Building Good Writing Habits

Hi there WritersGroup!

I've always written as a cathartic activity and for fun, but in the last several years I had some really great encouragement from English teachers in high school and then college and I've decided that I want to be more consistent and intentional about my writing, both to develop my writing style (and habits) and to maybe make my own contribution to the world of writing at some point.

For me at least, it's always been easy to start writing (Wild Mind writing was the backbone of two independent high school English classes that I had) and I don't usually have a problem finding ideas, but for some reason after I get the first few pages down, I always hit some kind of wall and whatever I've started gets abandoned. To add to the problem, I'll usually stop writing for a week or two after that, and by the time I come back to something I've stopped, I can't bring myself to continue it without basically scrapping it and starting fresh.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's had that struggle, and I'm wondering what you guys do to keep your writing consistent and intentional. I'm about to start my first long term job (as an industrial electronics controls mechanic at a Navy Yard) in the first week of February, and I'm hoping I can take the short gap I have between jobs to focus on writing and develop the skills and habits I need to be a more productive writer.

Thoughts?