Let's talk about motivations...

I was late this morning.

Not in the oh-crap-the thingy-turned-pink kind of late but the oh-crap-missed-my-two-alarms-and-missed-my-bus kind of way. I attribute it mostly to not falling asleep until around 5. Just couldn’t sleep. Brain kept going…and going. So the 6am wake up alarm goes by… then the 7:25. By the time I woke it was 7:39. I have a bus to catch, I’m usually out the door by 7:41. Got out, bus didn’t come. Of course. It just couldn’t be my usual late bus driver. Oh no. It had to be a newer faster one, giving me no choice but to try and beat my second bus so off I went on a 15 min walk/run.

Do you know where this is going?

Yes, missed that one. Doesn’t surprise me. So I waited for the next bus. Good thing that one got me to my third bus in time or else I’d be getting to work half hour later. So I was a bit frazzled. My hair was big. My leg cramping cause the weather isn’t helping the arthritis in it. And my whole schedule went off course.

But that was not what I wanted to talk about. End rant. I know that when things go off schedule for me, it throws my whole day off and I feel as though I’m behind and that’s a feeling I hate. I know what it feels like to have deadlines, I mean, I do have 2 or 3 synopsi to do within two weeks. I’m starting to feel the pressure a bit and that’s not including writing the synopsis for Fatal Visions and all the other work I have to do before I leave for Nationals. But this somehow feels worse because no matter what, it feels like the whole day was wasted and I’m constantly behind.

Makes no real sense, but that feeling is there, an ever present elephant in the room just breathing down the back of my neck. You’d think it’d be a bigger drive but no. Instead it just puts me in panic mode which is not the best way for me to get stuff done under pressure.

I’m going to admit something and I’m sure most of you won’t be shocked: I’ve been neglecting my writing lately. Yes, I admit it. I’ve become focused, driven by my day job that lately I’ve completely pushed writing new material aside. Bad. This was never the plan and it will not last. I know that I will bounce back. Once the synopsi are all ironed out and I’m not feeling the press of time on all sides of me, my writing will pick up. After all, I have a new project to start! Editing FV is 90% complete for the most part. But I’m sure that if an agent or whoever ever picks it up, there will be more things to change. I’m not blind thinking it’s perfect and as sparkling as it ever could be. Oh no. I’m only blind right now because I’m so into it, because I’ve gone over it and am at the stage where I just can’t… do… anything more with it at this point.

Funny how that happens. You get so excited for a project… and eventually you could care less, where you just can’t look at another word of it. So I’m moving on. Once these last edits are in, I’m sending it out and going to start becoming focused on Fatal Temptations, the second in the series. This is the stage, I find, where random phantom ideas and thoughts will come to me. I’ve already picked up on a few the last few weeks. Which is no way going to happen right at this point but into the idea file they go to wait. I’ll get to them because the idea is so sparkly and different for me to write, but at the moment, they’ll wait their turn like good little ideas… right?

So give me tips people. What drives you when you just don’t have the drive to write? What keeps you focused and on track? I know that personally chat whips help (and for those who don’t know what I’m talking about, at Romance Divas in the chatroom, there’s often challenges going on to write 20 mins on, then 5 mins off and whatnot). But sometimes even that isn’t enough. So what else do you do? What else pushes you to get those words on paper?