What I do
Well, I, as a DM, try to allow all players to play as close to what they want as is possible, because, this is a game, right? And it's all about having fun, right, whether "fun" means "drooling angst" or "monster mayhem" to you? So with that in mind, along with the fact that a forced player is an unhappy one, I don't force my players to write background.
Instead, I offer an XP award of 50*level XP per item (loosely equates to page, modified by usefulness), to a limit of 5 items per level. (Remember, positive reinforcement is better than negative.)
"Item" also includes stuff like character journals and so on, since after a while it gets right ludicrous to write about what came before.
That way, you can skip it if it feels boring to you, but if you want to write, you can do so and be rewarded (You can get up to 1/4th of the XP needed to gain a level by writing stuff). Incidentally, all my players happily scribble away. Fascinating how XP can make boring things fun
Oh, I suppose I should mention that standard fighting XP have been heavily slashed (pun not intended) IMC.
It's all worked out fabulously so far, and I have
sheaves of background material for all the PCs.
/Feliath