Is terribly hard for me to do. Why? Lazy. Distracted. Flighty. Bored. I could write a list a mile long on why I find it hard to end stories. I'm not like this on anything else. Reading books I almost always finish, chores, jobs, projects, tasks. I finish what I start, but when I sit down to write a story for some reason I find it immensely hard to keep myself interested beyond two weeks. Oh, I'll keep coming back to the story, adding stuff on here and there. It might take me weeks, it might take me months...hell, it might take me years. Sometimes I question why I call myself an author. Like all authors, we are our own worse critics and I question myself. Am I good enough? Am I improving? Was the story I just put out a waste of time, both mine and the readers? Yes. Yes. And No--I'd like to think. I try and squash self-doubt, and I've tried several techniques to become motivated in a story I started. I think my biggest problem in this area is discipline. Quite frankly, I need more of it. My beta friend calls her sessions of writing grinding. I've tried to take a page out of her book and grind, and then I wrote myself into a corner.
I used the terms Muse and writer's block, but one author wrote in his interview that he doesn't believe in muses and that writer's block is just an excuse. I disagree with the first, on the basis that its just a term given to the creative 'spirit' if you will, inside us all. On the second, I have to agree. There probably is no such thing as writer's block. You can write at any time, but is it any good?
My reluctance to write sometimes comes from the fact that I'm a pantser. I have a total of one book planned out--each chapter, step by step, from beginning to end--and I grew bored with it and shelved it before I got to the halfway point. I'm not sure how writing works. I couldn't explain how I go from page three to ninety-three. I can't explain how I even know what my character will say next. It just...flows. It just springs to my mind and my fingers translate. Sometimes nothing springs to my mind, or on second thought I don't like what I've written and I need to take a step back to figure out how to get from point A to point B.
Sometimes I just lose interest. 95% of the time its because some idea has sprung to my mind and I think its better. I'm slowly learning to write out of sequence. By that I mean write scenes as they come to me. I couldn't tell you how many stories have stumped me with what happens next because I couldn't climb over a mole hill I'd made for myself. I used to have to write in order. After Cory wakes up he 'had' to eat breakfast before he went to the gym. If I didn't feel like writing the breakfast scene I couldn't get on with the gym scene. If I didn't feel like tackling sex between my MCs then I didn't get on with the action scene that happened after.
As you can imagine this bogged me down big time. I'm glad I'm breaking out of this self-induced mold. Hopefully, I will be a better, more productive writer for it. Staying interested is still a work in progress for me. I owe it to myself and my fans to finish what I started.
