Unmotivated writing

[Caged Maiden]

Yeah...I think that's when your story isn't a baby anymore Penpilot. What you're talking about is what I'm doing right now...it's the preteen and teenage years, I'm convinced.

 

[Chessie]

Yeah...I think that's when your story isn't a baby anymore Penpilot. What you're talking about is what I'm doing right now...it's the preteen and teenage years, I'm convinced.

The good thing about you is that you write other stuff in the meantime, too.

Hm. I definitely experience days where writing sucks and I put out terrible prose or just don't want to do it. But I've never been stuck on a novel for a very long time. I'm not pulp speed by any means, but typically I fix problems as I go along and push til the end. About 2-3 months is my average on a novel, half that time on a short. I just...sigh...see it as wasting my time going over the same problems over and over again. Problems start from the very beginning, so if the story sucks after several pass through sessions then I chuck it. There are just so many stories I want to tell and only so much life left lol.

 

[Heliotrope]

Every story I've written I come to a point in editing where I absolutely hate it. After the thousanth pass over the story fixing this or that and getting it as close to how I want it as I can, I just want to move on. I love you baby story but you're driving me nuts. But for me, I power through then take a break before the last pass.

The way I figure it, when you're not in love with something the more willing you are to make changes. When I hate my story, it means I'm deeply familiar with it and it's flaws.

Yep. Me too. This is why I never read my old stuff. Ever. I just can't. It nauseates me. Old stuff gets put away in the distant corners of a flash drive and never sees the light of day.

 

[Addison]

I recently came into a discovery about writing. It could be that the story you want to write isn't the one you're writing. Building on that, it could be the because of over-thinking and reading too many "how to" books and such you're writing the wrong story by burying the one you want in all sorts of nonsense. I.E a story of five hundred pages and thirty chapters full of fun subplots of character depth and growth with a heavy plot could better tell your story as a seventh-grade book of three hundred pages, twenty chapters, a few sub plots and happy yet not so deeply explored growth.

As for myself I discovered that something that may connect to the lack of motivation is forcing your story, the beautiful picture in the middle of a jigsaw puzzle, inside the frame made by another different puzzle. They don't fit. They may look okay, even beautiful, but it flat doesn't fit. In the case of my near insanity I was trying to write my story as a contemporary fantasy where magic and technology have evolved openly and in peace since the celts, yet the setting is this world's modern Portland where no such magic-technology balance exists. I had a fun time sketching a few city-views of my main setting so now my motivation has returned.

So if you're unmotivated I suggest looking at all the pieces of your story, picking the ones that represent the story you want to tell (characters, theme, scenes which best represent it) and then examining whatever pieces are left over. Those pieces either need to be cleaned, changed, or fed to your destructively-teething puppy. Hope this is helpful, happy writing.