Discipline.

Look, I'm nothing close to a consistent writer. The quality of my writing is subject to many things, including my mood, health, sleep and availability of time. But I do know what you mean, sometimes I have moments when I am burning to write. My best advice would be, when you get an idea, plan it all out first. Make sure that you know where you are headed, so that you don't get put off by your ideas going somewhere you didn't envisage. Hope this helps!

I always have two story ideas so I like to get the first one down so I can work on the next. It's not about discipline it's more motivation.

Sometimes the creative muse is there when I start to write something. When it's not, I just keep writing and hope I can conjure the old girl up again. The important thing is to keep writing. If I had to wait for a muse each time I sat down to write, I'd never get anything written. And I always set my sights on 500 words a day. But I usually end up with more. The average page of a published book is between 400 to 500 words. So I have this mental image of a book in my head. And If I write such and such amount of words in so many days, I'll have the book done in a particular time period. It gives me something to strive for. And even if a current project gets tossed in the drawer, I can go back to it later and figure how much more work I'll need to put into it. All I know is that this works for me. 500 words a day is my mantra. Good luck with yours, Zalgradis. Rich

Like Natalia I'm not a constant writer; most days I do write, but there are times when I struggle to write anything. If I sit down and struggle to write when my heart isn't in it for any reason, occasionally I end up with something salvageable but usually I churn out complete crap - and sifting through mountains of shit trying to rescue something worthwhile is much harder than starting afresh. When the urge does take me, though, I churn out a huge amount of stuff, and sometimes I hardly sleep for a few days if I'm feeling sufficiently inspired. Unlike Natalia, though, I never plan anything - sorry, but that bores the tits off me, and whenever I have planned anything it seems contrived and, well, rubbishy. I just write and see where the story takes me. As far as I'm concerned stories are living things, and they don't take kindly to being pressured into developing how the writer fancies they should develop. Stories like freedom, they like to be unpredictable, and it's only when you rip the bit out of their mouths, throw away their reins and ride them bareback that they are able to express themselves fluently. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't guide them in the directions that interest you, though..... That approach works for me, but I might well be a bit of a weirdo so I'm sure it doesn't work for everyone.