The key to getting a job done is to treat your writing as a proper project. It’s not just sit down and write some words and everything will take care of by itself. You need to make a list of required mini tasks.
Usually, it looks like this:
Preparation:
- Get the idea
- Think of a character
- Figure out the character’s goal
- Think of a setting
- Think of an outer conflict
- Think of an inner conflict
- Create crucial scenes
- Create III act structure
- Add more scenes
Writing
- Write the first draft
Editing
- Fix or cut broken scenes (kill your darlings)
- Show not tell
- Kill the adverbs
- Get rid of redundant description
- Get rid of redundant exposition
- Fix unclear statements
- Proofreading
This process varies from a writer to a writer, but at least you’ve got something to begin with.
As you can see, the actual writing is only one of many tasks, and I didn’t even mention promotion and publishing, which is a story by itself.
The good part about this approach is that you always know which stage you‘re at and how much work you’ve got to do.