I'm never in the mood to write, if I'm being perfectly honest. Actually, I find myself flat out suffering 99% of the time while writing--diction, syntax, style, flow, grammar, etc. Just kill me and throw my body somewhere for the vultures. So many things to consider even without factoring in how best to convey the events to the readers/fellow RPers, and even after I've rewritten a bothersome sentence 35465468 times in my head, it [i]still[/i] doesn't feel right and I'm wasting too much time on it, so I jam it in like the clunky mess it is and move on. I hate the process. I don't really like my results. But I love what I can contribute to a group in a forum RP setting. I love anticipating what fairly unpredictable results will come from my actions. So I feel you there, Buddha. I wouldn't say this balances out the sheer hell that is actually composing a passable post. Hell no, haha. But like most things I find compelling, I'm content to suffer through it repeatedly if it generates something meaningful in the RP, even if just a little. So to stop rambling and directly answer your question [quote=Buddha]So what do you do? How do you typically get in the mood and stay in the mood to write? How do you avoid getting bored, distracted?[/quote] I just grit my teeth and knuckle down. "If I don't write a post right now, I will die." It doesn't really matter if I believe it. I just think it. Maybe type it somewhere and have to delete it before submitting the final post. On my worst days, when I can't find the determination to start a post--even in the face of pseudo-death--I start handwriting my train of thought on a piece of paper nearby. Because I like the tactile sensations of pen and paper. Not sure if it'll work for you. I don't stop writing until I've eeked something--anything--out that I can use (mold, bend, reshape, break a piece from, stab, roll, throw, etc.). And I mean [i]I don't stop.[/i] If I have to write the words "banana clown" for 10 lines straight until another thought comes to mind, I'll do it. And sometimes my brain will throw in random words I've only ever seen in passing and have completely forgotten how to spell like "digitigrade" which I've written down before as "digit grade something something with standing on toes" while just making sure I kept up with my thoughts. Greasing the mental wheels, I suppose? It'll be multiple sheets of utter bullshit, probably. And maybe somewhere in there you'll find a thought you'd like to use and that'll get the adjacent sets of wheels rolling for some more thoughts.