I really do WANT to write, but for some reason I keep finding myself watching TV, or playing a game (is it perhaps just the fact that Rome: Total War is so great a game?).

And that's the secret of writing. Butt in chair. You have to have a schedule. You have to say I'm going to sit down and write between ten and midnight (or whenever) every day. And you sit your butt down and write. When the time's up, you're done for the day. You may have four or five pages, or only one, or just a couple of paragraphs, or a number of false starts. And that's all right, because that's how it is done.

As for the laziness thing, I don't know that there are any tips on how to overcome it. All I can say is, turn off the T.V./video game and write. That's all there is to it. You just have to do it.

Do you want to write for personal reasons, to hash out problems and make sense of things? Do you want to write a story you can show friends, maybe something a teacher would grade well? Do you want to publish a short story? Do you want to write a book? Have you written anything that would receive glowing compliments from all participants in this forum? Is the last item possible?

Take a look at your goals and choose something you feel is achievable, and then take a good look at what you've done to further those goals. If you want to publish a short story, for example, have you looked around at the market to see where you might submit it, maybe read a little bit of what's out there to see how you compare and to get some inspiration?

Their solution was to find a place or time when they wouldn't be distracted. There are other ways... make playing your game a reward. Say to yourself (and be firm) that unless you write **** words today you cannot play. I started doing that and before I knew it I wanted to write more than i wanted to play. So many things are addictive, writing is one of them.

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I need a shot in the arm or something.

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Shoot yourself in the arm: the pain will make everything quite clear...

Kidding.

There are times when I know I'm not ready to write a particular scene because it's incubating in my subconscious. When I can't stand it any longer, I'll write it, and it usually comes out killer, with little need for revision other than to tighten it up.

I am a very procrastinating person by nature, and in order to get anything done at all, I keep up an ever-shifting kaleidoscope of deferred tasks. Whenever I don't feel like working on something, I just work on something I didn't feel like working on earlier.

I have many interests other than writing, such as drawing and computers. I don't beat myself up if I don't write every single day, but I hardly go a day without writing.

Archer, I feel your pain. Balthasar, I have no idea what you're talking about. It's not as simple as you'd write if you wanted to write. Writing is hard. It takes effort, especially if Archer is the type who wants to write well and nor just spawn rubbish.

In the end, though, BIC is the answer. I can only help by adding a couple of things to make BIC easier. First of all, find the same TIME every day to do it. It doesn't matter what time it is, an hour before dawn, right before you go to bed, over lunmch, at 5 in the afternoon....just fine a time at always always always write during that time. Second, find a SPACE where you write. It doesn't matter where that is. Wel, not much, anyway. I recommend a relatively private place especially if you're one of those wandering around here with a spouse or kids. But whatever it is, your study, your bedroom, the park, ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS write there.

The reason I suggesti these things is based on very simple human psychology. If you want to look it up check out behavioral psychology and more specifically, classical (also called Pavlovian) conditioning. By having you do something at the same time and in the same place every day we are creating a set of stimuli that, after a time, will come to mean I MUST WRITE!!! to your brain. At first, it will be difficult. It's going to be a bit like starting a physical exercise program, making yourself do it, just making yourself do it. But soon (and I don't know how long, it will vary based on the person and their commitment, I imagine) it will be your time to write.

“Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses and avoids.”

It may not be so much about laziness, but could be more of a burn out thing. You mentioned writing reports for school, well, when I was taking classes a couple of years ago, I hit a subtle burn-out point. I was doing so much school-related writing and news writing (studying to become a journalist) that even when I did think of a cool fiction idea, I couldn't get past that point. Just the thought of sitting down and writing a creative story, made me feel tired and more glued to my seat on the couch.

I tried a lot of things - outlining, sitting with a BIC and pad of paper on the couch, writing openings - but nothing really worked. So what has gotten me writing again? Well, being out of school and away from the mundane writing tasks, for one. When I felt like I had to write, it took away a lot of my drive to write.

If you honestly believe that it is just laziness, then yes, scheduling a time to write may work. Perhaps even finding something that makes you write to a deadline, just to get started. (I'll put in a shameless plug here for Dakota and the Hatrack Re-write Challenge. These have helped me produce one rough story for each the past three months. They may not all be saleable, but at least I'm writing fiction again.)

for me, BIC only works so far, when i'm done, i'm done, whether i hold my butt in the chair yet or not...

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Do you want to publish a short story? Do you want to write a book?

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Balthasar hit upon the one that is most widely pushed, but writing every day is not for everyone. I think you have to write as much as makes you happy.

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making deadlines has an ill effect on me... a deadline actually reduces my productivity.

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Did I sound a bit harsh? Sorry. I'm just trying to be realistic. I'm in this for real. I'm determined to study the craft and do all I can to meet my writing goals. It may not be this year. It may not be until my youngest child is finally out the door and on her way to college. But until it does happen I have to be realistic. I have to prepare myself to be a writer by trade, not a writer by hobby.

Which do you want to be, Archer?

Absolutely correct, Dakota. I've heard several pros comment that you should treasure work on your first book, because if it is purchased and the publisher wants more from you, you will be given a deadline for the next book. That deadline is typically much shorter than you would think and it is drop-dead...in other words, you miss it, you get dropped by the publisher. FYI, the deadlines for tie-in writers are the toughest...the fellow writing the novelization for Serendipity (the movie version of Firefly) was given two weeks. Yes, you read that right, two weeks, start to finish. Oy!

If procrastination and distraction are your issues, try leaving the house to write. Go to the library, or Starbucks, or any other place you can write without access to the television or internet connectivity. Sometimes when all you have is your laptop (or pad and pen) and no options for procrastination, it helps you focus and get the writing done.

because i CAN NOT do deadlines. it's absolutely impossible for me. unless it's a deadline that isn't really a deadline, such as the rewrite challenge, finish a short story in a month isn't that big of a challenge, really

Anyway:

You want to write a book? You've got to get your f***ing a** on that chair, again and again. And then you've got to shut off all distractions and focus. Work.

Not an ounce harder -- or an ounce easier -- than that. To force yourself to work on a project like this, one where progress is impossible to objectivly measure, where it is possible to feel hopeless lost, you must reach into your soul. Then you must grab motivation and drag it up.

Take that motivation and with it force yourself to do what you must. Do not let yourself overcome yourself. Do not procrastinate with your goals and deadlines EVER. Once will lead to twice.

And when you do, shrug. Ignore it. Then get up and BACK TO WORK. Do not overwork yourself, do not kill yourself through writing. Take breaks if needed. But they have to be reasonable; and above all, when you get back...NO PROCRASTINATING.

Such is the formula for succees... Suffer, bleed, work. Cry if you like. But do it. Get it done. And then, in the end, look back and gasp.

For you will have made something quite great.

You are not absolutely sure you could write a lot of your story, or you wouldn't be asking us what to do about your laziness (and then reading our useless replies, which will not help you overcome laziness). You would be using your time at the computer to write some of your story (and don't tell me that it isn't your computer etc., you have internet access so you could just mail yourself the text).

If you were absolutely sure that you could write a lot of your story, but were doing things other than writing, then you would already know the reason. Getting those things done is more important to you right now than writing your story.

There is no shame in this (unless writing is currently your sole means of supporting a family or stopping a terrible injustice or something like that). I take breaks from writing all the time (though not usually when I know exactly what I'm going to write). There are stories that I really know I could write that I don't really want to write, for instance.

But as I said, this isn't your problem. You're not suffering from laziness, people suffering from simple laziness don't complain about it. You're blocked, and you're telling yourself that it's because your lazy.

There's nothing wrong with being blocked, either. I'm blocked most of the time. All of the time, if you include times when I'm writing one story rather than another because I'm blocked on the other story. And I guess that I'm never so blocked that I can't write anything at all...okay, so I'm not used to complaining about being blocked...or lazy.

It's also possible that you are just burned out. I know that after I finished my first novel I was roasted. I didn't write anything for four months. Take a break, relax, but percolate. I find that when I'm not actually writing that's the most important thing I can do. I come up with ideas and work on plots in my head, finding things that would make good inspiration, and then it finally reaches critical mass and I have to start writing or I'll just die.

Habit is also important. With Nano I had to force myself to start writing almost every day, but after somewhere around 400 words I just took off and I would fly through the rest of my quota, often going a good 400 into the next chunk. The last three times that I wrote I ended up writing 4000 words in a single sitting. I think that a warm-up is a very important thing.

Enough of my jibba-jabba.

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Shoot yourself in the arm: the pain will make everything quite clear...

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OK! *BAM!*

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Kidding.

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Woops.

I suppose each of us humans have a different way of doing things. You'll have to find one that works for you. But I'm afraid the only way to find that is dedicating some time to write.

EDIT: oh, and actually, there is a such thing as pure inspiration writing. i do it all the time with poetry and stories phrased poetically

hmm... that reminds me, i wonder whatever i did with Eagle Man, or something like that, the title slips me right now... anyways, that is an adventure story phrased entirely in a poem! i wrote it, probably one of the last things i wrote before i went dry for a while... i think it was about 10 typed pages long of pure inspiration writing, which i then went back through and cleaned up.

my poem i posted on here when i joined, Month In A Moment, was also pure inspirational writing... the idea came to me in the middle of sacrament meeting of all times!

of course, even poetry is not always done by inspiration for me, i've written my number of poetry that i had to slave over to struggle out even so much as 5 lines written...

so basically i'm saying that inspiration writing is possible, but only for the shortest of short stories and poetry, and even that is rare, and that always my basic ideas come by inspiration

One thing I find the more I write is that inspiration most often springs FROM work. I get more story ideas as I write and research. I even get story ideas from artwork I'm doing, or from books I'm reading. And since I'm a learning writer, reading is, in part, work--I'm studying and learning from the writers I read.

Inspiration isn't just an epiphany that comes totally out of the blue. 99.9% of the time you have to be working something out in your mind,the very least, in order for inspiration to come. We have to do our portion of the workload in order for God, or the muse or whatever name you like to give your inspirational voice, to pour those awesome ideas into our heads.

Now, the drugs didn't actually inspire the music, but gave the illusion of a higher state of inspiration. But the theory is still the same. When you're inspired, work out your ideas in your head, or a scrap piece of paper, and later work it out and type it down when you rationalize it out, and give it structure.

Does it always work? Well, no. Athletes have off days. So do writers. But if you can develop these rituals you'll have more on days than off.

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Not to say that Butt in Chair is not important, but uninspired writing is insipid and boring.

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Great Gatsby anyone?

Who knows? I certainly don't, and am not sure that the 'how' of the condition is as important as the 'why'. For me, I think it traces back to a genuine fear of failure...or more specifically, a fear of incompletion. So many times I get deep into a WIP, thinking I'm going strong, only to hit a brick wall. It never fails. I've written parts of more stories than I can count (they practically spill out of my old PC, and threaten the integrity of my notebook). But ask me how many I've finished. Go ahead. The answer is one. Pitiful.

I have yet to figure out where this anti-completion complex hails from, but know that it is a serious threat to my hopes and dreams. I've been able to examine 'why' I think my extended writers' block has stuck with me for all these years. In a way, this has helped. Now that I know why, I have been able to think past the barrier. The other night I cranked out a bit of work that actually sounded decent, and there was no trace of the usual masonry in my path at the time. True, this story will probably follow the others into grave obscurity, though I hope it is a sign that there is hope for me.

Perhaps such an abstract, overly simplistic, and seemingly ridiculous method would work for you. Then again, since this is all coming from an extremely tired mind at 12:42 AM (U.S. Eastern Time), it probably has no practical value whatsoever. Still, theoretical or not, there may be a grain of wisdom or two in the sands of blather above. I wish you luck, and want you to know that you are most definitely not alone. Unfortunately.

On the topic of starting too many projects. I would go back and read some of those aborted starts. I've only actually done it once (I am always more excited about some new idea and it doesn't bother me that I jump around a lot), but it worked pretty well. If you read the whole story up to the point where you stopped it makes more sense, you see the whole thing and it's often obvious what needs to happen next. Of course that's if you actually want to finish anything. If you just love writing who actually cares?

The one time I did do this I finished the novel within a week of picking it up again (granted it didn't end up being a novel it was only like 27k, but still, you get the point).

Romeo and Juliet? Ugh. I can't stand Shakespeare. Don't give me any crap about not understanding it, or how I think it's boring because I don't appreciate classics. The simple truth is this: Shakespeare wasn't that great. He's the most overrated playwright in the history of theater.

That being said, Romeo and Juliet isn't his best work. My favorite of his is Othello, with Hamlet coming in second.

so there.

We could get into a discussion about it, but that's something for a different thread.

After all, by the very same standard he's the most underrated playwright in the history of theater, isn't he? So insofar as those statements are true it really only means that everyone's heard of Shakespeare and formed an opinion of his work, often a very ill informed one.