Motivation How-To
Motivation!
The million dollar question: What motivates us and what keeps us
motivated to go the distance?
Well, there are a couple of key factors to achieving our goals. Some come naturally and some are harder to achieve BUT in the words of the intriguing Lady Gaga … “I’m born this way”. A lot of our get up and go depends on your personality type! Are you the get up at 5am to write type, or the disciplined every day I shall write come hell or high water type, or are you the chilled kind of laid back, it will come to me type?
The good news is that although these factors can be heavily weighted for and against, we are not doomed to our type, regardless of how we bounce out of bed to get those creative juices going. We can pull on something deep from within to deliver on our goals, even if it takes tremendous determination and action to do so. Enter the next point.
What is your motivation? Why are you doing this? Are you using this writing month to sprint a whole book out to prove something to yourself, to someone else? Are you using this month to finish that half complete manuscript that has been winking at you from your laptop for far too long (I can’t even say how long out loud)? Or are you using this writing month to add abeautiful new story to your library of material that you will present to an agent or publisher during the course of this year? Whatever your reason, be CLEAR and HONEST with your WHY! There is impetus in clarity!
If you are one of those fortunate personality types that is disciplined and focused and can bounce out of bed daily at 4.30am to get your word count in for the day or can type in your car at the soccer match or can instantly switch into writing mode in the middle of your working day for those critical 45 mins you have at lunch time – then you are super lucky and other than creating a fabulous story, your March Month of RoNo is all but sewn up and my job with you is done … But! If you aren’t and you need a little more galvanising, then be clear and FOCUS on your WHY! If yourWHY is strong enough, it will drive you keyboard bound every day to get those lovely words flowing.
Well, there are a couple of key factors to achieving our goals. Some come naturally and some are harder to achieve BUT in the words of the intriguing Lady Gaga … “I’m born this way”. A lot of our get up and go depends on your personality type! Are you the get up at 5am to write type, or the disciplined every day I shall write come hell or high water type, or are you the chilled kind of laid back, it will come to me type?
The good news is that although these factors can be heavily weighted for and against, we are not doomed to our type, regardless of how we bounce out of bed to get those creative juices going. We can pull on something deep from within to deliver on our goals, even if it takes tremendous determination and action to do so. Enter the next point.
What is your motivation? Why are you doing this? Are you using this writing month to sprint a whole book out to prove something to yourself, to someone else? Are you using this month to finish that half complete manuscript that has been winking at you from your laptop for far too long (I can’t even say how long out loud)? Or are you using this writing month to add abeautiful new story to your library of material that you will present to an agent or publisher during the course of this year? Whatever your reason, be CLEAR and HONEST with your WHY! There is impetus in clarity!
If you are one of those fortunate personality types that is disciplined and focused and can bounce out of bed daily at 4.30am to get your word count in for the day or can type in your car at the soccer match or can instantly switch into writing mode in the middle of your working day for those critical 45 mins you have at lunch time – then you are super lucky and other than creating a fabulous story, your March Month of RoNo is all but sewn up and my job with you is done … But! If you aren’t and you need a little more galvanising, then be clear and FOCUS on your WHY! If yourWHY is strong enough, it will drive you keyboard bound every day to get those lovely words flowing.
A little bit more encouragement
& some practical tips!
1. Make A Note – make notes of
your WHY and place them everywhere! I do
love a spot of post-it action. And I am
known for making myself notes and labels all around the house with snippets to
remind me. I currently have one on my
laptop that reads GO DEEP! No it isn’t
specifically about a love scene – but I do love the way your mind is going – use
that! No, GO DEEP was a wonderful
reminder by my Strelitzia Mentor the fabulous, sassy Ms
Joss Wood to GO DEEP into the emotion of my characters and when I
think I have described or created enough sizzle – go even deeper! Not what were you thinking GO DEEP
meant? We digress …
2. Plan Ahead – I can be quite
brutal with my schedule, when I have something that needs to get done. Everything else can fall off the edge of the
earth – not always practical but it happens. So if you can, “clear” the time you plan to
write and mark it off in your calendar.
Sometimes this means some tough conversations with the ones we love to
allow that space without a long face, because you know, it’s just a sprint
through March … this time.
3. In similar keeping with the plan ahead theme, the slow cooker and that high-end food retail store is your friend! There will be many days (hopefully) when you will be so deep into the story and so lost in
the journey that you will not want to pull yourself away to make something as
trivial as dinner and husbands cannot live on take-out alone. I’ve tried.
So if you can, get some frozen dinners for the freezer – you know, for
those writing emergencies when your fingers are glued to the keyboard. Or load up that slow cooker and let that baby
do her thing for 6 – 8 hours. Perfect!
4.
More Planning – Have
a Writing Plan! If you are doing the
full 50 000 words in March, how many days do you plan to write
weekly? Do you have a big family event,
ooo I don’t know like maybe a birthday in the middle of the month that will
affect you getting to your laptop? Work
out practically how many days you can actually get your bum on a chair to write
and then divide your word count to see what your daily target MUST be. As Colin
& Justin say “If you fail to
plan, then you plan to fail.”
5. Stay Inspired–Sometimes when I
hit a wall I need a different creative outlet around what I am writing. Create a blog post, a meme or pull together a
Pinterest board of where your book is set or what your
hero or heroine look like or pull quotes for some sexy snippets that you could post
intermittently on social media to create some hype. That might fire you up to push forward.
6.
And finally … Yes You
Can! I feel like I am campaigning
but you really can and you must, because why?
Well only you can answer that one … so put it on a post-it and celebrate
your WHY!
All quips aside,
taking a little bit of time to plan your month, will go a long way to keep you
on track and feeling like you are achieving your goals. First your daily targets and then soon you
will be eye-balling that sexy set of zero’s that is 50 000 words!
Ready, Steady …
GO!
Collette Kelly
Guest blog post kindly written by Collette Kelly
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