How do you keep excited about current projects?

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Rechan

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I've compiled a list of all the open calls I want to write for in the next year. Every time I find one I get excited and think about the ideas I want to write for it, and get really into that story.

Much to the detriment of the stories with the nearest deadlines.

i haven't been able to start on those stories until now, because of other projects and life, and it feels like all the excitement for these stories has fled to the new shiny things further down the road. How do I recapture that energy and investment?
 

Violeta

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Well, the first answer that comes to mind is... if you get distracted by shiny new things, then don't
go looking for them. There'll be more of those along the road. Just focus on what you're doing right now.

But since that doesn't exactly and totally answer your question, at least not in a very proactive way... I'd suggest you take a minute or two to go back in time and remember what was exactly that made you fall in love with your current projects. What was the initial idea? The spark that made you jump with joy at the thought of writing them down? Try to remember that and you'll get the feelings back.
 
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Jamesaritchie

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What does "excited" have to do with it? It's about focus and self-discipline. I always have shiny new projects down the road, but even thinking about them now is self-defeating.

If you learn to focus on the task at hand, those down the road projects won't seem so exciting. With focus, it's the project I'm working on right now that matters because, while it's hard to explain, it's not the project that excites me, it's the writing, it's turning any idea into a great story. This means that all ideas, all projects, are equal.

Right now, today, what matters is sitting down, going into the zone, and turning an idea, any idea, into something that shines like the sun. It's the craft, the skill, the process that turns me on, not some down the road project.

Concentrate on today. Hell, you may get hit by a car, be shot by a mugger, or a comet may wipe us all off the face of the earth, before you have a chance to work on any of those down the road projects.
 

Alma Matters

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The ‘shiny new thing’ you want to run ahead and write will always be there. Think of writing that as your reward for finishing your other projects. Also, it’s important to consider that those other projects are all learning curves which should allow you to improve before you start working on that shiny new thing.

I have some ideas/projects that I think about now and again, but ultimately I am not ready to write those and don’t feel I could do them justice. Learn from your current projects and let your new ideas be the fuel to get you through...
 

Shadow_Ferret

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I work a project through to completion. Usually, because I put all my effort into it, it stays nice and shiny because I finish short stories rather quickly then get them into submission rotation.

But then, I don't schedule upcoming open calls. Nor do I write stories to fit someone else's needs. I just write stories as they pop into my head.
 

Jamesaritchie

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But then, I don't schedule upcoming open calls. Nor do I write stories to fit someone else's needs.

I do both of these things routinely, but they have no effect on stories at hand versus future projects. Writing is about writing, not about what project you may want to write in the future.

In this sense, I don't even understand the question. I have to sit down and write today, and only today's projects have any meaning. Future projects are just daydreams. What you sit down and write today is reality, it's actually writing.

I guess the best way to put it is that I don't enjoy future projects, I don't get excited about future projects because projects are what turn me on. It's sitting down and writing that turns me on, whatever the project.
 

Ken

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Planning to write a story or to do anything for that matter is something easy to get enthused about. It involves no work after all. You just come up with an idea and voila. It's as good as written when opportunity arises for you to write it. Not so. Effort is required. Sometimes a lot. That's the real reason for your dip in enthusiasm at least in part I'll wager. Fortunately, it's an easy obstacle to overcome. You just sit down and write, psychological state be d*mned !
 

B.G. Dobbins

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How do I stay excited? Uh...I think to myself that my baby will be due soon, and I really need to get my butt in gear if I can really call myself a writer.

Perhaps more helpful advice would be to find someone you can talk to about the story you want to work on. I find being able to talk about my plot and characters with someone gets me as excited all over again as I was when I first formed the idea.

I also daydream different scenarios with my characters. I ask what they would do in different circumstances, and sometimes, I even come up with new complexities for my story that way.
 

Jamesaritchie

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Of course, as Mickey Spillane said, it's amazing how easy it is to come up with ideas and to sit down to write when your accountant tells you your bank account is running low.

Writing for fun is fine, but if you;re writing with the intention of being published, or making money, or with the idea of making writing a career, you have to treat it as a job. It should be a job you love, but still a job.

You have to show up for work, and you have to do today's work, not next month's work. If it's writing that excites you, this is not a problem. If it's a daydream about some future thing that turns you on, you're in trouble.

Don't be excited by future projects. As bright and shiny as they seem now, they're just as much hard work as whatever you're currently working on. Get excited by writing, by sitting down and turning any project, any idea, into something that shines more than anything you have in the future.

Let me ask you this. Is the current project something that was a shiny dream a few months ago? When you start one of those down the road projects, will there be a new shiny dream on the horizon that makes the old shiny dream something that doesn't excite you?

This is how it works all too often when it isn't the writing itself that raises your flagpole.

You can sit down today, and you can turn whatever your current project is into something readers will love. You can sit down today, and you can create. You can turn nothing into something people love. This is a rare gift.

The project doesn't matter. It's sitting down and using a rare gift to create that matters. One of my projects that I thought would be boring turned into something I loved because it was difficult, and needed more creativity than usual. I had to write a short story of exactly one hundred words to match a chili recipe.

It sounded boring, but easy, and it paid a dollar a word. Only a hundred dollars, but my thinking went along the lines of, Well, I written a lot of 3,000 word short stories in only four hours. That's seven hundred anf fifty words per hour, so I should be able to write a one hundred word short story in twelve and a half minutes. Even if it takes half an hour, that's still a good pay rate.

Ummm, yeah, right. I've never told anyone this. I have, in fact, kind of hinted that I did write it in nothing flat. I didn't. For me, very short is tough. I didn't know it until after I started writing that thing, but it's tough. It took me three long days to get those hundred words the way I wanted them, and that was not a good pay rate.

But the difficulty, the creative challenge, the work of turning one hundred words into a good story that matched a chili recipe, was what mattered, and I felt more satisfaction finishing that little story than I had finishing almost anything else I'd done before then.

Make creative work the goal, make turning nothing into something the fun, and whatever you're doing today will become what matters.

Almost as important, what you do today is both practice and foundation for what you do tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. If today's work doesn't get done, and doesn't get done as well as you can possibly do it, the practice won't matter, and you'll have a foundation built on sand.
 

Dipa Suresh

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Someone told me this: if you find it difficult to stay excited, simply keep your project aside for a few weeks or even a few months. Take it out after that period of time, dust it off and look at it again You will be surprised at how excited you will get about it! It works!
 

Jamesaritchie

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Someone told me this: if you find it difficult to stay excited, simply keep your project aside for a few weeks or even a few months. Take it out after that period of time, dust it off and look at it again You will be surprised at how excited you will get about it! It works!

As long as you have something else to work on, stay busy writing something, that might be fine. I don't think it's a very good idea to make it a habit, though.

Part of being a successful write is starting and finishing projects in a reasonable amount of time. It's too easy to set a difficult, or unexciting, project aside when you think you have nothing riding on finishing it.

I'm a firm believer that the secret to success is to have at least a little bit of talent, and to follow Heinlein's Rules For writing. The best explanation of these rule can be found here: http://www.sfwriter.com/ow05.htm
 
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