14 Ways to Motivate Your Writing in 2014

I have a motivation problem.

It’s not that I don’t love writing. I LOVE it. I am not sure I could live without it. I need to write. Which is probably part of the problem for me. The things I need the most are often the things I work the hardest to avoid.

And let me tell you, most days it’s easy to avoid writing. I am a full-time Mom to a very active 18-month-old and we have a brand new house with lots of unpacked boxes, so finding time to write is the difficult part. You’d think I would cherish any spare moment I have, right? So then why do I end up checking Facebook a thousand times a day? Or refreshing my email five times just to see if I have a new message? I KNOW I should be writing and when I waste time like that, I end up beating myself up for not getting some words in.

Not in 2014. This next year is going to be all about balance for me. No more beating myself up and wasting time online. I’m going to make a real difference in my own life this year. I’m going to spend less time online screwing around and really try to make the most of those stolen moments. It sounds simple enough, but if you’re anything like me, this is one of the great challenges of life. I am going to need lots of motivation. Here are 14 ideas I had for how to motivate myself (and hopefully others) to write more in 2014.

1. Rewards – Rewards are really one of the very best motivators. It’s simple. If there’s something you want (a massage, a trip, a new purse, a set of colorful pens), then it can work as motivation. You can come up with something easy that works as a one-time reward (when I finish this book I get to go to the beach for 3 nights) or you can develop some kind of permanent reward system. This is what I do!

Or rather, what my husband has done for me. He calls me Sweetie, so he came up with the “Sweetie Store”. Whenever we’re out and about, we pick up little things that I want. Sometimes they are little dollar-type things like pens and notebooks. Sometimes it’s bigger, like a purse from the Sanrio store or a 1 hour massage. My system is based on dollars to words. 1000 words = 1000 Sweetie Points = $1. If I write more than 5000 words in a day, I get double points for the day. I can spend my points every day or I can save them up until I can “buy” the item I want most.

For me, this works. It works great. I’m a Hello Kitty addict, what can I say? About 99% of my store is Hello Kitty stuff. Everything from a pencil to a cute folder will get my butt in the chair writing.

Today my husband put together a bookcase in our bedroom for me to display my Sweetie Store. It helps to keep the items on display. (And no cheating! It doesn’t work if you take things out of the store without earning them, haha.)

2. Sprints. I’ve mentioned this a hundred times and will probably mention it a hundred more. This is one of the single best things I have ever done for my writing. When I’m avoiding writing, I tell myself, “Okay, just 15 minutes. All I have to do is focus for 15 minutes and then I can check my email or watch TV for 15 minutes.” When I’m on a roll, I can write 500-1,000 words in 15 minutes. Do that twice an hour a few times a day and before I know it, I’ve got a few thousand words easy. This works so great for Moms and Dads who stay home with the kids because I can usually get my Andrew to play on his own for at least 15 minutes before he starts to crawl on me :P.

My favorite programs for keeping track of time are Focus Booster and Pomodairo.

3. Motivational Quotes on Display. I know this sounds cheesy, but it really works. I don’t know about you, but I pretty much have a negative voice talking in my head all day long. My husband calls her “evil sweetie”. She knocks me down every chance she gets. She tells me I’m lazy and stupid and fat. And every time she knocks me down, I feel less and less like writing. Confidence is extremely important and I think it helps to have motivational quotes and sayings around where you can actually see them on a daily basis.

4. Tell Stories That Excite You. This should go without saying, but these days, there’s so much pressure to write stories that are going to make money. So many writers I know are doubting themselves. They see other Indies making bank on hot genres and they set aside the stories they really want to write in order to try their hand at making money. The truth is, there’s really nothing wrong with this. We all want to make money and find success and there’s no doubt that taking advantage of a hot genre is the best shot you have sometimes at fast success.

And maybe writing stories for money is what excites you. You’re the one who knows yourself and what you want most. If you reach for that hot genre story and find yourself more stressed and less fulfilled, though, consider going back to the kinds of stories that keep you up at night. The ones you’re truly passionate about sharing with readers. If you’re excited about writing something, you’re more likely to write it for fun instead of seeing it as work.

5. Distance Yourself From Things That Upset You. Be honest with yourself about this. And once you figure out the things that are upsetting you, be ruthless about cutting them out of your life. Yes, it’s great to understand the market and know what types of books are selling or what types of covers are grabbing readers’ eyes these days. However, if you find that you’re constantly obsessing over the newer authors who are doing better than you, just stop checking those rankings for a while. It’s not important enough to let it get you down. If you belong to a group of writers who are constantly bragging about their success, even if they are good friends of yours, you don’t have to stick around and spend so much time with them if their brag sessions are bringing you down. Pay attention to anything that makes you avoid writing, then cut it out of your life.

6. Write-a-palooza. This is my fancy word for writing retreats. I started doing this about two or three years ago and it really works for me. When it started out, I didn’t have enough money to actually GO anywhere, so I would just declare a “write-a-palooza” weekend where I would dedicate the entire weekend to binge-writing. I would buy snacks and balloons and get my play-lists ready. I would set an ambitious but attainable word count goal. And I would write. All night long.

Lately I’ve been actually going to a hotel to do this. I find that it helps so much to just get away to a dedicated space for a night or two. No distractions (which basically means no diapers to change, hallelujah!). If I can, I bring a friend. Zoe Dawson went with me to the last few and I ended up writing over 17,000 words in a night almost every time. It was amazing! There’s just something about being totally immersed in the story that helps me write fast. And to be honest, the words were actually good. I didn’t need tons of edits like you might think. I plan to do more write-a-palooza weekends this year.

 

7. Writing Conferences or Events. This is along those same lines, but instead of being alone or with a friend or two, this is more of a big-scale event. Something like the RWA national convention or RT or IndieGirl Con. I just recently went to the New Adult Sleepover Weekend in Savannah and it was amazing. There’s something about gathering together with other authors that is just exhilarating. These are people just like you who are willing to talk books and marketing and sexy heroes all night long! It’s inspiring and motivational every single time!

8. Watch Great TV. Okay, so this sounds like another avoidance tactic, but it’s not! I promise! I find that when my creative well is dry and I’m feeling exhausted, it really helps me to watch some really great TV. Netflix. HBO Go. Whatever. I just love to binge on an entire series, watching episodes back-to-back for hours. Usually I have to do this after the baby goes to bed these days, but back before I was a mom, I used to watch an entire season in a day or two. In fact, that’s how I thought up the original idea for Beautiful Demons, believe it or not. I binged on Veronica Mars and voila, an idea was born! Great TV is great storytelling. It can be a source of great story motivation.

9. Stop Beating Yourself Up. As Indie authors, we’re putting extraordinary demands on ourselves these days. As discoverability becomes more and more difficult, the demands are getting crazier. I had three writer friends who ended up in the hospital in 2013 from exhaustion. We’re trying to produce so fast and we’re under so much pressure, it can be debilitating. Then, on top of all of that, a lot of us are mentally beating ourselves up. We work every single day of the year almost. On vacation. On our kids’ birthdays. On our anniversaries. And when we–God forbid–actually take a day off or sit down to watch some TV or read a book, we beat ourselves up as if we’re just being lazy. That has to stop. It’s a motivation-stealer! Be kind to yourself in 2014!!!

10. Pinterest. Just like TV, pictures can be a wonderful source of inspiration. I haven’t done much of this online, but I do love to make collages. I’ll find clothes my characters might wear or images that evoke a similar feeling to the setting of my story and I’ll cut them out and paste them on poster-board. But with a baby running around, I honestly don’t have a lot of time for this. Plus, he gets into everything! Pinterest, though, is easier! I can start a virtual board and pin pics of my hero and heroine or the cars they drive, etc. Then, when I’m writing, I can use those pictures to really get into the story and find motivation from them. And the cool thing is that fans can visit those boards and see what images you found inspiring as you were writing. I really want to use this more in 2014.

11. Trust Your Process. This one took me a long time to figure out. I knew that a big part of my process was to write a rough draft that was complete crap. I knew that I would need to rewrite the entire book almost every single time. I just needed to get into the story and the heads of the characters before it would come together. But I avoided writing that first draft because I hated the fact that I would have to rewrite it. I didn’t want to! I wanted to write something that would be solid and amazing the first time through. So I didn’t write at all. And guess what? All that waiting did NOT result in an amazing first draft. I still had to write the shitty first draft, only now I was three weeks late in starting it. So why not get it over with already?

Trust your own process. Embrace it. Use it as fuel for your writing instead of a reason to avoid it. Now that I understand my process, I know that the best thing for me to do is write my sucky rough draft as fast as possible. I give myself full permission to suck. Knowing my process motivates me to write the rough draft and get it out of the way so I can hopefully, eventually, turn that book into something that doesn’t suck.

12. Count Your Blessings. This kind of goes back to my blog post from last week where I said to Stop Comparing Yourself To Other Authors. Sometimes I think we all need to take a step back and really think about what we have. Yes, there is probably someone out there who has more. There is probably a lot more you want out of this career. But take a moment as often as you can and really think about the things you DO have and how blessed you are to have them. Even if it’s one single amazing fan who reads everything you write, that’s something to be proud of and thankful for! I think maybe if I can spend some time refocusing on the ways that I’m blessed instead of always thinking of what I don’t have or haven’t achieved yet, I’ll be happier and more motivated to write every day.

13. Take A Vacation. No, a real one. A vacation where you don’t even take your laptop with you. You don’t answer emails or check Facebook. Don’t check your sales rank or reviews. Don’t even think about looking at Goodreads. Heck, don’t even read if it’s going to make you think about story structure. Just once this year, try taking a real vacation from this business of writing. Spend time with your family. Spend time having fun without feeling guilty about not hitting your daily word count. Just take some time off for a day or two or three. Recharge your batteries. Refill your well. Then come back and hit it hard. See if that mental break gave you a bit of extra motivation and love for what you do.

14. Let It Go. Write the book the way you want. Tell the story you love. And then let it go. Sure, market it however you can with some advertisements, pricing strategies, whatever. But don’t spend the next six months letting the fact that this amazing book you just wrote hasn’t hit the NYT Bestseller list. These days, it seems like almost every book I write comes with some kind of ridiculous hope or expectation attached to it. “Maybe this will be the one that hits big.” “I bet I’ll sell at least 500 copies the first week.” I could list a million of those (but I don’t want to embarrass myself too much).

Sometimes a book will exceed your wildest expectations in terms of sales and accolades. But most of the time for most of the writers, our books will just do what they do. They’ll launch where they launch. Maybe better than the last book. Maybe the same. Sometimes worse. They’ll stay up for a little while and then after a time, they’ll start to fall in sales. The book will get noticed less and less. It happens to everyone at some point. This is a business of ups and downs. It just is.

So don’t let it destroy your confidence and motivation when a book heads for the down part of that rollercoaster.

Write a book you can be proud of.

Publish it.

Let it go.

Write the next one.

 

What about you? Do you have any tips on how to get motivated to write? What are you going to focus on in 2014?