It never ceases to amaze me how authors can seemingly churn out 400 pages (or 900 if you're Stephen King) with relative ease.

Reading the last couple Repairman Jack books, I've noticed that I'll open to the first page, be cruising along, just getting the foundation to the novel, and glance up and I'm on page 100. We haven't even got to the meat of the novel, and Wilson has put 100 pages worth of prose on the table, while making it feel like about 25. It's amazing, really.

Meanwhile, it takes all my patience and stamina to plod through a 5,000-7,000 word short story. When I recently tried going back to a novel I started years ago (just the first chapter), I realized just how big a mess it is. At the time, I felt the only way to push it was to go for the action, and by the end of that first chapter, I'd killed off someone who theoretically should have been a pretty major character. I still really like the scene, but obviously it needs to be pushed way back. And then the obvious question - how to I get back to that point? How do I lay that hundred-page foundation without boring the reader to death?

I'm at the point where I don't even enjoy trying to write. Not when I've got 150 books in my TBR pile by authors that are oh so much better than I'll ever be (yes, I've had a lot of similar thoughts as Tony recently). While finishing my degree, all I could think about was getting done so I could have my nights to spend on my own writing, and not homework. Well, I've had that time for three months now, and I'm not getting anywhere. When I was in school, I had a plan, a purpose, a direction. Now it's like I'm adrift at sea. On the plus side, I've gotten more reading done than I have in years.

Anyway, how do you all differentiate your experiences of reading and writing? It's a very vague question, for a very vague topic.

Motivation is a huge part of writing. If you don't have it, you're not going to write. Motivation can be as simple as having a great idea or as lofty as wanting to be published somewhere.

But it is super hard to get motivated when you see the thousands of books published, when you read some great fiction and think you'll never be that good, or when someone ignores or gets negative over something you've already written.

As for reading, I still read whenever I have the time and I still enjoy it. And I admit to loving reading a lot more than writing.

Craig, have you tried plotting it out?

I'm just going off a few clues with your thoughts on college and how you worked well within that structure. If you can get a basic framework together, sometimes it can help.

As for filling it all in, my own experience dictates that I have to jump in and immerse myself. It's one of the reasons I'll always write from a POV perspective and never via an omnipresent narrator. I have to become the character - all his arse-scratching mannerisms and what he ate for breakfast.

In a sense I agree with Janet. I find myself writing in first person more than anything because I feel I can show the emotions and mental state in a more complete way than trying to describe something happening to a group of people. Which is really pretty funny in that I am most definitely not the biggest fan of reading books in the first person.

I really don't know how to answer the question, though. I guess I never thought that much about it. If I was pressed for an answer, I'd say just believe in yourself. I had a synopsis for a story rejected recently and was kind of happy about it, honestly. It meant I could write the story I wanted to write, without limitations, and I know that it will be better than anything that was selected over mine.

I doubt King or whoever do write with "relative ease" - there's a quote, I forget who it's by: "easy reading is hard writing".

Writing is tough at times, no doubt about it. And sometimes it seems magically easy, when the words just flow out of you. And it's easy to assume that the stuff you write when it seems like you're slogging it out isn't as good as the stuff that you write when you have the pedal to the floor. But that's not necessarily true - the reader doesn't know or care how hard it was to write. If you slog through the hard times with as much dedication and craft and perservance as you can, the writing can still come out how you want it, despite the fact you've felt like crap doing it...

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Scattershot Writing:

Motivation is obviously a huge factor. Again, not sure what the problem is - I've had numerous good ideas for stories the past few months, yet still haven't committed any of them to paper (or a screen).

And I've been through both the nights where writing is a slog, and the nights when the words just come gushing out.

The problem I have now, with writing feeling like a chore, is this: After Kellie and the kids have gone to bed, I still have a couple hours before I go to sleep. I have a choice - I can either A: Sit and try to crap out a few pages of writing; or B: Sit on the couch and read one of the final couple Repairman Jack books (which I'm totally engrossed in). Hint - the answer has been "B" every single time, with the exception of a few rare nights.

As for outlining, maybe I should try it. It's not something I've ever been very good at - I've tried it on some of my earlier short stories, but by the time I started writing, the story veered off somewhere else. I guess I figure if it goes off-course for a short story, how far off would it go in a novel? Then again, I need to do something - I've thought of roughly 4-5 story ideas the past couple months, and for the life of me, can't remember any of them other than a vague detail or two.