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Darkshore:

--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on September 28, 2011, 08:56:30 PM ---I know at least two published writers, one an NY Times bestseller, for whom having anything like an outline absolutely prevents them from ever writing the book.

Everyone's process is different.  Every piece of advice is worth experimenting with.  So long as you end the process with words on a page and finished stories, no method of getting there is wrong.

I'm not seeing that starting new stuff while you still have something going is a problem so long as it does not stop you finishing what you have started.  I have one 470,000 word thing on my computer that needs one final pass and tightening of the later section to be ready to show people, on which I have been working off and on for fifteen years, and which I intend to do that to probably mid-next year; during that time I have written six other complete novels and several more in incomplete states, which have been floating around and being sent out to the publishing world and so on.

If your life permits you to do that, you are fortunate. 

Look at it this way; if you want to publish a novel a year, that's almost certainly under 150,000 words of finished novel a year.  Which is three thousand words a week.  If you're Iain Banks, you do it all in one blazing through run of a month or three and spend the rest of the year goofing off.   If you're Terry Pratchett, you carry a laptop around with you and write in any thirty-second gap during which nobody's bothering you.  Both of these extremes seem to come with successful careers, critical acclaim and sales alike.  (If you're me, you sit down when you get in from work of a Friday, three Fridays out of four, and work from 6 or 7 pm until 2 or 3 am, using long weekends to work Thu and Sat or Fri and Sun as apt so that you get ahead enough to be able to do other things some weekends;  I'm not published, but except for the year I moved across the Atlantic and had several associated months of not being able to work at all, I've had a novel's worth of wordcount every year for a decade easy.)

--- End quote ---

No offense but I didn't know my advice had to come with a disclaimer. I never stated this to be the end all be all advice. I stated what has worked for me which just might be similar to the OP due to the attention span comment (my ADD is hell to contend with when I need to focus on writing on the off days that I'm just not feeling it), and a few hours a day is a good thing to shoot for if you can. I understand your comment because yeah I can't either now that college has picked back up. But anyway, I just felt a bit miffed that you seemed to pick apart my advice when it works well for me and others like me. It would have been better for you to have just stated what worked for you that was perhaps different. My apologies, but it just struck a small nerve.  :-\

Aminar:
What I've done that has helped a ton.
Step 1-World Building.  Determine what you want to write and set a place that matches that tone.  Don't even start until you have this somewhat down(unless you work differently than me which is likely.  I spent six months making a world in a notebook with maps, cultures, nations, bestiaries, religions, characters, story ideas, calenders, and gibberish.)
Step 2-  Write a lot.  Set a minimum amount for a time period and strive to break that at every opportunity.  Mine is a page a day.  I've worked between 15 and 35 hours a week while doing that, but I'm a graduate and don't have a family so I have more time to work than many.  Do something that will not oppress your life.
Step 0- Write something that is fun for you, Until such time as you actually get good(That whole million words of bad prose before you get good thing) saleability doesn't matter as much as keeping up the practice.  That said, writing is very individual, just treat it as a part of who you are and don't let anything stop you.

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