Motivation. I never even realize dI had it until suddenly I had none. It's been almost a year and a half since I first seriously considered writing as a career and until the last two months I never had a problem sitting down to write. Regardless of if my work was crap or the best I've ever produced, it just flowed. I wrote The Evolution of Janie in less than a year, Songbird was almost 80% finished within a month (Thank you NaNoWriMo!) And even though it took me another two months to finish that one I was writing every day. Whether I was editing, revision or producing new material it just came to me. Then I got sick and some other unforseen incident happened that caused me to not write for almost two weeks. What's really sad about that is I can't even remember what happened!
I know it's normal to take breaks, to feel completely de-motivated and I've been reading a lot of posts on the tNBW forum about how people stay focused. Once I would have gladly posted that it wasn't a problem for me, now I look at each of those and realize that's where I am, or was (hopefully).
Over the past five days my mojo has slowly resurfaced. I know, I know the point to that Austin Power's moving was that no one can take you mojo, but I get what he felt like when Fat Bastard sucked his mojo out. Lifeless, empty of creative thought and powerless to bring it back. I really think part of it was the rejection. I've never been a glutton for it, and after reject upon reject I just didn't want to do it anymore. I couldn't see the point. If the agents I thought were perfect for my novel didn't even want to read past the first ten pages then why was I subjecting myself to the barrage of disappointment?
But back to five days ago :) I'd slowly been editing and revising Janie, and working on Liar but not consistently. But these past few days have been different. I'm not sitting down at my desk like a stranger. I'm not typing with a forced hand, only to delete the garbage that spews forth. I'm feeling confident and purposeful. Welcome back, Me!!
On my iPod:
Push by Moist
We've all been there, especially after a slew of rejections. With the state of the publishing world right now it's hard to keep motivated. Glad your mojo is coming back!
ReplyDeleteWow, I've been feeling the same way. I've had my writing guts sucked out of me the past three weeks. What happened to the motivation? For me, I've been taking an online e-course, and the teacher is a silly eejit. But now, I feel myself snuggling back into my familiar "I write what I like and that's final, dammit" phase. It's comforting to be stubborn about your creativity. Especially when silly eejit teachers can't 'see your vision.' Smirk. :) Oh, and my pug is named Janie. She's slowly evolving into a napping slump on the couch. I hope that's not what your novel is about! haha ... hang in there, dearie. I'm feeling for you.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear that I'm not the only one in this spot. I've had accidents this year, crisises and more rejections than I can count. I love writing, but it kept getting pushed to the bottom of the stack. Now I have to get back to it (if for no other reason, so I can see how Songbird and Janie end). :-)
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