I take the laptop off to a quiet part of the house (my attic works nicely), disconnect the phone, turn off the router, turn my music up loud and just write! I procrastinate too readily otherwise.

Pick out one small aspect of the game and work on it.

Go travelling round the world for a year.

Seriously though, there is nothing wrong with setting something aside and working on something else, maybe less intensive, that also gives you a mental stimulus. Don't become to fixated on what is causing you not to be able to concentrate. read an exciting book for a couple of weeks instead, then come back to the game.

I write mostly when I am fired with enthusiasm and inspiration. If I'm not, then I tend not to write.

Cheers
Malcolm

Contested Ground Studios

To expand a little on my comment which was written as I was leaving to have a tooth yanked out.

If you want to continue writing the book but are struggling for motivation/inspiration, pick out one small part that needs work, say, the range rules for rifles and muskets ;-), and do that. If you find you're struggling with it or doing it doesn't give you any more motivation/inspiration to continue, then you probably need to put the book down for a couple of days.

Personally, I like to keep a few balls in the air (oo-er). If I'm struggling with one thing I'll move onto another. If I'm struggling for anything and I really want to write then I'll read something, watch something, surf teh interweb and browse through Deviant Art. Inspiration can come to me from nothing more than an image or a sentence.

Thanks for all of the comments - really appreciate it

Andrew's seems to be the one that has hit home with me most. Turn off the router. What an alien concept and yet remarkably effective. For with no router, there is no internet, no messageboards and no World of Bloody Warcraft.

Solitude I might have a problem with. De-internetting myself would actually remove some large scale barriers to getting down to channelling my enthusiasm.

Sharpe being on every night on UK Gold helps too!!

Neil

And indeed yes. Turn the feckin' router off and voila! Skirmish rules appear as if by magic.

Excellent!

Neil

It's amazing how much that little box of tricks turns out to be the bane of creativity. Write a sentence ... ooh I'll just check on Story Games ... write another sentence ... what's going on on facebook ... and so on.

Turning it off instantly removes the ability to be distracted by the net, which for me at least, is my biggest source of distraction! Glad it worked - now once I've just finished up reading this forum I'm going to do the same!

I can't turn our router off, Steph would have a fit (plus she requires it to work) but I agree that the internet is an incredibly distracting presence when trying to work on a game (or anything else to be honest.)

As for energising myself, right now I pretty much fail to, which is why most of my game ideas stall out and stop progressing. Too many kids and pets and huge money worries requiring me to do work that will actually earn me money leave me little to no time for games design right now.

~Geoff

Dread Fuzzy Blog

And from the look of the concurrent posts, you lasted about 45 minutes. Well done. It's a small step but it's the first step on the road to message board addiction recovery!

Neil

No, no, I've yet to turn it off at all! I keep getting distracted ;-)

Before we had wireless I could at least unplug the cable on my laptop, I used to do that when I wanted to write, but now that I do have wireless the Interweb just won't go away!

I agree with Malcolm though (will wonders never cease :P) I've always had multiple things on the go, so that there is always something for me to do that suits the mood I'm in. So for example at the moment I am working on Solipsist, but I also have a fantasy novel that's being edited, big trad. game that I am halfway through writing, my web game, and plot for my GURPS campaign ... so always plenty to do.

Solipsist RPG, on its way ... eventually

I'm sure there must be some things that we have agreed upon in the past! :-)

It certainly does sound like you have a lot on the go, which is pretty similar to the way I like to do things. I've found that travelling around the world has also helped give fresh perspective to a lot of stuff I've been doing. Although, I must admit, this could be seen as a raher expensive way of gaining fresh perspective! Okhrana, Everlasting Empire, Secret Project X and various other bits and bobs have all received a fresh lease of life.

Cheers
Malcolm

Contested Ground Studios