For me, I get insane creativity bursts, which includes writing stories (and writing music) -- and then it dries up for a period. To solve that is a question for another day...

But the trouble I'm having is this: I get an idea for a story. I begin to write story. Then, whilst writing story, I think of other stories. So, I create a Word file called "story ideas" and jot down a few key things. The trouble lies in the following: I get motivated to write new story and current story gets put on a shelf -- sometimes permanently. It seems my mind is unable to focus on more than one idea at a time, and the newest one is always the "next best thing" so to speak...

I get that it's a matter of discipline, but I'm wondering if others go through it and how you've solved it -- or not solved it as the case may be. In other words, how do you cope?

Personally, I write at the long lengths, and I seem to have about 5 novels ahead. Obviously I would never finish everything if I started writing the next thing. So there's a moratorium on writing things down for a future novel until I have a complete rough draft on the previous one. People usually assume this means I forget the great ideas, but I find it to be exactly the opposite: the only ideas that really stick with you are the ones that are really great, the ones that deserve to make it in.

However, that doesn't work very well with short stuff. I think I have a natural working pace. I write 100 to 130 pages on the novel. I stall. I spin off, put it on the shelf, and write short stories fast and furious and undisciplined, some getting finished and some getting abandoned, for a month or two. Then I return to the novel and write up to about page 350 or so, when I get really paranoid and slow and just want it over already and then suddenly it is. Then I go into fallow period, writing down the plot lines for the next novel that's been bugging me while writing more short stories and maybe doing the editing before starting the writing on the next one.

It is really frustrating though when writing fiction. In the past I've tried starting several story ideas at once but tend to find that most of them fizzle out into nothingness instead of becoming a really great story. I've tried working new story ideas into my existing story but that doesn't always work.

I'm attempting to solve my ADD writing style at the moment by using the snowflake outline method. If I am successful, I'll be a happy, happy woman!

(Sorry I'm no help-- but you're not alone! Though I'm not sure you're in the best company...)

EDIT: With ME, that is! (I know these other people are quite great writers! *blush*)

I'm told it's related to ADHD -- you're not able to concentrate on anything but the single thing you're interested in at the time, and you can spend about 3 times as much time on that as anybody else would. If you can stay interested, it's a godsend -- if you can't, it's a real problem.

I don't have this problem anymore. At least, not as severe. I think it has something to do with my selecting the best elements of each story and packing them all into one uberstory, which is my current WIP. I've been working on it since February or so, and though there are periods when my creative fields are fallow, luckily, I'm not going through one now. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

But in the final analysis, writers finish their stories (at least most of them), edit them, then send them out. If you don't do that, then you'll never be a writer.

It seems to me that you need to discipline yourself. One way to do this is not to use your computer to keep track of your story ideas. It's too easy to keep writing and writing and writing. Try 3x5 cards, which will limit you to a few sentences.

Like I said, I'm currently forcing myself to finish the story I'm working on before tackling the next.

I would combine them, if I could... but an addict who finds a Djinn (or genie -- that isn't anything like any genie he's ever read about before) in his late father's pocket watch while rummaging through his mother's attic looking for something for drug money, doesn't quite jive with my whole old man on a train seeking vengeance thing. Tho' they could possibly cross paths...?

My husband reads what I write. He wants to find out how it ends, so I keep working on it. It's hard not to finish a novel when someone asks you every day if he can have the next chapter yet!

I have more limited opportunities for writing. That sounds crazy, but when my time is more limited, I tend to make better use of it. I can't afford to waste it on unfinished stuff. (I have two little kids, and they keep me very busy. I get to write when they're napping--which they've just about given up most days--or when my husband is around to look after them.)

I've committed to finishing what I start. If I have other ideas (and I always do), I note them down and then go back to what I was doing. Yes, it takes discipline, but it's good for you. Ideas are the easiest part of writing--you can always get more of them. And I also have found that waiting on a really good idea improves it. The best ones might not even need to be written down (though I do anyway), because they just won't let you go.

There were three times during this novel that I paused to do shorter things. The only reason I dared was that I knew my husband would be pestering me for another chapter, so I wouldn't be tempted to abandon it. As it turned out, the characters wouldn't let me go--I had to go back to the novel to finish telling their story. I've always wanted to someday see my work in print, but with this one, it's more than that. I want to see THIS in print, this story, these characters.

Now don't anyone harangue me on this. I think there are a few kids who actually benefit from drug therapy. But I think they are much fewer than are actually receiving it.

I suppose you have to define what a short story is.

If you're talking about a 3000-word story, then maybe I'll agree with you. That's only about 12 pages--three hours of work if you can write a page every 15 minutes.

But if you use the SFWA definition of a short story--up to 7500 words--you're looking at around 30 pages. I don't know about you, but I can't write 30 pages in one sitting.

Of course, if you're like me and dismiss the distinction between a short story and a novelette (it's good for awards, but the form is the same between the two--like a short story, a good novelette has only one idea, but a novella can have two or three), then you're looking at up to 70 pages.

Besides, Poe might have written "The Cask of Amontillado" in one sitting, but he certainly didn't write "The Fall of the House of Usher" in one sitting.

Not a thing.

If it was good enough, it will come back. And if you give it time, it'll grow. It'll get better. Once that idea keeps coming back to me, gaining depth as it goes, I jot a quick outline... and let it sit again to keep working on my current project.

I just don't have time to bother with small one-time flashbulb ideas. If an idea is complex and mature enough, it'll bother me until I have to do something about it.

I'm particular about expending a lot of mental/emotional energy to get one finished. If it isn't coming easy, then leave the short story aside and move on to something else. Who knows but that it might become the critical element of a novel or something? Maybe it doesn't want to be a short story, and given the economics (both literary and monetary) of short fiction, you don't have a real reason to disagree, do you?

I suppose that the single sitting notion might have some impact on it as well. Personally, I read most novels in a single sitting, so that particular difference is less important in my thinking about literature generally.

All I'm saying is that if you're writing a short story and suddenly you want to write about something else that can't fit into your short story, maybe it's because what you're writing shouldn't be a short story. And in any case, if it doesn't hold your attention long enough for you to finish writing it, it wouldn't be a good short story.

Half of my current 'short' story takes place on a commuter train. I'm on trains quite often, but I know little about how modern trains work, what they're made of, how they brake, how signalling works, etc... I started my story anyway, then realized I needed to know how they worked. So I spent quite some time looking up engineering specs, train spotting websites, etc..., as well as paying very close attention to the sounds they make when I'm riding on one. I stopped writing my story for a good week to assimilate all of this.

Maybe most of that info won't make it into my story, but it's good to know and hopefully will make it more believable because I do know how they work now.

I also think everyone should find what works for them when they write. If you only write a paragraph per day, then so be it. Yeah, it will take a long time to finish a 2000 word story, but... you're still writing. Having preconceived notions of the "proper" way to write may in fact hinder one's ability to put words down on paper/screen. Then again, I also agree that it's the "writing of story" that matters... so, the more you write and more prolific you are, a better writer you'll become.

Also a warning if you are bored of your current WIP whose to say a reader will be interested.