What's your #1 obstacle as a writer: Starting/staying motivated, or organizing a complex project?
Hi everyone,
I'm working on a project to design better software for writers, and I'm trying to understand the most common and frustrating problems people face.
I've noticed many writers fall into one of two camps when it comes to their biggest struggle:
Camp A: The Motivation & Focus Struggle. You have great ideas, but you struggle with the blank page, self-doubt, or just building a consistent writing habit. The main enemy is inertia or a lack of focus. You desperately want to become a published author, but you can’t stick with it long enough to finish a manuscript. You rewrite a chapter 50 times without moving to the next chapter, and get discouraged.
Camp B: The Organization & Complexity Struggle. You love building worlds and complex plots, but you're drowning in notes across different apps (or notebooks). Your main enemy is fragmentation and keeping all the details of your story straight. You get halfway through a project and then lose sight of all the scattered plots and ideas. You move on to the next project to escape the pain and try to regain some of the joy of worldbuilding again.
I'm trying to figure out which of these problems is more pressing for most writers.
My questions for you in the comments:
- Which camp do you fall into and why? What does that struggle feel like?
- What tools (if any) have you tried to solve this problem? (e.g., Scrivener, Notion, Ulysses, physical notebooks, etc.)
- Most importantly: Have you ever paid for a tool to fix this specific problem? If so, what was it and was it worth the money?
Thanks for your help. I'm not selling anything, just doing research to hopefully build something that actually helps.
Posted Aug 7, 2025, 4:46 PM UTC