Motivators in Writing

First some business and good news! The wonderful people of Smashwords have added The Chronicles of IDIOT to their premium catalog. Now it will be distributed to Barnes and Noble, Apple and Sony among others. Unfortunately, now is not exactly now. It may take a few weeks before it appears on those e-book provider websites. I will keep you updated and will be changing the blog to accommodate so many places where the book can be purchased. So Nookie owners – stay tuned! Your patience has been appreciated!

Motivators are funny things. Sorry, not ha ha funny. You can be motivated to write because you woke up in the middle of the night with an idea. I had that happen a few nights ago, but what I was thinking about would probably be better for an idea for a story to be written by my next protagonist. Yes, a story within the story. Don't worry, I'm not gonna go all Momento on you all, and make it really confusing. I am just making it confusing for myself, because I didn't know this person was going to be an author until I thought of the story she would write.

As you can tell, I am rather new to this writing business.

So, motivating myself to continue is difficult when there are many other things that I need to do. I remember the movie The Stepford Wives with Matthew Broderick and Bette Midler. The memorable thing for me was that Ms. Midler's character was an Author, and her house was a MESS. But, she was a successful Author (with a capitol A!). Should I try that route? No. My house is messy enough already. But it is tempting. After she gets “stepfordized” her house is spotless and her computer is off. Definitely cannot go that route either, although it has it's temptations as well.

Therefore, it is a compromise of time and cleanliness.

There are other ways to organize your time to write. I hear of Authors (there is that capitol A again, it means they got paid for their work!) that wake up really early to get things done before the rest of the family wakes up. Or they insist they have to finish at least a daily: 3 page/3000 words/insert whatever benchmark seems reasonable to you. There are no such benchmarks for me, not when my benchmarks are: have the kids eat breakfast, now gotta brush their teeth and get them to school. I may work on writing early in the morning, since I seem to get up at 5AM no matter what. I was using that time to walk my dog since we live in Arizona and would melt any time after 9AM. But with the fall upon us and temperatures coming down, I can have some more flexibility. When the kids were younger, I worried they would get up, and be upset that I was gone, even though their dad was there. Not as much now. Now, I have to worry they won't get up at all before school starts. I do prefer it this way, it is hard when your 1 or 2 year old start crying because they see you are leaving – even if it is only for an hour.

I would like to think that success would be a great motivator. And many Authors love nothing more than to keep their successful stories going. But, with others, I can tell that they seem to be “phoning it in”. I still read their work, I am a sucker that way. It would be wonderful to be successful, it would sure motivate me. But, that is not happening right now and I just have to accept it. One thing that is helpful is that I have heard that being an a/Author is one of the top ten jobs that make people happy. For a/Authors, it is because you get to say what is on your mind, whether you get paid for it or not. So thanks to e-books and changes in the industry, anyone can cheaply publish a book. That is a wonderful thing.

In the past, to get published, you needed a literary agent. You can still go that traditional route, but they are a tough nut to crack. Rejection of writing is the name of their game. Since they know that your work will be a tough sell to the publisher, they don't take chances. So, most authors are rejected out of hand unless their name is Obama or Kardashian, or they write about a hot topic with juicy details such as the new bio on Sarah Palin. Rejection can be a big motivator if you are an eternal optimist, or a big de-motivator if you are a regular human being. I know I just made up a word there but English is a constantly evolving language and I think you see my point. Rejection and lack of interest from others are what keep us from keeping on with what we want to do. The hard part is to say “forget their opinion,” just keep going, and try to become that eternal optimist. Many of the most successful people had many failures along the way, they just did not allow those set backs to slow them down.

Now, I am just trying to keep motivated, and write this next book. Since my life is all about parenting, I have started working on a satire (yes, a satire again) on “superior” parenting. There was a certain book that came out last year that touted a certain kind of superior parenting. I am working on a different viewpoint (not so superior) of that kind of parenting style. I am not sure whether it will be a novella or a full fledged novel. Some of my writing friends are more mindful of word count, I am trying just to stay motivated.