How to push through (and become a real writer)

This is good for motivation. 97 percent of writers quit before they finish their books. I believe it. Social media has kind of killed our thinking of new ways to motivate ourselves. We just have to quit meaningless, boring social media and finish our novels, novellas, short stories, journals, and writings. We need to love the journey more than destination.

"How many of you have multiple first acts of novels?" raises hand

came here for writing advice left with a completely new way to look at my life. unbelievable

I’m 60,000 words into my novel right now, and it’s the farthest I’ve ever gotten in finishing any novel since I started writing. Now, just turning 30, I felt a huge surge of momentum when I realized I was at the halfway mark. At this point, I can’t envision a future where I don’t finish it.

I got stuck in the boring middle, felt that chafing between what I wanted and the reality. It was a mental health journey to approach it from a more realistic way, and this year I've really focused on "the process is the goal" and it's helped me tremendously. I'm just focused on writing short stories, and show up every day, even if I don't get a lot done. But the more I do that, the more I seem to get done in a day. Your video reassured me that I'm finally on the right path.

Having written - that is, completed - some books I find that each of them has, kind of, "written itself". The suggestion of Plotting Ahead would make my working method impossible and so I never ever will do that. Where you say a writer has to sit down and write every day ... I wonder why one should have to sit to be able to write? Putting one word after another, for me, is merely a side-effect of the process of writing, which involves so much more than words. Yes, I am a writer and a fulltime one too. I write when I see a dying tree on one of my walks, I write when I hear dialogs in the subway or seeing that crippled man crossing the street. I am a writer when I chose to lit a cigarette, I am an author while preparing dinner. Life itself is the inspiration and the motivation. I just cannot live NOT writing then? True - absolutely true. What I am getting at that, it is no problem if you do not create chains of words for a given time: you are still a writer when you are a true writer. Just TRUST your identity, getting the words connected on the screen or on paper will inevetibly happen.

"The boring middle is where you actually find out if you're a writer"! :) I always thought the idea was to avoid the "boring middle." That can prove quite challenging. I learned in my writing journey that I don't work well with detailed plotting. I'm not sure I'm a "write by the seat of one's pants" kind of writer, but I suspect I'm closer to that end of the writing methodology spectrum. I have a general idea of the events and where I'm going, but not being a strict plotter has allowed me to improvise and find solutions/ideas as I go. For me, the further you get in the book, the stronger your perspective becomes about where the novel should go and how it should end. Some of my endings have surprised me. One of my most enjoyable moments is when I'm pleasantly surprised by an unexpected event or character. I'm not addressing several of your thoughts here, Alan - just what resonates with me in this pre-coffee moment in the morning. :) Thanks for your thoughts, brother.

What an insightful video! And to see so many people opening up in the comments is very heartwarming. For so long I've been struggling with following through with a novel, and it's exactly like you said; every time I start a different story, I'll go through the beginning with ease and enthusiasm, but then it feels like the magic dies, and suddenly I've given up entirely on it, and then a new idea will come around and the same thing will happen again. I'm nineteen years old, I'm currently taking time off before trying for college, and I have so much time in my hands and still I find myself shying away from this true passion of mine, the one thing that's always stuck with me ever since I first learned how to use my imagination. It's so frustrating! I'm so tired of having all these ideas in the palm of my hand, but being unable to execute them for... what? Pure lack of discipline? Laziness? Hearing what you have to say on the matter has been very helpful, so thank you so much for sharing!

I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so seen! Thank you for this video. New subscriber here about to embrace the boring middle.

Thank you for this. I started writing my new novel in February 2024, and it was exactly in the middle of the second act where I went down to a slog…i subconsciously made it hard, and MAN! It took all of me to push through. KEEEEEEEEEEP WRITING!!!

Immediately your video caught the corpse inside me and made it wake the hell up. I started writing my novel inspired by a cool metal album I saw, and it led to something I never thought I was capable of: a poetic, heavy metal-themed, post-apocalyptic song of a novel that just flowed right out of me. It features three distinct beginnings, all intertwined, focusing on one man you come to view as the protagonist. These were going to be different beginnings from other novels I would write but I decided why not try to get out of the same story and change the plot to be more interesting. You witness him dispensing justice, saving a town, and rescuing a woman. Later, you see him dancing with the girl, then cutting off her head because she saw his true nature—and that is the scariest thing to ever be. Another character, having fallen in love with the girl, receives her head directly from the protagonist, who then forces him to do what she detested most in the world. Which is his job and he is a good toy to play with. I’ve found that leaving things open to interpretation really adds to the story; by not making almost everything a direct cause and effect of the protagonist’s actions, the world feels more alive. If anything, I try to make him—and, by extension, myself—the antagonist to the reader. He feels like a cancer, very much so: a spider that ensnares flies and drains them dry upon his silky threads, yet even he doesn’t know how to get down. An emperor of sand, too drunk on death to find his way.

Love this advice, thank you. I finished my first novel and now in the process of self editing. You are right, finishing a manuscript is hard, and I take my hat off to anyone who embarks on the arduous journey of writing a novel.

I‘be written about 40 pulp novels and all I can say - this is one of the most helpful and honest videos about writing I‘ve ever seen. Greetings from Germany!

This video felt quite motivating. I usually do not get to share my writing journey, specially cause none of my friends write, but heck I'll do it right here and right now. In 2019 I found myself devouring dozens of YT videos on the craft of storytelling, and I remembered I had written a handful of chapters on a fantasy book just for the sake of it when I was in highschool, around 2014 or so. When I finished my engineering career and Covid struck, I dug up those chapters (hadn't forgotten ghe characters' names, nor the general idea) and just did a rewrite on them. And then I got stuck. I reached the end of act 1 and had no idea what to do next. But I didn't want to give up because I had enjoyed the writing sooo much. So I read books on writing, a couple of the most popular ones. I plotted quite nicely act 1, really losely act 2 and quite nicely act 3 and got back to it in August 2021. I haven't stopped since then, and I've had to adapt. I've been at a 9 to 5 since 2020 too, but throughout 2021 and 2022 I tried to write daily after work. Of course there were some days I was just so beat, and others I did something else like watching a movie or so, but I always reminded me inspiration was ot enough, and that I needed to just get to it, despite the challenges of it all. I pushed through the boring middle and on dec 31st, 2022, I finished my first draft with 340,000 words. And then I kept going. I went back to the drawing board, tried to structure better the boring middle, flesh out the worldbuilding and the characters and the plot itself, and in May 2023 I started draft 2. Then my work schedule changed, but I adapted and now I write 3 hours each day before work, from 6 am to 9 am. I'm about to reach the 60% mark and have trimmed down 40,000 words. And I'm still going. My father tells me I should've began with a shorter book, something easier until I refined my craft and then I could write the story I wanted. But I couldn't disagree more, because THIS is the story I crave to tell. It was there since 2014 and is still here 10 years later. Of course there've been moments when I've been tempted to search a new story, to feel again that dopamine of excitement and wonder and plot the next great story, but it doesn't last long, cause this is the story I love. I love it so much that I'm almost through the boring middle for a second time, and hey, I think it's no longer thaaat boring as it was 1 year ago. Naturally, I doubt myself at least twice per week. I cannot help but think I'm an engineer in a 9 to 5 with no contacts in the writing medium, no friends to exchange anecdotes, not a single work published to my name, not even on Wattapad. And yet I keep pushing, cause at least I believe in the story I have to tell. I believe in its potential to connect with people, and I want to see it through. So yeah. After reaching the 60% mark of my second draft of my first novel ever, I do think I'm a writer and I can say it proudly. And just you wait until 2050 when it's finally published! :P

fantastic video! The thing that worked best for me so far is to prepare all the scenes ahead without much detail, just places, people and main events.

What an awesome video. You really nailed it when you said that there isn't any new writing advice being written about. I audibly laughed at a few things you said, especially "if i write 7k words a day, ill be done in a week" which is something I say to myself constantly. Its strange because I love writing more than life itself but the biggest issue I have is reckoning with the fact that genre-fiction has poisoned the minds of most readers these days, along with short form video content, so writing in my usual style, which is Tolstoyan/Proustian but with extra long, dense, philosophically verbose, psychedelic/psychological prose full of allusions, abstract imagery, lengthy character interludes where I go for thousands and thousands of words in a character's mind during a scene...it almost feels Sisyphian writing it because although I do it regardless of what others think, its like I know NOBODY wants to read it nor will I get any money or be able to live off of it. In fact, my work is so long it physically cannot be printed because the first part of the first novel borders 1M words. I work on my stuff every single day, I average 3-5k words a day but despite my love for the art, that is not just infatuation but actually a prolonged infatuation given how much I love the art, it's disheartening knowing nobody will ever read it

Idk I always found the middle to be the easiest and most fun part by far, followed by endings, and lastly beginnings. I write for the end and the middle, the beginning is just obligatory setup for me.

Thank you for this video! So many important truths. :) I'd love to hear more about your plotting process, maybe even see a small sample of it "in the moment".

Interesting and helpful.

I have a slightly different problem. I finished my novel last August and just managed to make myself start reading it again. And its an up hill battle to even want to look at it. Ive spent years on it, worked on all hours of the night on it, cried over it, and now im mad at myself for not having motivation to even open it.