i'd be proud as heck of that song if i made it. it reminds me of failotron (was that the name) and also of minusbaby in a way. do a album m8

I'm so pumped to hear you say that.  It gives me motivation even to hear someone say they like it. 

Also, thank you for this.  I love Home Movies

I can say deadlines have helped me in the past.  When I was in school, I was creating like crazy.  I have set some deadlines for myself with my album, but I've broken them.  I've even made a public announcement, but I broke it.  I just can't get myself to feel like I'm good enough.  It's never done, and my music always sucks compared to others' that I listen to.  I know I'm not that bad, but I can't turn off my self depreciating criticism.  I released 3 of the songs and they even got played on a local college chip radio show.  I was super excited.  Then my sister told me her friend listened and loved them but wanted to mix them for me with more bass.  So then it kicked in.  "They're not good enough.  I have to have my bass sound like Kubbi."  Now what I was proud of turned to shit in an instant.  I couldn't get it to sound right, and I gave up.  I haven't worked on it much since.  I have 9 completed songs that I am sitting on.  I know it's totally ridiculous.  Maybe you guys could help me.  I'm gonna post the title track here.  Tell me what it needs.  Give me a deadline (within reason), and I will keep to it this time.  I think it could make me very much happier if I could feel like I've created something I'm proud of.

This is the title track, Odyssey. 
https://soundcloud.com/krubbz/odyssey

I used to be able to translate my negativity to music and poetry.  And creating that would keep me going.  As bad as were the muses that brought about the things I wrote, the creation made me proud.  I can't seem to do this anymore.  This is different.  It's hard to know how to explain it without it being TMI, but a lot of really bad things have happened in my life in the past 6 months.  And I'm talking people dying bad, not, like, ripped my favorite shirt bad.  I'd be happy if I could even get back to my normal cynical, realist sort of negativity/depression.  I'm pretty low.  I'm trying, but this is why I need this.  And I thank you all so much for your responses. 

I am going to use many of the things I've read here.  I'll likely use the gradual daily small goals to get me back into it and the deadline to help me finally finish.  And I'll keep exercising.  I'm also seeking help.  And I hope any of you who are out there who mentioned struggling with depression or anxiety will do the same.  Even if it seems manageable, look into it.  You won't know what it's keeping you from accomplishing until you become aware later on of how much it's affected you and you look back.  The regret feels awful.  Don't let yourself get to that point.  Take care of it now.  There are a lot of options out there, and many counseling centers have sliding pay scales that let you pay based off of your income.  Please do it.

even juste a bass loop or, a 16bars beat or whatever...
having people ''waiting'' on you is very motivating and push to migliorate the technical aspect (more than just ''working for yourself'' IMO)

without the 2 current (very humble) things I have in progress (1 beat+bass for a theater show and 1 full base for a funny trip-hop tune) I would have left this nonsense lsdj thing behind already

Personally, I think creative people need affirmation, not superficial stuff like FB or money (unless it's enough to make a living), but from other people in person. A musician's purpose is to create, and perform. An audience that truly enjoys it will be plenty of affirmation of your purpose as a musician.

Creating is only one half of what you do, you need to get out there and share your creations in real life, FB and the internet don't count, and wont be enough.  There's nothing like creating honestly, and having a crowd, even a small one enjoy it. Internet likes, views, are subscribers are just numbers.

Even a small show at 5 or 10 people who are truly into what you do...those people will motivate you to create more. I speak from experience, and would trade 150k views, 700 subs, and ad revenue anytime for a real life performance high any day.

DEADLINES.

SOMEHOW INVENT THEM IF THEY DONT EXIST. Ex: Weekly Beats, Compos, etc

^^^^ THIS ^^^^

I have a friend fax me mean things like "you're a worthless piece of shit" once every few days and that drives me to better myself and my work

Somehow picturing insults getting spit out of a printer in whatever studio you have makes me crack up.

I also want to second being proud of your own stuff. Start listening to old tracks for what you did right, if your stuff is listenable at all then you've done something well and you should take note of that. So much of being motivated is just not getting frustrated. Look at how far you've come.

I always try to be happy with whatever things I achieve so far.

This is a big one. Taking a look at some old stuff from my humble beginnings as a musician has really helped me put aside my scathing self-criticism for a second and just be happy with the progress I've made. It's good to try to get some perspective on how far you've made it and then try to beat your average growth in the future.

Adderall

Before I first started Vyvance I had no idea how to use FL Studio. At the end of the day I had a pretty ok song. This is a good indicator of how poorly I was able to focus before I was diagnosed, especially considering I had owned FL for 2 years at that point.

Basically my system is to always try to write something. You're never going to regret booting up lsdj and messing around for 15 minutes, and if you do that every day you're going to hit that magical "wow I wrote that" feeling (the one that allows you to write a song in 1 sitting) more often than if you only write on a whim. Worst case scenario you don't get anything special out of it, but that's ok. Most of the time you're going to either figure out something new or at least get a cool loop that you can incorporate into a song when you switch on "wow I wrote that" mode. I don't think there's any point in forcing yourself to continue a song you're not feeling, but if you at least try to make something on a regular basis you don't have to force it. Give it a shot often enough and you'll write more because of frequency. Don't let not getting anything useful get you down and start writing less, just make yourself give it a shot maybe 10 minutes a day and then decide whether to continue.

Here are some things I do that help me improve and be productive:

- Write in a different style: Think Roboctopus is a pretty cool guy even though you write hard house or whatever? Maybe you should write with whatever physical instrument you have nearby in mind. Try writing what you think someone you admire would write; chances are it won't be the same, but the point is to step outside your comfort zone and maybe you find something you didn't know you were good at.

- Copy down something cool from a song you like: Man, that arp in the backgroud of X is neat, I wonder if I can recreate that. Maybe I'll try to put the bassline in next, make a mistake, decides it sounds cool and different, and roll with it. You like music and probably want to write music that you like, so if you borrow something you know you like it gives you a starting point to create something new. Most of the time when I do this I don't even end up using the borrowed part in the final song. (I'm not suggesting you straight lift a melody off someone, but try taking a drumbeat or chord progression in a different way than the original song did. Plagarism is not ok, tasteful sampling is.)

- Write outside of the DAW you plan to produce the finished song in: Every so often I like to leave netflix running on another monitor and mess around with a piano VST in FL Studio to see if I can write something before I need to worry about what sounds to use. This never feels like a waste of time because it's always at least entertaining, and sometimes it's really helpful to not worry about what sounds you're going to use, so writing with something you for sure know isn't going to be in the finished product can be very freeing.

This is a subset of the previous one: download some new software. There is a deep well of free tracker software on the internet, and you're never going to run out of things to try. I can recommend Arkos Tracker specifically, it comes with a ton of demo songs to dissect (Even some 8bc era Ultrasyd!) and it's simple enough to pick up in a few minutes.

- Know when to walk away: Sometimes you're just not going to get anything useful done, and this is ok. Writers block happens to everyone and if trying to punch through it doesn't work there's no shame in just taking a 2 or 3 day break to come back with fresh ears and a positive attitude. I've broken a lot more songs through over-editing than I've fixed, so I'm very wary about continuing when I'm no longer making progress. You can just let future you deal with that riff that can't seem to fit any chords, or that patch that sounds amazing but you can't seem to write with.

This stuff is all I really do when I'm having trouble. If you're like me and can't write well while actively trying to, these might help a bit. I can't make it dark and stormy, but I can make sure I have the diabolical contraption ready when lightning strikes.