Noticing Newbies

Hi,

I'm 18 years old and I like to write stories and poetry (and songs because I also compose music). I don't actually write very regularly: a while ago I wrote at least two poems or more a week, and at other times I was just concentrating on music. As for now, I am trying to finally write a whole novel, something I've never really accomplished. Only once I actually finished a story when I was twelve, but it was very unoriginal, short and especially very childish.

The main reasons why I could never again finish a story were 1. I am terrible with names, 2. I had been thinking to much about the end and other things I hadn't written so to me it wasn't very interesting anymore. And as I expected that no one else would want to read it I just lost my motivation.
This time I'm trying to prevent this problems with simple solutions (like asking friends for helping with names and what I call "reading-writing", by which I mean that I write whitout knowing what will happen in the next chapter, like when you read a book and you was wondering what will happen, but then you read on and it wasn't anything near your imagination. Off course many times I will come (and have already come) to a dead end. Then I just start over again from the point at which my interest faded. I know Tolkien did something similar- and probably many other great writers- and thinks it is a great (though maybe not very professional) way to write).


If someone else has had experiences with those same problems, I'm very eager to hear other ways to solve them. Also I will soon post some of my poems (and eventually chapters) on this forum and then you can all say what you think=]. It always makes happy if someone likes my poems, because then I feel making it did more good than just expressing my feelings. And if you don't like it because of spelling/grammar (maybe even stylistic) errors, just say so but try to be not to hard on meXD (to be honest I'm dutch and not really an expert in english, but I hope I someday will be so I'd appreciate your help with that. But the most important reason I wanted to join this forum was just to meet people and talk a little about poetry and literature and writing etc.

Thank you everyone who have taken the time to read this all and I hope it wasn't to long and boringXD. I'm looking forward to talk with you all and share opinions ^^