You've got to sit in the chair.
For the past year, I've been trying write a good book. At first, I tried without external help. No teacher, no course, no writing group. Me and the blank piece of paper. I found it gruelling. I got better. I wrote four or five short stories and the first twenty thousand words plus of two books, which sounds like a lot to me now. Now that I realise how hard it is. But back then, it felt like failure.
So I relented, I let go of my ego and looked for a more structured form of learning. In the end, I went with an online writing course run by Faber. I learnt a lot. I wrote a lot. And I met people in the same situation as me. I'm still looking out for books written by my course mates, especially you Nicholas (get writing!).
Before taking the course, I thought writing books were all self help pseudoscience. However, the course instructor recommended quite a big list. Some of them are self helpy, a little more focused on the motivation, but others are about craft. Such as Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin, The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler, Save the cat! by Jessica Brody, Sin and Syntax by Constance Hale and loads of others. Now I understand that writing can be seen as an art, but also as a trade. You can construct stories from old ones or life experiences and use different techniques to polish them or completely reimagine them.
But in the end, motivation and discipline are a big part of writing. During the writing course I found it easy to write every week, edit every week and make something I'm proud of. When that support dropped, it got a lot harder to push myself. For instance, right now, I hate reading my writing. The cringe is real. I don't even think that what I've written will be terrible, instead I worry about how many drafts I'll have to read.
I'm very lucky to have a wonderful partner willing to support me, both financially and with discipline. I asked her to give me a deadline, and when I got it, all I could think about was the quote:
You've got to sit in the chair.
Of course, it's a metaphorical chair. It doesn't have to be at a desk, or at a set time, or using a fancy computer or pen or notebook, or even be a chair. But you have to sit in it, because otherwise your story won't be be told, your app won't be be made, your photo won't be be taken, your picture won't be painted. You have to do the work.
So go sit in the chair.