How do you find inspiration to write?

Writing is very much like jogging. On the first day of jogging you don't go out and run 10 miles. You start out slow, maybe a mile, and build up your stamina. After two months of jogging, you might be able to do five miles. Why? You built up your staminia. Same thing with writing. A little bit at first, and more and more the following days. What happens if you are not used to writing often, you might write 20 pages one day, and suddenly you don't feel like writing anymore because you are so burned out by writing so much on one day.

I think your biggest hang-up right now is the need to edit. I posted a question recently about whether or not other people agonize over each sentence or paragraph and I got some very interesting answers. (Paraphrased) agilebrit: "I have been known to agonize over one word." Jackee; "Worrying about the write words to use is what makes us writers." These are very true and enlightening statements. My suggestion is to let it go. Stop editing (at least as much you can- even if you have to wean yourself) and stop making drastic changes to your ideas. If you can only get out a few pages at a time- there's nothing wrong with that- just work in short bursts of concentrated writing. When I first started writing seriously, my set goal was 250 words. I could reach this goal easily everyday. When it become not challenging enough or I thought I could handle more, I increased the word count. I also participated in Nanowrimo one year and wrote a 1st draft to a novella that is absolutely ghastly and I will probably never edit this and try to publish it ever. Filled to the brim with the dreaded adverbs. Get rid of distractions- if you are too hung up thinking about your boyfriend then call him first so that way when you sit down to write your desire to be with/talk to him is lessened. I don't really have anything else. I just know that you are a good writer and you CAN do this. Edit: One thing I think I forgot to mention is that sometimes writing does seem like work rather than "fun time" and there will be times you find you don't feel like writing, those are the times you just have to buckle down and meet your word count. LOL. I really don't feel like looking at my manuscript at all right now either.

I always feel like writing when I put Evanescence on, or right before storms I'll go and sit on the deck outside my house and watch the clouds and feel the wind in my hair, lol. Anyways. yeah.

You don't need inspiration, you need discipline. Writing takes inspiration, yes, and passion, yes, but you'll never get anywhere without plenty of dedication too, and that can come from no-one but yourself. My honest advice? Read 'The War of Art (Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles)'. It's a real inspirational kick up the bum for procrastinators like you... and me. Ooh, and always remember - bad writing is better than no writing. Do not allow yourself to edit until you finish your first draft. You can make little notes about things you want to go back and add/change, but that's all. If you keep working on those first five pages until they're perfect, you'll never reach the last page, EVER... because you will never think your work is perfect! Good luck.

MY suggestion, stop writing. If you don't have such a passion to want to write and make as much time as possible to write, then you shouldn't try it. 1 1/2 years and five pages? Please tell me that font size is a size 8 pt and the smallest font ever. If not, that's sad. Don't write without passion, it won't get you anywhere

For me, writing is the only thing that really relaxes me. I feel like I am good at it and I enjoy it, which is not something I can say for a lot of things. I get depressed and irritable when I don't write, to be honest. I also think about my character and the situation she's in, then I can't wait to get her out of it! Or, I think of a scene I am looking forward to writing. There's always one.

Amb: Don't listen to Karli J. She has issues. Often what I find that helps is if I force myself to keep writing. Usually it's terribly written but when I force myself to do it for long enough the flow comes! I also make a disginated time just for my book. It may be writing, editing, or even writing spells! (fantasy) As long as it has something to do with my book!

I read a good article about this the other day: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/16/charlie-brooker-writing-deadlines Good luck.

I don't think there is any magic secret - or there wasn't for me, anyway. It's just a matter of being willing to put the hours in. I no longer pay attention to whether I'm in the mood to write - when I'm writing a book, I write every day. Being in the mood or not doesn't enter into it, because writing has become a habit for me. It's just something I do. If you write something every day, or at least write to a regular schedule, it will gradually get easier, because the story will stay nearer the front of your mind. That means you'll be thinking about the story when you're not writing it, so when you sit down to write, you'll have some idea of what you're going to say. This has the useful side-effect of preventing or greatly diminishing writer's block. I'm afraid I don't have a lot of patience with people who say they want to write (or be a writer) but don't have the time. (If you're still in full-time education and think you don't have a lot of free time *now*, you're in for one hell of a shock when you start work and/or have children to look after.) I find I can get some useful writing done (as in, writing where I won't have to throw away the whole thing at the editing stage) in about an hour, or maybe half an hour if I have a clear idea of what I'm going to write. My weekly target for words to write (which is another useful technique) works out to writing for about an hour a day. I'll bet that if you work out where your time is going - write down what you're doing every 15 minutes for a week - you'll find at least seven hours' worth of stuff you don't need to do, or don't need to do as much of. And don't try to edit as you go. You're a textbook example of why it doesn't work. Tell your internal editor that he can go to town on your work when you've finished the first draft. Tell him you might decide to cut the whole scene when you get to the editing stage, because it doesn't belong in this book, and no amount of nitpicking over where the commas belong will change that. Set yourself a target for the number of words you want to write today or this week, and measure it with the word count feature of your wordprocessor. That is, if your word count is 10,000 when you start writing, and you want to write 1,000 words today, your word count has to be at least 11,000 when you finish. So if you're editing existing words instead of writing new ones, your word count doesn't go up and you don't reach your target. Failing that, maybe someone should invent a wordprocessor that doesn't allow you to edit your document until you, say, solve a Suduko puzzle...