A few days ago I was so excited about my current story that I couldn’t stop thinking about it and churned out almost 5,000 words for it. Since then, however, I’ve lost a lot of my initial enthusiasm. Part of the problem is that my inner editor won’t shut up about what I’ve written so far, another part is that I’m about to begin the middle act of my story (which is an Epic Quest that spans a lot of time and territory) and am not sure how to fill it with enough scenes for a novel-length story without getting repetitious, and yet another part is that I’ve been distracted by academics and new ideas. I really don’t want to scrap my WIP, but I have a hard time forcing myself to continue writing. What am I to do?

Ah, I get the same problem at times, especially with the new ideas fogging up the old one. I usually counter it by just thinking of the characters and story of the original thing I was working on all the time, so when a new idea comes it’s generally related to that one, and new situations crop up on occasion too. Getting yourself emotionally attached to various characters is a good way to get back into writing their story. Like, I always think of all the backstory for the characters playing out like a movie, so I can actually see it and understand what they’re going through and think, I really want people to know about these guys too! My problem is that I usually get sidelined with great characters and the plot dissapears, so I have to focus and start over, but if you can keep that focus, then it should definitley help! Though it’s not exactly a short term plan, finding more stuff to be enthusiastic about works wonders.