Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Back on the Horse

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

3 comments:

  1. 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!

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  2. Wow, 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.

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  3. Glad 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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