Getting back into it after time away?

Hello everyone!

How do you get back into the swing of it after some time away from writing? I haven't written a thing in about eight years. Right now I'm having difficulty believing how easily the words used to flow onto the page.

I spent the better part of four hours yesterday on a warm-up piece. There was a time I'd throw out a quick 2,000-word action scene in about half-hour to warm up.

I'm currently staring at the fruits of my labour, which is a grand 413-word opening that is quite frankly utterly pants.

I lost my old hard drive with all my work a couple of years back to a technical problem and closed down my old account, so can't even go back and re-read my work.

Tip of the day guys: back up your work in more than one place.

How do you get back into the swing of it after taking time out?

It's tough. Sometimes as you say, a few thousand words will just pour onto the page and other times (like with my current competition piece) it's a hard, hard slog.

I don't think there's any cure for it, but I often find that trawling the EPs and RRs here and reading some exceptional pieces of work spurs me back into writing mode. Reading great work inspires me to try doing the same. Might work for you too.

I sometimes do some deep soul searching even meditate to find the obstacle that is keeping me stuck. Sometimes it's such a tiny and obvious thing yet I can't see it without a 'magnifying glass'. Reading stories in your favourite categories might be inspiring too. Good luck.

I agree with WW and Kat, I often find myself reading stories to try and find inspiration. I know you said you lost your old works (tragic!), but even if you hadn't, sometimes reading other authors will give you a different perspective. Observe how they approach a certain scene or subject matter. What words and adjectives do they use to conjure imagery? Etcetera, etcetera...(dramatic hand flare)

My other technique is brainstorming. I have a few close friends that I hold high in admiration when it comes to their writing skills and imagination. Often times if I am stuck, I like to bounce ideas around with them. You'd be surprised how effective it is to talk out your idea(s) and let them ask you questions about it.

I'd be happy to check out your 413-word opener...as long as it's not a comp piece. 😎

There are some techniques. Re-reading previous works can help. Reading some poorly written stories can motivate your "I can write better" urges. Reading something outside your usual genre stimulates the "I would have done it differently.". Find a new muse that inspires and surprise yourself with an unlikely imagined hookup.

Close your eyes and fantasize!

I'm returning from not writing myself and I found some things that worked for me.

Firstly I feel more creative when I'm in an Up mood.

When I tried to just write cold, I ended up procrastinating too much and just getting annoyed with how little I'd committed to the page.

When I started doing a workout in the morning, having a good breakfast and listening to some music helped.

When I could feel my pulse getting faster it tended to fire images in my head.

If what I was listening to also fired images in my head, the two sometimes merged and words flowed through my fingers.

Granted what I wrote was mostly rubbish, but I'd conquered the blank page.

Showed myself that I can still find my muse even though my previous rhythm was gone, and that somewhere in that head of mine a story teller was waiting to be fed ideas to spin into stories.

I can't swear it will work for you, but it did wonders for my creativity and let me get back into the rhythm without feeling so much frustration.

Be kind to yourself, don't expect to write a classic in one draft, and always reward yourself when you finish something.

That can be a paragraph, a page, a chapter or a complete tale.

If you don't reward yourself for pushing forward, you're not giving yourself much of a reason to keep working at it and keep growing.

As always YMMV, but it might help you too.

To add a little more to what others are saying about just writing, don't be too concerned about a story if it's going nowhere. You can either flog it to death until it starts working or, often simpler, shelve it and move on, then come back to it.

I've done the latter on numerous occasions and the distance helped me see where the stumbling blocks were and to retool/rewrite/reimagine whole sections for the betterment of the story. I have received EP awards for two of my pieces that took the best part of 6-9 months to finish (on and off).

Another anecdote: the 6K-word piece I just submitted for the Ultimate Seduction competition, The Five-Year Silence, was written in 2 days and edited in 5. How so fast? Because I spent nearly a month prior to that flogging another story to death that I felt sure was going to fit the brief and, ultimately, didn't live up to my expectations.

I wrote 5956 words of that sucker and walked away from it, now gathering dust and may never see the light of day. I might revisit it one day and refactor it without the competition's thematic constraints. Or I might not. But without that story-writing process of failure, however frustrating it is to "waste" time on something nobody will read, I'm far happier with the completely different story I ultimately rocketed through and which practically wrote itself.

Storytelling is a cruel mistress sometimes. But I love her.

I have had the same problem. Still have to deal with it as health issues slow me down.

My suggestion is to keep it fun and make it easy to succeed. So, write you hottest fantasies. Three girls rimming your ass and licking your pussy? Write that. Anal orgy with bi-guys taking turns doing your back door while licking your clit? Sure. Why not? That way, you will want to write just to have fun playing in your fever dream fantasy land.

How much? How often? How many words? How about this—if you sit down at your computer and write one line, you call that success? “Never a day without a line.” That way, even if all you do is log into Google Docs and type “She opened the door and couldn’t believe what she saw,” well, that’s a good start for any story.

The other thing that helped me a lot was to learn to do scene outlines. Scene are either Proactive or Reactive. Also called Scene and Sequel. You can see this a lot in my stories, so I invite you to click through and read some. Proactive scenes are structured as goal, conflict catastrophe. Reactive scenes are Physical reaction, dilemma, decision. Back and forth.

FOR EXAMPLE: She wants to get laid so she decides to masterbate on her bosses desk so he will come in, see her, and want to fuck her. Goal. He comes in, and she tries to seduce him, but he keeps saying no. Conflict. Finally, he fires her! Catastrophe.

Next thing we know, she is on the street at midnight, half dressed, cold, sexually frustrated, angry and scared. Physical reaction. She hated her job any way, so no loss there, but she is still SO horny. (Hey, it’s a Lush Story!) So, who’s she going to call? Old boyfriend? Married old boyfriend? That girl from accounting? Well, she does have great assets, and such a sweat smile. She goes back and forth in her mind while getting dressed. Dilemma. So, Miss Buxom from accounting it is. Decision—and that is the next goal.

With just that much, these two scenes almost write themselves. Actually, I’d love to read your story based on that little setup. Yes, please. Go ahead. 👍😆🙀

I know the feeling. It helps me when I have a sexy man or woman to write about. I have some one in my life. So most of my stories will be about him. When I am single. It is hard to write but you find inspiration in the small things. I would like to read your writing. When you get a chance. I am sure it is good. Give yourself credit and time. When it is right. The stories will come to you and you will be able to write them

I too sympathize. Good advice from all, to which I'll add two things. Write without worrying up front whether it will evolve into a story. Try a character sketch, setting a scene, putting an emotional reaction into words, anything to prompt your muse. The important thing is to prime the pump, so to speak.

Second, and I find this the most helpful, is to pick a time during your day with minimal interruptions, whether it's 5 minutes or an hour doesn't matter, and commit to doing nothing but writing in that time.

I've been having a hard time writing anything too as of late.

I will say that reading fiction(any, not just erotica) can help. Hell, even movies could help. Anything with a fictional narrative can make you feel like creating.

Quote by CarltonStJames

I've been having a hard time writing anything too as of late.

I will say that reading fiction(any, not just erotica) can help. Hell, even movies could help. Anything with a fictional narrative can make you feel like creating.

A good technique is to revisit a character or characters from one of your existing stories. What are they doing a few weeks, a few months, or even years later? How have they changed as they've gotten older and had different experiences? If you have good characters, you can explore them in some depth rather than always trying to create ones with different circumstances.

Possible spoiler alert: John Updike followed his Harry "Rabbit" Angstom character, plus various relatives, friends, lovers and colleagues, from the age of twenty-six in 1959 to Harry's death in 1989. He even went on to 1999 to follow-up on what Harry's family was doing by then.

I took just a few days off, to deal with real life stuff, and now, with all the day in front of me, the wind has gone out of my sails. I'd been pretty consistently writing 1000 words a day til the break. Now, I'm just staring at a blank page.

The solution, as boring as it is, is to keep staring at the blank page until it's not blank anymore.

EDIT: I made it to 170. Try again tomorrow, I guess.

Quote by Ensorceled

I took just a few days off, to deal with real life stuff, and now, with all the day in front of me, the wind has gone out of my sails. I'd been pretty consistently writing 1000 words a day til the break. Now, I'm just staring at a blank page.

The solution, as boring as it is, is to keep staring at the blank page until it's not blank anymore.

EDIT: I made it to 170. Try again tomorrow, I guess.

It happens to all of us I think. Like I tried to enter the Holiday Competition and I couldn't make it work no matter how many ways I varied it. So finally I just didn't do it. Real Life and Creative Life have unpredictable interactions. By the way, I'm reminded of that scene in Barton Fink where John Turturro sits at the typewriter to do his first screenplay, and he is dismayed by the blank page in the machine.

Quote by LakeShoreLimited

Quote by Ensorceled

I took just a few days off, to deal with real life stuff, and now, with all the day in front of me, the wind has gone out of my sails. I'd been pretty consistently writing 1000 words a day til the break. Now, I'm just staring at a blank page.

The solution, as boring as it is, is to keep staring at the blank page until it's not blank anymore.

EDIT: I made it to 170. Try again tomorrow, I guess.

It happens to all of us I think. Like I tried to enter the Holiday Competition and I couldn't make it work no matter how many ways I varied it. So finally I just didn't do it. Real Life and Creative Life have unpredictable interactions. By the way, I'm reminded of that scene in Barton Fink where John Turturro sits at the typewriter to do his first screenplay, and he is dismayed by the blank page in the machine.

Oh, how I love that movie. Fave Coen Bro flick.

Don't fight it. Close your eyes. Let your mind drift through your favorite ideas, images, sounds, smells... Think of something new, related to those thoughts, but even better. Hold that scene in your mind, clarify it, and then just let the words flow onto the page.

It's been close to a year since I've written a single word.

I just submitted my first Lush story in a while, months for sure but not quite a year. Just a micro, though. Been writing, just not erotica.

I wasn't sure where to put this comment so I tossed a coin and I'm putting it here.

Something that I find annoying in stories about sex is the use of the phrases "inside of me" and "inside of her" when it makes just as much sense if the padding word "of" is left out.

Quote by sprite

It's been close to a year since I've written a single word.

It has not gone unnoticed or unlamented :(

I spent quite a lot of time at sea sailing during the first year and a half of the pandemic then sold my boat recently and selling my house on the beach to move back into the city. Getting back into living in the city will be quite a transition, but there was no there choice.

I'm struggling. Actually I'm planning on just selling my soul to the devil or something maybe doing a Rosemary's baby.

Quote by vanessa26

I'm struggling. Actually I'm planning on just selling my soul to the devil or something maybe doing a Rosemary's baby.

Rosemary's Tentacle

Quote by sprite

It's been close to a year since I've written a single word.

Miss you. Miss your stories. Maybe we should write another bonkers collaboration!

Vanessa and VV, I'm struggling too. Hmmm...what could we all do together to improve our creative output? I wonder....

I may just say fuck it and take February off from writing.

Quote by VioletVixen

Quote by vanessa26

I'm struggling. Actually I'm planning on just selling my soul to the devil or something maybe doing a Rosemary's baby.

Rosemary's Tentacle

Omg 😂 I love it

Quote by Ensorceled

Quote by sprite

It's been close to a year since I've written a single word.

Miss you. Miss your stories. Maybe we should write another bonkers collaboration!

Vanessa and VV, I'm struggling too. Hmmm...what could we all do together to improve our creative output? I wonder....

I may just say fuck it and take February off from writing.

I don't want to butt into your business, but could you expand on "Committed" or "Two Kinds of People?" I for one would like to know more about those characters.

Quote by Ensorceled

Quote by sprite

It's been close to a year since I've written a single word.

Miss you. Miss your stories. Maybe we should write another bonkers collaboration!

Vanessa and VV, I'm struggling too.

Hmmm...what could we all do together to improve our creative output? I wonder....

I may just say fuck it and take February off from writing.

Let me know if you come up with anything lol ❤

Quote by LakeShoreLimited

I don't want to butt into your business, but could you expand on "Committed" or "Two Kinds of People?" I for one would like to know more about those characters.

What a kind thing to say. I am fond of those two stories, but my head is not really in the erotica game right now. It’ll return, and quite possibly with these same characters. But I’m off in other literary lands for now.

Quote by Ensorceled

Quote by LakeShoreLimited

I don't want to butt into your business, but could you expand on "Committed" or "Two Kinds of People?" I for one would like to know more about those characters.

What a kind thing to say. I am fond of those two stories, but my head is not really in the erotica game right now. It’ll return, and quite possibly with these same characters. But I’m off in other literary lands for now.

That's not so bad if you have other material to write about.