I wish I had a better grasp on what makes a writing session fun/easy and what makes it hard.

I've been trying to figure this out for almost three years now, and it remains elusive.

-J

The whole thing doesn't have to interest you. It doesn't always interest me. It's just that sometimes there are scenes that have to be there, in order for the parts that DO interest you to make sense. Set up, groundwork, whatever. It's like, when I know a particular scene is coming up and I'm really excited about writing it, all of the stuff that leads into that scene becomes twice as dull and twice as hard to write, because I wanna get to the good stuff! Then when I do get there, the writing goes fast and easy and fun. But to get there, you gotta do the hard stuff first.

This is something that is much different between writing and the projects I do. Drawing is much shorter term, anywhere from a few minutes to about a week for most of the things I've done. I can relate though to having to make myself work on a piece, almost always this is when I've agreed to do something for someone else that doesn't really interest me. On my own things, there's always parts of a piece that I enjoy more than others, eyes for example.

From what I've read of writers talking about process, I don't think you're alone in that at all.

*nodnod*

I was feeling tired and reluctant yesterday, so I decided to start with a sex scene just to create interest. Well, the sex scene lasted maybe a hundred words, and then suddenly, I saw the plot of the rest of the book, and I got all invigorated again. I wish I could call on that feeling whenever I want.

Wearing my editor hat: the whole thing almost can't interest you (at least at a consistent level) because there are so many things a novel has to do to work at all, and it's hard to see how any writer could be equally interested in, or equally good at, all of those things.

Other factors might include aspects of mood other than exhaustion/awakeness, what's going on in the house around you, what else you might be doing if you weren't writing (shall I go on?).