story one that you plan on writing for hundreds of chapters. It's most likely not gonna live up to your expectations and looking back, you'll most likely find hundreds of things you could have done better. This can turn annoying and sap the energy and joy you have for a particular story. So make a shorter one. Write it down. Finish it. Then see what went right, what went wrong, and improve.

Xavier Wrote: The other major problem I have is that I'm addicted to entertainment. I spend way too much time watching tv & youtube or playing video games. I have more than enough time to write but its so easy to come up with excuses not to do it. I hate that it's so hard for me to stay disciplined.

Skip sleeping

Xavier Wrote: I joined the site 5 years ago because I was fascinated by the idea of writing novels and being able to share chapters with people as I was working on the story. I've wanted to be a writer since I was a kid. I've attempted to write novels since I was 14 and I've started writing dozens of stories but I've never finished writing anything. I always get excited about a new idea, spend weeks planning things out, write about 15-20k words and then give up the moment that I reach a plot point that I'm not sure how to write. I joined the site intending to share fictions on here and after all this time I've never uploaded a single chapter.

Part of the reason why I can't finish writing anything is that I've built up some of these stories in my head too much in my head and I'm afraid that I won't be able to do them justice with my writing. This mental block has gotten so bad that for the past year or so I haven't even been able to bring myself to start writing anything. I'm trying to get over this by planning out a brand new story that hasn't spent years in my mind as "the greatest story ever" but I'm already feeling myself falling into that same negative spiral of thinking that it'll suck and I shouldn't bother trying.

The other major problem I have is that I'm addicted to entertainment. I spend way too much time watching tv & youtube or playing video games. I have more than enough time to write but its so easy to come up with excuses not to do it. I hate that it's so hard for me to stay disciplined. 

How do you motivate yourself to write? I'd really appreciate any advice or tips that you have on how to trick or force yourself to start writing and keep on going.

Dude, I relate to this SO much. I had to double check that I wasnt the one who wrote all that! Haha. 

I was in a similar boat as you. I wanted to write, LOVED my stories and wanted to tell them... but the pressure I put on myself always kept me from really working too much on it at once. And then when I wasnt writing I was constantly beating myself for what I wasn't doing--just a terrible cycle. I finally decided one day that I had to write, every day. I had to move forward and make my stories real, share it with people, and just invest in myself as a writer. 

Around the same time I stumbled on a concept that completely changed my life: mini habits. They are habits so small that you trick your brain into thinking, ha, that's nothing! So, for writing, the mini habit is 50 words a day. What that does is you go to write and your brain thinks that 50 is easy... so you get that, right away and since you're already there, writing, you keep going. And before you know it you have gone way past the small goal! Basically, this method assumes that the hardest part we all struggle with is the starting. And once we start? We are unstoppable.

You should give it a try, I'm positive it will help you :)