Ideas a plenty, concentration lacking...

1. Ideas a plenty, concentration lacking...

   #1

   I have tons of Ideas. I always do. I have plenty of ideas for demons, or warriors, or a language. For city names, or the new name of an element, or character ideas. I have many ideas and plot lines and needs to put it all together.
   
   But that's the point. How do you put it all together? How do you take that one step and start writing? I stare at a blank page for hours, get distracted, go back to it, give up and piddle around the house feeling like I should be doing something constructive.
   
   How do you put your ideas and plots, your names, monsters and heroes together to form a coherent story line? Or even just a paragraph?
   
   Too much research and development and I get "analysis paralysis." How do you get past these bumps? How do you sit down and write? #___#

2. Re: Ideas a plenty, concentration lacking...

   #2

   Well lets see:
   
   First I have a scroll in my workspace (set to private) that I store all my ideas in for later use.  That way I never lose them.  If they are really good ideas, I create submissions with them (set to working) with some notes or poetic lines. That way, I have something tangible to get back to. It reminds me I should be doing this.  (check my profile to see my working spaces)
   
   As for the writing, I always force myself to write 10 lines of text (or edit 10 lines of text) every day. Most days I do more, but that is my minimum. Once you get used to the act of writing, writing becomes easier to do.
   
   So I randomly choose something from my list OR choose a fun scroll or find something that interests me, and I do 5-10 lines worth of work on it. Then I might do some more on something else. However, I always spend some time doing it every day I am on the computer.
   
   So you are probably going, but that is not finishing anything. 
   
   You will finish something... eventually. However, by taking it in chunks, you can tackle huge projects in managable pieces. Thus long submissions become obtainable.
   
   The big thing about writing is the actual act of writing. Once you have it down, you can edit it to your heart's delight and search for perfection. However, if you don't have it down, you don't have anything.  So 10 lines of notes every day, becomes 50 lines minimum in a week. A  two hundred lines in a month. Since the average submissions has 50 to 100 lines, You can see how this eventually adds up. It adds up to submissions. Even if you are doing 8 things at once, eventually one will be done.
   
   And 10 in 10 might be a good read for you  http://www.strolen.com/content.php?node=2029

3. Re: Ideas a plenty, concentration lacking...

   #3

   Alright, that seems manageable! ^___^ Thank you for the advise and feedback, I really appreciate it!

4. Re: Ideas a plenty, concentration lacking...

   #4

   It can help to just write and don't criticise yourself.  Just write down the ideas that come to you; then, later, pick out the nuggets of value from among the heap of ideas.
   
   Some of my best ideas have come when I was writing something entirely different.  What I was working on originally was junk, but the ideas it spawned were good.

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