: Writer's Block: How to Stop World-building and Start Writing? This is a question that doesn't directly apply to me, though I can easily see myself having this problem. I thought I'd run writer's

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Getting past the designing stage without a clear goal in mind as to what should be the story can be hard, and not necessarily something you can satisfactorily solve.

If you have thought about the characters and an overall idea of the plot, you could start small, maybe with an introduction of one or more or them. From mine and other people's experience, I have seen that writing, even when not having a clear destination - or a clear path toward that destination - often makes you see what makes sense about the story and what does not.

If still it does not help, perhaps devoting time to other writing projects will put things in perspective. Sometimes there simply may not be a solution for this kind of block.

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Write your Silmarillion instead.

Tolkien created his Elvish languages because he was a professor of linguistics. He created the world of LOTR to have someone to speak his languages.

The Silmarillion is the collection of mythology, creation stories, and history which built the world for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to stand on. Collecting all your world-building into short stories, myths, little scenes, individual characters with backstories, and so on may generate a plot bunny, and from there you can see if it attaches itself to a larger structure like a Hero's Journey.

If not, then you still have a cool collection of history and mythology, and maybe you can work with someone else to have other folks tell stories in that world.

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I find combining words into sentences fun enough by itself to keep me going :)
But, seriously, it sounds like you have a rich and interesting world developed, and that is a great accomplishment already.
The question is whether you have a story, set in that world, because no world by itself can be used as a substitute for an interesting story, no matter how beautiful and wondrous that world is.

Once everything is designed though, and it's actually time to write, I have a problem. The actual act of writing isn't design (not by the time I'm done with the disturbingly detailed outline anyway). The result is that I invariably would rather design more than write about what I've created.

Somebody said once that a right question contains half of the answer within itself. I am afraid that you are the only one who can answer that question for yourself. But if you have an outline, what's stopping you? Type away, all you have to do is fill in the blanks!

How can I get myself to write? I don't want to feel like I'm forcing it, because that can't be good for creativity.

I disagree. If you do not exercise your writing, you will not develop your writing skills. Do make yourself write. Try, at least, and see where it takes you. You might like it... and if not: you can always revise later!

Best of luck!

some useful reference on worldbuilding

more of the kind

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