Tag: writing motivation

Blog Chain: Motivating Factors

Welcome to another blog chain! Today’s question comes from Amanda. She asks,

“What do you do to keep yourself motivated when you feel like you’re not making any progress in your writing career?”

This may sound corny, but it all comes down to my parents. Growing up, not succeeding wasn’t an option. Sure, at times there was a lot of pressure (e.g. “90? What happened to the other 10 points?”), but the main thing they were trying to instill was that if you worked hard enough, you could accomplish anything. From their perspective, if they were able to bring us to America with literally nothing and take any job they could to obtain a better life for my sister and me, then we better make good on all opportunities we were given. So I grew up thinking that as long as I worked my butt off, the sky was the limit.

Sometimes it was crushing–like when no amount of studying would change the fact that my brain just didn’t get physics. Usually, though, it served me well. In h.s., I entered writing contests even when I was told there was stiff competition–and won. I applied for afterschool jobs where supposedly you had to know people for it to matter (I knew no one; I got the job). In college, I didn’t care what the “in” sororities were. I rushed the ones I liked, the ones people said only took few (I got bids from them all). And after college, when I was applying for teaching jobs, I applied to all districts that interested me. I didn’t care that they supposedly only took friends of the superintendent. I knew from past experience those things weren’t always true.

This is the attitude I took with me when I quit full-time teaching after 8 years in the profession and decided to pursue freelance writing. There was that same attitude of no one being able to break in, that you had to know people, etc. I didn’t buy that. I took classes and pitched and pitched and pitched until stories started getting picked up. It was just about the odds. When I wrote my YA and then sold my YA, everyone asked who I knew, how I got published. I told them about my great agent. Many assumed I knew someone to get her. Nope.

What’s been instilled in me is that you work until something happens. And I really believe if you keep at it, it will happen. This could be naive or corny, but that’s how I feel. I also learned something else. It’s easy to think that it won’t be you who gets hired for that dream job or that no way will you be the editor of the lit magazine or that contest will be won by anyone else but you so why bother? But that’s all fear. If you don’t enter, if you don’t apply, you can’t say you were rejected.

I had felt like that before. For a while, it stopped me from submitting any of my essays or stories to magazines. Writing was THE dream for me. Always. And submitting something and then being rejected made me think that that would be the end of the writing dream. So I did nothing. But if you never try, that’s worse. Especially if trying can make the DREAM a reality.

So motivation? I know what I want. I want a writing career that lasts. I want to write books forever. The only way that’s going to happen is if I stop doubting myself (and that happens plenty), stop comparing myself to others (again, plenty), and just get moving. Finish those sets of ideas, that novel that’s been “almost finished” for weeks. Not succeeding is not an option.

Check out Christine’s Gleektastic post from yesterday, and tune in tomorrow for Sarah’s post.

Writing When Life Happens

My son is two-and-a-half years old. He is also teething. If you’re familiar with toddler boys and/or teething, I can probably stop here and wait for your virtual hug. If you’re not, I’ll just say it’s been a rough week—partly because I had a plan.

Yep, I’m back into planning things, making lists, feeling accomplished when I can check things off my list, keeping a tally of all I have to do, yada, yada, yada. And this is all well and good when things go according to plan. When they don’t, the lists just become a false sense of security. That’s what happened this week.

First, the teething. That was a surprise in itself because I thought we were done with the worst of it. Apparently, the teeth feel differently. They’re not done partying and hurting my little guy. So, the nights were bad, which led to the days being bad, which did not help our will he/won’t he nap situation. Then, yesterday, those darn teeth were especially wicked and caused Little Guy to run a fever so I canceled my sitter and plans. Today, had a sitter but Hubby studying for exam and sitter can’t stay late so so much for my writing plans. Oh, and re nap situation—that was when I would write too, so that’s not been happening. And my little lists are sitting and mocking me—not intentionally, of course, because my lists are cute and sweet and mean no harm—and I have projects I need to finish (they may have long term deadlines but still), and I just want to write because it calms and makes things feel less chaotic.

This all got me thinking about how other people do it. All you people with lots of obligations besides writing, how do you get things done when life gets in the way? I love my family, love spending time with my son, but then I get a few weeks where I can’t seem to get anything done. I feel like other people find a way. Where? How? I know people who write when kids are asleep but if they don’t go to bed until later and still don’t sleep through the night, when do you do it? I’m not writing this to complain. Really. I just need some advice. Anything. One of the Tenners, Scott William Carter, just created something called Games Writers Play. His first is to write 30 minutes or 500 words a day, whichever comes last. I think this is a start. That’s what I’ll do tonight. But what else? One thing I learned is that I need deadlines. Whether people read what I write or not, even having to report to them to acknowledge that I wrote, would work for me. Will you be the lucky one I rope in as my report-to person? Want to volunteer? 🙂

Tell me your ideas or advice. Do you just suck up the hard weeks and make up for the loss when things get better? I can do that, but have to learn not to feel guilty in the interim. And guilt is another entry altogether—guilt for not spending time with son to write, guilt for not writing enough, etc. I can bore you will all that another time.

Calling All Control Freaks!

I used to be a control freak. It served me well when I was a teacher. Helped keep me organized. I found out lots of teachers were control freaks so I was in good company. The funny thing is that I didn’t realize how much this was a part of me until it was gone. My family warned me that it was going to be tough for me when I had my son. “Can’t be all about you and how you want things anymore,” my brother-in-law constantly told me while I was pregnant. “Yeah, yeah. I know,” I always said, but a part of me did worry about that. And then my Kiddo was born and the control thing was the least of my problems. I was amazed how easy it was to switch all my attention to Kiddo and away from me, how easy it was to give up control of my life for what was better for him. As he grew older, I realized how the rest of my world functioned on the assumption that moms needs some room for dallying. I would rush to get to our Mommy and Me music, library or gym classes on time only to discover nothing started until 10 minutes after the “start” time. I got into that groove. I stopped (and still do) and watched mowers and blowers and dump trucks. But now, the flexible schedule has started to affect my writing. Now, Kiddo is almost 2.5 years old and I need some of my old freakishness back.

It’s not that I’m totally UNproductive. It’s just that I could be more. I would LIKE to be more. I could go on and say how hard it is to write when Kiddo’s naps are short these days and that I would rather watch GLEE when I finally put him to bed than pick up a pen or open my laptop (I open it to play Bejeweled Blitz but I have yet to find a way to spin this as a productive activity). But I’m not alone in this. Lots of writers have kids. My friends and husband tell me that I’ll have lots of time to write more when Kiddo is older but that’s not useful to me. I highly doubt my agent is going to wait until Kiddo starts first grade to see a draft of my next book. Yeah, she said she wouldn’t rush me, but I think waiting 4 years is a bit much. 🙂 I know, too, I can ask her for a deadline but then I might not make it and as I wrote in my first post, I have NOT missed a deadline. Ever. I’m not going to start. So I need to find a way to write more. I figure my fave shows are going on a hiatus for a bit now so perfect timing! But there’s another obstacle I’ve learned about two days ago.

My husband is an actuary (does stuff with numbers, statistics, lots and lots of big bad math–and, no, he doesn’t figure out when people die) and has nine exams he has to take. He has completed seven, which is huge, but we have been putting off the last two because it was hard to study with an infant/young toddler. A few days ago he found out he really needs to take the last two–like right now–before some major exam stuff is changed. If you don’t know about actuarial exams, I don’t want to take away your innocence. I will only say that they’re super scary–like fangs, claws, fur–and they kidnap my hubby during the study period. In the past–in my cute control freak days–I would help keep him on track with his studying. He’d ASK me to even. We would make up a study plan and I’d be his little cheerleader and nag. Now, I have my own motivation problems. I need someone to make a schedule for ME.

Can any of you help? Can you be the Monica to my Rachel and control my writing life? Yes, you control freaks out there get to play puppet master! Anyone want to make me a plan? Give me tips on how to get my inner control freak back? All ideas welcome!! I have an MG to write, another YA idea I want to do, a WIP, and a January project. I need to sell stuff so I can get my kid a pony (or a Thomas the Train train set, whatever). Thanks!