How do you motivate yourself to write?

[jongibbs]

During the session on goals and goal setting for writers at the GSHW meeting on Saturday, we all had to write down three things which stop us from writing. Later, we were invited to tell the group what we'd put down.

It was interesting listening to the various reasons people gave. Some folks cited specific events, or their current personal situation

Comments

[msstacy13]

While all of those things might induce or entice me to write more,
nothing distracts me from writing when I want to write.
With me, it's a sort of lust.

[jongibbs]

Lol, writng's easy when I want to, it's when I don't that I need to resort to tactics :)

Motivating myself to write

[ext_853518]

Jon is right: Write the outline to find plot holes. I use index cards and a poster board. After I have all the scenes written up that I want the story to include, I connect them, but at least I know where the meandering is going. When I wrote "Immortal Link" in March 2010, the story basically wrote itself, because I was so excited about it, and also because I felt the spirits of Jim Thorpe, PA were involved by telling me what to write (it became an unplanned paranormal by the way). The first draft was done in 4 months.
The book I'm writing now was dragging for several months. I knew it was a good story, but I did not feel much passion for it. Once I plotted with index cards and board, I was at least able to finish it in a little over a year. Now when I read it, I am surprised at how well it turned out. If you believe in the plot, but are not crazy about writing it, don't give up just yet. Have a killer ending in mind and work toward it. You might surprise yourself!

Re: Motivating myself to write

[jongibbs]

Killer endings are always good motivators :)

[jongibbs]

Lol, if Catholic guilt works, then I say go for it :)

[bogwitch64]

So far, getting up in the morning is motivation enough. :)

[jongibbs]

I'm glad to hear it, Terri :)

[raisinbottom]

I felt the most prolific writing on Twitter. Seeing the favorites and retweets just kept me going and lose track of time. It fed into my vanity. Unfortunately this adversely affected my life since I was unable to balance it.

[jongibbs]

I try not to hang out too much on Twitter, facebook etc. They're great fun, but as you say, it's easy to lose track of time when you're online.

Blogging can cause the same problem, but I find it easier to control, and (personally) a lot more fun.

Thanks for sharing, Adrian :)