So I flooded my bathroom and bedroom. Yay. Fortunately, not to much got damaged. I’ve been wanting to clean out my closet for awhile, which made this a somewhat productive accident. My husband has been really great helping me. We got a lot of water up yesterday/last night/early morning, and the carpet is still soaked! So round two after I post this. Unfortunately, I was really on a writing roll, but the wheels fell off now.
Last week, an article about making money as an indie author really got me down because this person was making way more than me. So I asked readers how they inspire themselves to keep writing during times of self-doubt. Thanks for all the thoughtful responses. They helped me, so I hope they help the Enchanted Spark Community!
I’m not even sure how to respond to this. There are definitely days I don’t push through and I wallow in self-pity. Then, there are days I am thankful for all I have accomplished and I work through it. I imagine even those who are successful have the same motivational issues. It’s just plain hard to sit down and write. Sometimes, even when I have an idea to write about, I don’t want to write. I’d rather do almost anything than write (read, watch tv, facebook, go out and play in the snow, yeah, right!, or even twiddle my thumbs) In the long run, we just have to make a decision to do it, whether we’re into it or not. It’s all about looking at the long term goals. Do we want to be an author who can be taken seriously? Or do we just want to be mediocre all our lives?
Dave Barz:
Just like we shouldn’t directly compare our writing to another author, we should definitely avoid comparing paystubs. When the dumptruck of money arrives in my driveway some day, I will be pleasantly surprised, but it is not an expectation.
With my current project I have had up and down weeks and scrapped my beginning after letting a group of strangers shred it on the internet. To cheer myself up I read those stories that did work, that people enjoyed and told me they enjoyed them, be they family, friends, betas, or professors. You got this far with some encouragement, hang on to that and push forward. We want to read what you write next.
Other than checking emails or looking up a date/fact, I try to stay off the internet until I’m done my writing goals. Otherwise, I always seem to come across something negative that depresses me and affects my goals for the day. On the days I’m not so self-disciplined and I do get depressed from the internet, I tend to switch over to other writerly things that need to be done outside of actual writing (getting caught up on emails, updating my website, things like that).
Ooh, I like Holly’s advice to stay off the Internet until she’s done with her writing goals.
I’m like Dave, above, in that the money part of it isn’t even a factor in my writing right now. Those numbers are really pretty good sounding. I’d like to make some money writing. It would definitely feel good. Lord knows I could use it, but TIME is my biggest challenge. I still need my day job, so with everything else that needs to get done time is limited.
After pushing and pushing in November to blog every day and also work on my story, I still found my total word count to be a little depressing. It was a lot better than I had been doing, but still paltry compared to “real writers.” At this rate I’ll finish a novel in about three to five years. Haha. I don’t want to wallow in self-doubt but I am going to wallow from time to time.
So to keep going (which I am trying to do right now) I find the following helpful: A.) Don’t spend too much time comparing myself to anybody else. This is in total agreement with Holly’s advice. Just set goals and meet goals and then do other stuff. B.) No matter how much of a struggle it is right now. It can get better. I can get better. I can learn more about how it all works. I can make the most of what I write. The only way it won’t happen is if I stop. Breaks are going to happen, but no stopping!
Yoda says, “Do or do not. There is no try.”
As far as getting writing done, there really is “do or do not.” You either do it or you won’t. Just write. As far as success goes, there should always be, “try.” Keep trying and keep trying and keep trying. Because failure has almost always been part of success, so try you must. Always.
Melinda:
What made me keep working this time was the blizzard on the East Coast. Julie had everything for the episode edited except for the last part I was still writing. I knew she’d be shoveling snow and the power might go out, and she wouldn’t be able to edit if I didn’t get it to her before Friday morning. So after a bit of boo-hoo I got back to work. I’m so glad I did because it means we’re publishing the first release of the New Year on time! I’m only one away from my sales goal for the month, so all the sales of Episode 5 will be cream…as long as I didn’t make readers mad with Episode 4 😀
But other times when I don’t have a natural disaster looming, I turn to humor. My current favorite inspiration is below. NSFW!!!!!
Yeah, there are certain things about big motivators like blizzards. Glad you were able to use that! We finally ended up losing power for a little while on Monday, but it wasn’t long enough to do much harm.
Re-reading what I wrote, putting “real writers” into quotes seems odd. For example I find it funny when restaurants put the word fresh in quotation marks. Like “Fresh” fruit or fish. As if it has air quotes and isn’t really fresh.
I mostly put “real writers” into quotation marks, because I’m not even sure what makes a real writer. Am I a real writer? I know that the better and more successful ones write a lot more than I do. Ugh. Maybe they are just more prolific writers? Even managing to write a small amount is something that feels really good to my brain, so I’ll take it!
And YES to humor! That’s definitely helpful.