I have attempted several (OK, many) times to conlang (can that legitimately be used as a verb? ). But after a while, I run out of steam. How do you more experienced conlangers keep at it? Is there something wrong with how I start out, or am I just too much of a quitter?

Oh boy, I know that feeling! It usually happens to me too, I get overexcited and then I get bored. but I always go back after a few weeks or so to continue! Depends on my HW lol If you like the language, I think you will always go back to it with fresh ideas for corrections and/or additions! At least that's what I do...

That's good to know that someone else experiences my problem.

How do you go about starting a conlang? Do you start with phonemes or something else?

Personally I did it to sort of give my fictional country a unique identity. Since its like on a different planet, i tried not to use any rootes from already existing languages but I later decided (later being 3 months ago in the 5 years of my language's existance) that in my fictional universe a civilization that lived thousands of years ago supposedly had dominated parts of earth and thus their language gave birth to both Proto-Indo European and my own language. So basically there's my fictional 'base root' (say for number one) húndë, which gave birth to both the Proto-Indo European hoino, the Ancient Greek héna (Modern Greek éna), the Latin unus, the Hindu ek but also the word for '1' in my fictional language which is ćë.

For me languages are a way to enhance my storyline and historical background of the cultures I've created rather than just a set of phonetics and I try to portray the culture I'm working on (my Empire has a highly complex language with 16 different tenses and 4 different number) on their language.

Thats how I do it

Hmm...you see, this is the first conlang I've worked on that hasn't had a specific/well-defined culture accompanying it. Yet, it's also the first one that I've actually made it through a rough grammar of. Maybe now that I have a basic grammar structure, I need a culture. Thanks for the food for thought!

anytime

I usually start thinking about the "feeling" I want to go with the language. I start off with phonology, and then after that I go on to more grammar.

I've played around with at least a dozen different conlangs, all the way from agglutinative, Latin-based to Germanic-like, Japanese-like and even a weird tonal one. I've just started a new one called Cicata (I will rename it later onwards) and to the untrained eyes looks like some East European language. But the conlang I cherish the most has to be Espiritola even though it's a Romlang, heavily overdone. Here's a sample:

La Reforma Orthógraphica Espirítolana
Por lôs qui no sados de qué es Espirítolà, es un lingua constroçá creyá ey developá para Chung Van Dao commencede dao ano 2008, atora l’Aprilo. Da yo, sobavede muyos cangios ao grammario, vocabulario ey a l’orthógraphia…

L’Espirítolà es un lingua constroçá basá sora lo prototypo d’Ùrobasica de qui los dos seís Romanicas. Da yo a nunia, no habede un orthógraphia fixá. L’Espirítolà besonado standardisar l’escritura por que sériado ma ‘plesanda’ aéstheticamiente ey por que retenado un identitia de sia-mesma ao mesmo temo que se fado siemar qu’habado existá por un londatemo.

I really like your conlang imbecilica! Sounds like spanish and i love it!

Thanks, even though I've never formally learnt that particular language.