and Blazing Saddles!! 
We start writing because its fun. We become production machines because its a job, meaning even when its not fun we force ourselves to write until you get out of the desert of oh good grief all I'm writing is crud and I hate it, its not fun and I Hate it YOUR HEAR ME!!!! H-A-T-E!!! And then eventually you leave the no-fun desert of writing just because its your job to slog through this quagmire you're stuck in and suddenly? There are the ROUS's and it becomes fun again!!! Rinse and repeat and that's how you get yourself a novel. At least that's how I got mine.
That said, when I first took up writing, I found that it was hard to put the production out there. I found that when it was late, say 10:30pm to midnight and I was tired and needed sleep badly, I stopped letting my brain get in the way. My inhibitions (including mainly my fear of ruining whatever I'd written before) were reduced, and in the back of my head a little alarm was going off, saying, you have to get to sleep or you'll be screwed tomorrow. So I'd crank out a couple thousand words and go to bed fully satisfied with myself. And probably, because I was pretty undisciplined back in those days, never return to that story start ever again. Because upon waking that awsome idea had faded and when I went back to look at it, it seemed more like work than fun and suddenly this new increadible idea would pop into my brain.
Another part, for me, of actually finishing a lengthy novel was forcing myself not to become distracted with this awsome new idea that popped into my brain when I was writing something else. Or should have been writing something else. I've got over 101 story starts that are 1-4k long. I'll never write most of them again. As far as I'm concerned you've got harness your creativity, like you would a wild horse, and then green break it to the saddle, yet at the same time you have to be careful and when its pointed in the right direction apply the spurs so it'll gallop away. A hard thing to do, I know. Believe me.
The Deposed King
