So_mi I had a 12-year hiatus on one of my stories due to a string of offline stuff. I might not be able to give the best advice. I'll try.

For me. Setting a routine helps, using a daily word count goal. Something totally realistic. Like, "today I'm going to write 200 words". If you set an easy to achieve daily target, it should help you write to a routine.

It also helps to take a breather for inspiration. Return with fresh ideas.

Hope that helps.

      Veronica8 thank you! Will start doing that soon :) Hopefully my readers aren't too... tired of me being late in my updates haha

          So_mi

          Just be straightforward with them. Tell them if you're taking a break, the reason for doing so, and when you will resume. And then stick to it.

          I've taken most of this month off, and have still gained over 100 new collections and lost none. People just want to know what is happening.

          Oh, and in response to your previous question, I've been published in both fiction and nonfiction, and worked in game development as a writer for years. I've also been offered a contract on here, though I didnt take it.

              I think Webnovel should pin this.. it'll help a lot of new authors.

              Rak0

              Currently what I'm doing, have like 20 chapters backlogged for when I feel the story flows sanely enough to be seen by human eyes, or settle for net viewing, cant be picky after all 😁

              Well 20 chapters for three different books as my inspiration seems a touch ADD.

                Clowniac 😯😯😯😯😯 if you don't mind me asking... why didn't you take the contract? I'm quite curious

                    I began writing 3 years ago because I was frustrated over how bad writing in anime was after watching Kill la Kill, and while that's cooled a bit, it's still a factor that keeps me going. I'm a very competitive person who can't stand not being good at something, so I tend to go extreme in to anything I do - reading hundreds of pages of literary criticism to become a better writer, testing new styles to improve, the frustration when something doesn't come to me and the reevaluation of what I've written. I'm a bit of a misanthrope, so I work very well out of spite - what drives you will depend on the type of person you are.

                    That isn't to say I don't love writing, though. It frustrates me that my own work will never be as popular as some crappy harem isekai, or the great cinema I've seen will never be as appreciated as Marvel, but when I wonder why I bother, I can at least sit in my satisfaction that I've created something good or better than the writing I hate. It's a bit of a superiority complex - it's tied closely to the misanthropy, so I not only want to be better, but I need to be better than the average writer. I have a friend who uses the same mindset for lifting weights - he can't stand being physically weak.

                    Is that an antisocial or unhealthy mindset? Sure, although I think my post history shows I do genuinely want to help people, and I don't enjoy being hurtful to others.

                    So I dunno, I guess you just have to find your own discipline/motivation for it. I wrote a lot of stories no one's ever seen, and I know my drive to improve is all internal, but I also love knowing someone out there will appreciate what I've done and the craft that goes in to what I do. This, I believe, is a difference between true quality and fun, but massively popular "lowest-common-denominator" art: many will like the latter, but very few will love it deeply. So I suppose I want to write not only for myself, but for the person out there that will say at the finale: "I really loved this story, but what was with all the KLK references? You must've been a big fan of that show."

                    That's my drive - I can't say what your's has to be. For me, it also helps that no one, really, is writing stories like mine - if I want to read it, I have to write it.

                    Barring that, this poem always deeply motivates me, somehow:

                    "There is the feeling beside that which is felt,
                    as if a great artwork beyond consciousness,
                    whether gazing a church tower, or being sifted through its panes
                    like alluvial photons. There in a bowl of opening roses,
                    made majestic by a slice of sight reflecting
                    the spoke of sun upon a slab where something dead may lay,
                    is an abstract of insight grown well within your wreath of verse,
                    brief episode of touch, still opening endlessly and growing,
                    self-illumined, silent paladins of the muse,
                    like nothing that ever was:
                    I know nothing of life."

                    Clowniac Whoever wrote up the document loved the Caps Lock button. :laughing:

                    I'm the same. Although, I've given away my sunflower story. As I'm happy to walk away from it. Hand WN the keys and not look back.

                    Everything else, is too dear to me. I'm going to keep self publishing under my proper author brand name. I might try a local arts grant when I finish writing some of my other books.

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