Well, Friday I got bit by the story-bug and I’ve been writing furiously on what began as Ab-solutly since. I’m not posting what I’ve written because it’s still not done and I’m seeing some potential as an action novella – and even then it’s starting to stretch it’s wings and ask to be more. I’m writing, I’m just not posting everything I’m doing right now…. Forgive me?
Tag Archives: reflection
Being Discouraged
The last few days I haven’t felt like doing my Story a Days. Anyone else hitting a mid-month slump? I’d hoped to do a lot more, I guess. I mean, I like what I’ve written I’m just not feeling a whole lot of motivation to write up something. My output and enthusiasm at the beginning of the month were great, and I’ve lost some of it. I need to find that happy go-get-it attitude again. I’m beginning to contemplate a new short story contest so maybe I’ll write up one of my ideas today and post that instead. I am feeling a bit inspired on that front right now.
Is anyone else feeling discouraged? Are you meeting your goals? How’s your writing going?
I will say that besides NaNoWriMo, my average output hasn’t been this good. I’ve been pretty disciplined; I have my own novel I want to finish – in twelve days, a book I’m critiquing, and then my short stories, blog posts, reading and other non-writerly things I do. Some of the non-writer things have suffered. This is temporary. Like books? I think I’ve read three or four so far this month. For me that’s not a lot. Granted one book I was reading dragged on for eternity.
My writing has been good and bad. I’ve realized that when I don’t feel inspired or motivated by a project it simply – sucks. In my opinion. I know the mechanics of writing and I should be able to do it easily but without that added spark of personality it’s – eh.
What do you do to combat being discouraged? Unmotivated? Writers block?
Being discouraged is hard for me. I can write through writer’s block easily because in my head it’s like putting beads on a string; there’s a pattern to it and as long as I know where the end is I can write through writer’s block. Being unmotivated, especially when I’m trying to do a short story every day, is very difficult. Being unmotivated, my creativity is lazy and doesn’t produce for me. That’s when I have real problems. I lean on prompts to jump start me and those posts have all been – weird.
So, now that I’ve talked about being discouraged, I want to get encouraged.
Today I want to find five things that inspire me. Things that make me sit back and think or amaze me. People, objects, pictures, whatever that is – I want to find five things I can point at in my head and say – wow. And then I want to use that inspiration to inspire and encourage me; maybe I’ll even write about them. The five inspirations…. I think I just got inspired.
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stopping to smell the flowers; reflection on story a day so far
I may or may not get a story written today. In fact, I might not get anything written today because today is a crazy, crazy day. But I wanted to take a few moments to reflect back on what I’m doing and the progress I’ve made.
Too often I get caught up in my to-do list, I have to scratch everything off my list in order to have a productive day – this leads me to missing things, skipping over the accomplishments because I didn’t manage to get every piddly thing done. When I started Story a Day I knew it was unrealistic to think I’d never skip a day, so I challenged myself to only miss five days this month; I’ve missed one day and that was understandable and sometimes things happen that you can’t control.
I can say that Story a Day has positively challenged me to be creative – every day. I was already writing a good deal every day, but the added challenge of Story a Day has upped my productivity and output. I’m already over 30K as far as total writing and I haven’t even tallied up what I’ve written in the last five days and when I add that in I’m prepared to be astonished.
Writing Space Particle was unexpected and, well, very hard but I love what I managed to get down. I’m toying with the idea of expanding it into a longer piece.
Being Valter has sort of stalled, but the ideas are there, simmering and getting ready for the second half of the month.
Pele’s story, from what I’ve heard from some readers, is compelling and troubling – which I was going for. She’s not really meant to be liked.
And then there are the things I wasn’t expecting, my little picture book which was so much fun to make, my nightmare turned short story, and everything else. I’ve accomplished a lot and I’m really proud of myself. This is my moment to stop and smell the roses; to realize that I’ve not failed, I’ve succeeded no matter what my scrap of paper says.
What have you succeeded in doing?
