Sunday, 26 August 2012

Putting it off

Recently, I have found myself doing everything but writing: checking email for the fifth time, watching YouTube videos, texting people stupid one-liners, thinking up new characters and (but not limited to) staring at the last sentence I wrote in my previous writing flurry.

I procrastinate for no good reason. It's already been established how much I like writing and how good it makes me feel. So why am I putting it off?

Maybe there's a part of me that thinks I'm just not good enough to be writing. I've won some competitions and been short listed for others, so a lack of confidence is just not logical. But then, I once declared myself "outsane", so clearly logic has no place here.

However, what I think it boils down to is a lack of motivation. Not a lack of motivation to write, but a lack of motivation to finish the story. This specific story is the first one I want to try to get published and once it's done, I don't have to write it anymore. And I really enjoy writing this particular story. I must do; why else would I get caught up in it after typing the next new word at every session?

Perhaps I should look at it differently. I am motivated to write, therefore I should be motivated to finish the story. Right?


P.S The Internet died on my ancient laptop so I had to do this on my phone. Technology both frustrates and amazes me.

Saturday, 18 August 2012

Writer problems

Or, as I like to think of them, the-trouble-with-having-a-bucket-load-of-imagination. But 'writer problems' sounds a lot more classy, don't you think?

I love to write stories. I love the freedom it offers me, to experience magic, adventures, and love. What I don't love about it is being bogged down by just one story. So I write more than one at a time. And it usually works...For about three or four chapters. Then I go through long spells of writing short, useless scenes and putting off the initial story. I've been writing for about four years now and I'm ashamed to admit I've only finished five multi-chapter stories.

Actually, writing that down it looks pretty good. Five in four years - and that's amid GCSEs and A-Levels. Huh. Perhaps I've been selling myself short.

Then again, I've been writing the same two stories for three years now and neither has passed chapter six. One of them has even undergone several drastic plot changes. I guess the 'writer problem' isn't sticking with the stories at hand. It's finishing them.
My notebook: more plots than will ever be written.