Book Excerpt--Motivating Yourself to Write

Writers often make resolutions to find time to write. I posted a blog about this recently here.

https://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com/2017/09/book-excerpt-to-find-time-to-write-your.html

However, even when this resolution is successful and the writer creates a workable writing schedule, such a resolution often ultimately fails because often writers have more trouble motivating themselves to actually write during the time they've scheduled than in finding or making the time to write. In fact, one of the reasons we as writers so often find ourselves over-committed and without dedicated time to write is due to our procrastination and lack of motivation.

To help with that problem, I offer an excerpt from my new writing book, Plotting the Character-Driven Novel, available in ebook and trade paperback here.

https://www.amazon.com/Plotting-Character-driven-Novel-Linda-Rodriguez/dp/097912915X

Motivating Yourself to Write

The trick is to motivate yourself to actually write in that time slot you’ve created. Most of us find it easier to disappoint ourselves than to disappoint other people, so if you can find a buddy or partner to help keep you accountable, that’s a great way to overcome that difficulty. Perhaps you two can call, text, or email each other every writing day with goals before your writing time and what you accomplished after that time is over. Or a group of writer friends on Facebook can do this for each other. I know a number of writers who post their day’s time spent writing or page totals on Facebook, and get lots of positive feedback from their writer friends for it—or consolation if they’ve missed their goal.

It’s also important to set regular rewards for yourself for completing planned segments of writing tasks. Putting your feet up with a cup of tea and a special treat. Spending time reading a book you’ve wanted to read. Buying yourself a book you want. Buying nice pens or blank notebooks or whatever desk/office gizmo you’ve been wanting or needing. Buying materials you’ve wanted for a craft project and--as a later reward--giving yourself time to work on that project. Lunch with one or more friends. Make a list of small, medium, and large rewards for fulfilling various writing commitments.

Also, schedule some creative refill time into each week and month. Take a walking or library or bookstore or art gallery or museum break every week, even if it’s only for thirty minutes. Take a nice blank book (one of your rewards) and a nice pen (another reward) and visit a lake, park, nature preserve, or riverside, just walking and sitting and writing with no stated purpose. Describe in writing what you see, what you feel, what you’re thinking, what you want to write someday or otherwise do someday.

If you’re serious about writing, reclaim your power. Would you treat your car the way you treat yourself? No, you would make sure it had as much quality fuel as it needed. You would buy new tires for it when they were needed. You would check its oil and get it regular tune-ups and other routine maintenance. You would do all of this because you know these things are important to keep it functioning at its peak. Show yourself as much consideration as you do your car. No car will run on empty, and neither do writers.

Make time to remember how to dream, and make time to bring those dreams into reality. Visualize your successful life as a writer, and then plan that change. Exercise your change muscles first by making small, unimportant, non-threatening changes in private areas. Learn to make a habit of changing things you are unhappy with—in your job, your home, your relationships, yourself. Envision the life you want to lead. Write it down. Check in with it often. Analyze problems. Get back on the horse when you fall off, and fix the problems that led you to fumble your plans or work routine. It’s always an ongoing process. No one’s perfect, but the only way you can truly fail is if you stop for good.

Book Excerpt--To Find Time to Write Your Novel, You Must Make Time to Write

I'm an autumn baby. Consequently, fall is always when I feel as if the year is truly beginning. Of course, among the Cherokee, this time of year is when we celebrate New Year--we believe the world was created in the fall--and among the Jews, as I've discovered from my husband, this is the season for their New Year celebration, Rosh Hashanah. For many parents and kids, the start of school is the start of the new year.

It's at the beginning of a new year when people make resolutions for self-improvement. Writers often make resolutions to find time to write. 

So, as my 2017 Cherokee/Jewish/schoolkid New Year's gift to all my writer friends out there, here to help with that problem is an excerpt from my new writing book, Plotting the Character-Driven Novel, available in ebook and trade paperback here.

https://www.amazon.com/Plotting-Character-driven-Novel-Linda-Rodriguez/dp/097912915X

This book is based on a class I've been teaching for years, which is always sold out. People have requested that I write it up as a book, so it's finally available. I hope you'll enjoy this section.

Book Excerpt--To Find Time to Write Your Novel, You Must Make Time to Write

Writing a novel requires several things—time, motivation, the willingness to keep learning the craft of fiction, and an ability or process to access your creative thoughts. We’ll deal with the first two in this chapter briefly since they’re mostly beyond the purview of this book, and the rest of the book will concern itself with elements of the craft of fiction and a process for accessing your own inner knowledge of your novel by freewriting, brainstorming by yourself, and thinking on paper. I will be including samples of actual work documents I have used with this process to create published novels in order to give you examples of how these techniques and tools work—and also to show that behind those perfect books you pick up at the bookstore lies a great deal of hard work, messy process, and flailing around. This book is designed to help you keep the flailing around to the minimum.

To Find Time to Write Your Novel, You Must Make Time to Write

How do you find time to write the novels which are your vocation in the midst of job and career demands, family and housework demands, community and societal demands? When everyone else expects so much from you that there’s nothing left for your own dreams, what can you do about it?

First, we have to change our terminology from “finding time to write” to “making time to write.” The sad truth is that no one finds time to write. There aren’t big pockets of time just lying around waiting to be picked up and used in most of our lives. For most of us, we’ll have to give up some comfort or pleasure to make real time to write—in some cases, to make any bits of time to write at all.

The first step is to make the decision to own your own life. Time is not a commodity--the time we’re talking about is the substance of your life. When it’s gone, so are you. If you want to write anything, you have to claim your own life and find out what you want.

How do you find those pieces of time and the regular schedule for writing that leads to a body of work? The trick is to create order and make a tourniquet for a time hemorrhage, but first you must destroy all of those 'shoulds' and 'what will people thinks' that are standing in your way. Make it easy on yourself by asking for help and accepting help when it’s offered to you. Take the time to de-stress. When you’re not frazzled by stress, you’ll find it easier to set limits and boundaries and hold to them.

Whenever you find your desk or day becoming chaotic, take time to reorganize. It will repay in more time that you can steal for your illicit love affair with the novel. To make sure you stay on track with those things that absolutely must be done, make a brief list of the way your time was spent at the end of each day and week. Check it for places where you abandoned time reserved for writing or other truly necessary tasks to engage with lower priority urgencies or comfort activities. After a disastrous day, sit down with a notebook and figure out how to handle things differently if you face the same situations again. Review the situation and just what happened step by step, pinpointing the spot(s) at which you could and should have made a different decision or taken a stand against someone else's urgency with your time. Figure out a strategy for dealing with this situation when it next arises, and write it down. Then forget the day and relax.

Worrying about the myriad things, some great but most small to tiny, that we must take care of wears us down. When you find yourself doing this rather than being able to write or revise the passage you want to work on, keep an ongoing master list and write down each task or obligation the moment you think about it. Get it out of your head and onto paper to free your mind and stop the energy drain. Then, later, you can decide which tasks can be delegated to someone else and arrange the remaining tasks in the order that will allow them to be done quickest and most easily.

We can also free up energy by developing habits and systems to take care of the mindless stuff. We already do this every day, brushing teeth, driving to work, without having to make decisions for each tiny action that comprises these tasks. Develop a system for handling things that recur, and stick with it for twenty-one days. Then it will be a habit, and you can forget it and set your mind free to be more creative.

Much time use is sheer habit. Work smarter. Find the ways in which you want and need to spend time. Steal those minutes and hours from low-priority tasks. Break down everything on your to-do list into small tasks and estimate the minimum time to accomplish them. (Double all time estimates!) Schedule into your calendar. If they won't all fit in the time allotted, then something must go. Nothing is fixed in stone--renegotiate and eliminate whatever you can. Of the rest, what can you successfully delegate? It pays to invest time (and money, if possible) in training someone to do it.

Become assertive. Don't be afraid to approach someone with a request, and don’t take it personally if they refuse you. Learn to say 'no' kindly and firmly and to receive a 'no' without letting it affect your self-esteem or your relationship. Be secure.

Author of many published novels and teacher of writing, Holly Lisle, says it the best way I’ve ever seen it. “Realize that real writers who write multiple books and who make a living at it have systems they use. A process for brainstorming, a consistent way of outlining a story, a certain number of words or pages a day, a way of plotting, a way of revising, a way of finishing. Writing is work. It doesn't fall out of your head by magic. It doesn't just happen because you want it to.”