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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/29373
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I think a good strategy is to pick (even randomly) a story you want to write and start sinking some cost into it. In other words before putting anything down, do a number of days of research on the subject. Write small stories connected to your novel. Create a mini universe as a starting point if it's fiction, or put down a plan if it's non-fiction. But, do at least a few days of research first. I'll tell you a bit of my own experience.

I am not a writer, but I'm half way through my first novel. I'm a scientist who happens to have a mental illness. After a few years of medication, it seems to be under control. When it wasn't under control, my inspiration seemed boundless. I also think I had more feelings and more intuition.

At the beginning, I had to take larger doses of medicine and that made it impossible for me to work or write. At this time, the doses are smaller and I can function. As a scientist, I'm better. I'm more focused and more disciplined. As a writer, I tend to lose inspiration. I have bipolar disorder, so before being medicated, I used to gush a whole chapter in one day. Then I'd scrap it and write another chapter of something completely different. If you have this kind of problem, better write short stories.

But, I'm writing a (fiction) novel. To write a novel, I need to be able to stay with it for a long time. I've been writing for more than one year. I don't care so much when I finish, because it's not my day job. My trick to stay focused was to write about myself. My characters all have a piece of myself or of what I wished to be. There is always in my story a little something that stuck to my memory. Somewhere there is a white picket fence from a beautiful house I've seen in Pennsylvania, and so on.

My book will probably end being 3-400 pages long. But there are maybe thousands of things I imagined happening to my characters. They all have stories, each of which could be written in a more or less interesting book. Every time I have a little break from my actual work, I think of what would be the most probable improbable and interesting thing that could happen next in my story. When I find something I believe it's clever, I can't wait to make a little time to write it down.

Then there is Sutter Kane. Kane is my alter ego. Every time I go off tangent and think something else would make a wonderful subject of one of my books, one of my characters reads or quotes from a great Sutter Kane book. I don't know if any of Sutter Kane's ideas will make it into the final version, but it's my way of dealing with my mind going all over place.

More to the point: I try to find chunks of times to do my writing. I don't write without doing a little research first and thinking about what should be in the chapter. I think of many possible scenarios, and then I vote the best. Then I write down, preferably starting in the morning so I have time to write a significant part of the chapter in one day. Over the next days I keep editing. Then I move on.

Original score: 3