As of late, the third case has been prevalent, so I find ways to keep myself buzy. Some of it with legitimate work (correspondence courses) and some entertainment (DVD collection(s), comp/console games, posting to message boards, etc.)

It struck me recently that the sheer amount of (mostly) free time could be spent doing creative things. (sadly, no one else on my team plays RPGs) You know, write a fanfic, plot out an entire (D&D) campaign for when I get back to the states, or maybe even design a camputer game.

Then I start on a project, spend about a day on it, and just lose my momentum. I always have ideas for this or that bouncing around in my head, but when I try to put it down on paper (or Notepad), I just...draw blanks, or worse I start soldifing something, and completely loose track of where it should (or even could) fit into the big picture. It's frustrating!

So, I figure that a few veteran story crafters here may have run into a problem like this in the past and could perhaps give me a pointer or two. And maybe then I'll get some of my time creatively filled.

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SPC Christopher Stevenson
US Army
Deployed for Operation Iraqi Freedom 2 (OIF2) since March 2, 2004
Yup, promoted. A pay raise is always a good thing

Y'see, I'm involved in a nifty piece of work called Unreal Estate: Open House, and I've got a story that I'm writing for it. But the problem is I've had no momentum for the past week or two now, and I've hardly written a word. Well, until tonight.

I find that if I just sit down and tack my balls to the wall for a while, I can slog through even the most boring project sooner or later. There's this hump, y'see, and everybody hits it. Eventually you pass the hump, and things start to flow again, but for a while, nothing happens. It can happen to multiple projects at one time and often does--particularly for someone like me, who has ambitions far outweighing his actual ability.

You just gotta keep at it. That's all I can say. I dunno how Gryph handles it with his Muses, but I just don't think I have that sort of patience or time. If I'm not writing something I feel treasonous. So I do what I have to do to keep myself motivated.