I’m not a real believer in writer’s block. However, writing motivation doesn’t always come easy. The best way overcome the phenomenon of writer’s block is to write. Easier said than done.
There are little tricks a writer can do to shake writer’s block and deploy s little writing motivation. I have found that writing in the morning every day is a nice warm-up. Hemingway advises to always leave oneself more story to tell—meaning, don’t keep writing until the chapter is finished or the scene is complete but stop and leave yourself something for the next day.
Writing sprints are big on Twitter. I know of a few writers that host a one-hour sprint and ask their followers to join them—to start writing anything that comes to mind and don’t stop for a full 60 minutes. The writing motivation comes from working within a group, virtual as it may be. Like group fitness classes, there is something about others being in your situation that motivates you to keep going.
A big writing motivator for me is the finish line—knowing that you’re so close to publishing. Sometimes the finish line seems miles away, so I tell myself what can I do today to get a little closer to the end. If you chip away at the monumental tasks little by little, you’ll achieve your goals.
I received the dust jacket from my book cover designer last night. I reviewed it as thoroughly as I could. It looked good, so I asked him to get me the formatted files as soon as he could, which he did. I uploaded everything to IngramSpark and made sure to list the on-sale date for October 1. It’s under review right now.
It occurred to me that IngramSpark may not know to put the hardcover on Amazon. I had signed an Amazon addendum but asked them to remove that because I saw that the ebook was listed twice on Amazon and I didn’t want that. I thought maybe I’d be penalized by Amazon for that. I’ll need to reach out and make sure IngramSpark knows to publish the hardcover but not the paperback or ebook to Amazon. They haven’t been great at responding, so this could be frustrating.
The book seems to be doing pretty well. I ranked as high as 63 yesterday in Children’s Christmas Books. That’s the highest I’ve gotten. That best-seller ranking is a science. I think if I wanted to be number one, then I’d have to coordinate it and try to have everyone buy it on the same day. “Santa’s Underwear” is holding steady at #1. I have to assume advertising is involved—I’m seeing it everywhere.
As soon as I have a few reviews and the hardcover is listed, I am going to start advertising. I’ve been studying up as part of my indie author training. All of the recommendations suggest easing into it, so I’m not going to go too hard with it. It’ll be more of a learning experience at first.
I’ve fallen behind on my writing. The Swedish Fish needs attention. I am a writer, I need to write. I need to write every day. I do these morning pages every day since I decided to document everything. I’m glad not to have missed a day in a very long time.
The real writing needs to happen, though. I need to step it up. It’s hard when you’re launching a book. All of the attention is on that book. I need to create a balance and do only the things that sell the book. Going on Facebook and seeing if anyone has liked my post or page or checking the Amazon rankings does not do anything for me. It does not advance my writing career. At some point, I will have all of that structured. That’s the kind of stuff that should be happening in the afternoon when my brain dips into the lull stage, according to the book When – The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing. The morning should be for writing.
I also hadn’t read any of “The Old Man and the Sea” until yesterday. I should have finished it by now, but all of my attention has been on Naughty Week. It’s been exciting. It will slow down. Things will go back to normal. I have a few months to squeeze as much out as I can in terms of promotion and advertising. And then, it’s up to the world.
Sometimes that’s all it takes. Knowing that the work will be out there one day is writing motivation enough. So what do you do to motivate yourself?
