When It Gets Boring
As a card-carrying guy with ADHD, I’m very susceptible to “Shiny New Idea Syndrome”. This is when a brand new story idea, inspiration for art I want to make, or maybe just an urge to write a scene that takes place twenty chapters from now takes hold of my brain and won’t let me complete what I’m currently trying to work on. It can cause endless platforming from one idea to another, resulting in no completed projects. Routine isn’t my strong suit, and neither is following a schedule or outline. So for me, any writing project has a high chance of becoming boring at some point.
How do I stick with the current WIP? I have a few different methods I use to keep myself on track.
Reading Out Loud
It’s super helpful to write a chunk of words for the day, then read them aloud to someone, if you have a person in your life willing to listen. My wife is that person for me, and she’s daved my bacon countless times by pointing out when something doesn’t make sense, a joke doesn’t land, there’s a run-on sentence, etc. But this practice also helps me stay on a current project without jumping ship. If a third party’s there to be invested in what happens next, it can help keep you accountable.
Vary Your Activities
Maybe the thought of sitting down, seven days a week, and forcing yourself to draft until the WIP is fully written doesn’t appeal to you. It seems too monotonous, or time consuming, or daunting in scope. This is where it helps to switch between different activities in a planned and controlled manner. You may decide, “I will draft every night for one week, and then the following week I will edit what I wrote each night. Then I’ll go back to drafting.” Or, you might decide that one designated day a week is the day you thought-dump about all your shiny new ideas, sort of like a cheat day with a diet. Maybe you write and draw on alternating days of the week. The possibilities are infinite regarding how you divvy up your time. Do what makes sense for you, as long as you’re following a plan and not bouncing from one activity to the next.
Build In Breaks
Sometimes Shiny New Idea Syndrome is simply the product of being overworked. Creating is hard, and it taxes the brain. If you force yourself to create every day for many weeks or months without a break, your brain will probably rebel and want to do something else. I stay focused on a WIP until I finish it, but then I allow myself some time – a couple of weeks to a month – where I don’t make myself do any creative work. I’ll read for fun, or play through a new video game I’ve wanted to try, binge a TV show, or do art that has nothing to do with my writing. The idea is to give my brain a vacation so creating doesn’t feel like a job.
Set Realistic Expectations
Sure, Stephen King writes 3,000 words a day. That doesn’t mean you have to. Stephen King makes all his money from writing; he doesn’t have another job. He doesn’t have young kids to raise. He has a privilege few of us have, the majority of his time can be devoted to writing with no distractions. The point is, just because someone on YouTube says you have to write x words a day doesn’t mean that’s the only way to succeed. Don’t beat yourself up and abandon a project because you’re not meeting a goal someone who’s never met you set.
Know When It Isn’t Working
By the same token, don’t bash your head against the wall. If your WIP honestly feels like a chore and bores you to tears, if just the thought of opening the document fills you with dread, if you’ve given yourself grace and allowed yourself to progress at a reasonable rate for you but it hasn’t helped – you may need to face the possibility that this WIP isn’t meant to be. If you somehow manage to finish it, believe me, the fact that you hated every minute of writing it will be evident in the final product. Don’t torture yourself like that – creating must above all be rewarding for the creator. Ideally, it should be fun. Being disciplined and putting yourself through hell are two different things. Not every idea is going to be a winner, but moving on from something you’ve given a fair chance to work isn’t the same as Shiny Idea hopping. The key is knowing the difference.
