How Do You Stay Motivated When Writing a Long Series?

[e37939836]

Hey everyone!

I’m currently working on a long-term comic/novel project, and I’ve hit a bit of a wall. The initial excitement has worn off, and now I’m struggling to keep up with the pace I initially set for myself. I love my story, but sometimes it’s hard to stay motivated when the finish line feels so far away.

For those of you who have tackled lengthy projects, how do you stay motivated? Do you have any tips or tricks to keep the creative energy flowing?

Lately, I’ve been working on a few other things too, like studying for the P_SAPEA_2023 certification from TestInsights practice questions .Balancing my creative projects with my study schedule has been tricky, and I’m curious if anyone else juggles creative work with other demanding pursuits. How do you manage your time and keep everything moving forward?

Also, how do you balance the pressure to produce regular updates with maintaining the quality of your work? I’d love to hear your experiences and any advice you might have!

Looking forward to your thoughts!

[faisalhussein394]

Ever since I started my comic on Tapas at May, 2019, My MC is still a kid and I have a long way to finish my comic. I usually update a page every 10 days and after finishing 56 pages meeting its first conclusion at November, 2020, I decided to take a full year off while still remain active on Tapas.

After a year, I finally started the chapter with the MC, the first 56 pages are pretty much lore, world building, exposition dump, prologue, and a preparation for the MC. It's been more than 90 pages and the MC is still a child, it is clear to me that I have a long way to finish the comic completely.

Despite that, I have a major passion for this project, not to mention I am starting a SCI-FI comic that is still related to my first comic but set in a different timeline.

The reason is why I'm still going is because I have a lot of ideas in my head and I want so many people to view, read, and comment about them. I was inspired my History, mythology, and my most manga artist Yasuhisa Hara and his work "Kingdom".

If their is people who manage to make comics that took decades to finish like Eiichiro Oda who is still continuing, than so can I.

If you wish to stay motivated, read some mythologies, histories, fictional novels, and comics or use Audiobook to listen instead of reading. That usually helps me to keep continuing my comic.

[KevinReijnders]

If you feel disheartend by the feeling of the finish line being so far off, it helps to break down the project into smaller, more managabke chunks. Set smaller goals for yourself and work towards those.

Essentially, draw mini-finishlines for you to cross.

A mini finish line could be: finish a chapter, finish the storyboard, finish the character designs, etc.

[e37939836]

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[e37939836]

That’s great advice! Breaking down a big project into smaller, manageable chunks can definitely make it feel less overwhelming. Setting mini finish lines like completing a chapter or finalizing character designs can help maintain momentum and give you a sense of accomplishment along the way.

I’ll definitely keep this in mind as I work on my comic and other projects. Thanks for the tip!

[pablo-costa]

My advice would be breaks-
For vol 2 for my series, shill, shill- https://tapas.io/series/Gray-Familiar/info
I wrote the chapters weekly, while also writing another series on another platform...and it burned me out.
Right now I'm taking a break, working on my daily job while planning vol 3. And it's a much better, for me at least.

[aceofdandelions]

Hello! Cari here, love this thread and would like to add on a few things

I mostly write, but I totally understand the feeling of coming down from a 'new project high' and facing that dreaded middle. Sometimes it comes in the form of a dreadful feeling that I picked the wrong project to focus on, other days I get plagued with thoughts that there are other, more 'sleeper hit' projects that'll get me validating results. Mostly it's just that sense of I'm fucking everything up and maybe I should start again from scratch. Either way, wild thoughts occur whenever I hit that low point, and from there on anything becomes possible: like jumping ship, scrapping the whole project altogether, or something as crazy as actually pressing on and seeing things though.

So far, what works for me are as follows:

1. Treating the whole project as a novel with multiple side quests - much as that already points on some solid structure to follow in terms of plot and narrative, losing my grip on the 'linear' and 'conventional' ways of telling stories had set me free way more than following a fixed process. Sometimes, I get obsessed on making sure things are 'in order', without accounting that magic happens mostly in chaos and accidents. Treating plot points as "main quests" give me enough leeway to fuck around until I get there, and the 'multiple side quests' or filler chapters that I use to unclog the writing faucet actually does add a lot to the story in ways I didn't expect. So yeah. You get BOTH the plot development and launchpad for the big events, which I imagine causes a lot of stress for creatives (and in turn create downtimes).

2. Getting hard and clear on what's the story is for - I'm only human: I look at numbers and get my fair share of frustration and sadness too. Obviously most of us are hear to have our stories read, enjoyed, and perceived. There are ways to get monetized, sure, but nothing gets you going like a supportive community that's waiting for you to put pen to paper and make magic happen. When the community isn't present yet, I think about how putting one more chapter or at least one word to paper gets me closer to reaching them. Or, if you're writing primarily to express, think about how the work you're doing is giving form to the magic inside of you. That sounds like some cheesy article but it spurs me on, to think that there exists a story in this world that can only be told by me.

3. Find your pacing - it really is like a marathon. You gotta build endurance for this thing, and to do that, you gotta show up for the day 2, day 3, or hell, even day 100, until the whole course is finished. Planning your updates wide and flexible. Set some structure but leave room for emergency crashes. For me, I usually schedule 10 chapters in, write the next 10 in advance, and schedule the next ten once I'm sure another ten will be up and coming. Sometimes I take a month's worth of break before the batch of scheduled chapters are all set. I don't wait for burnout to set in, because getting out of burnout is harder than the time it takes to prevent it. I'd rather go 'walking' like you do in marathons than sprint just because I'm eager to get things done and over with. After all, the fun with long series is that you get to fuck around and find out, not come fast and check it off your list asap.

(BONUS: I also set a limiter everytime I do these bursts of advance writing, so a handy plot outline will help! It's like, marking off checkpoints in your roadmap until the finish line)

Anyways, this has been long! I wish OP luck and all the best in your creative pursuits, and may you find the spark and energy to push through it all, especially every time you put pen to paper, brush to ink, pencil to sketchpad, or even wacom pen to tablet

May we all create with the power of a thousand suns,
Cari

[Thumber]

If you write about something you really like, you'll never get demotivated, if you reach a block, then go do some other things, and come back to it later (on that period your brain will brainstorm it for you).