Article Snippet - Motivation And The Muse: Which Comes First?

I came across a really cool article about motivation and nurturing your Muse that really struck a chord. I get struck a lot with a bad case of "I just can't write.. I don't think I'm meant to do this" and crazy enough, it's usually after I've written something really good. I love how the author of the article spoke of "conquering your demons", of finding ways to overcome the voices of doubt that seem to plague all writers. Here's what I wanted to share as a thought for today...

Taken from: Motivation And The Muse: Which Comes First?

First begin by seeking out the motivation killers and conquering your demons:

1. Figure out what your demons are:
   1. Not enough time to write.
   2. Family responsibilities.
   3. Procrastination.
   4. Fear of writing or of failing or success or rejection.
   5. Shell-shocked or reeling from the pain of so much rejection.
   6. Writers block.
2. Sneak up on your demons while they're sleeping.  The way the Lilliputians snuck up on Gulliver and tied him down while he slept.
   1. Time: make time.  Set a schedule, and stick to it.  It takes 21 days to form a habit.  If you can set aside 5 to 10 minutes every day for 21 days, your habit will have been formed.
   2. Family: work around your responsibilities.  Early morning or late at night or the afternoon when the kids are in school.
   3. Procrastination:  Set a schedule, and stick to it.  Do time to writing exercises.  If the timer goes off in your still writing, keep writing.
   4. Fear:  Write in your journal, write for yourself.  Write out your fears.  Write every detail of your fear, how it makes you feel both physically and emotionally, and where you think the fear is coming from.  The beauty of this technique is that, not only are you conquering your demons, you are also writing, which is your ultimate goal.
   5. Rejection:

                                                              i.      Learn from it; embrace it as an affirmation that you are getting closer to your goal.  If you don't experience rejection, it will be difficult for you to relate to other writers.  It will be hard to understand their plight, their anguish and feelings of self-doubt.  We learn from rejection in many ways.  We grow as writers and learn to have patience.  Rejections force to rewrite our own material.  Every time we rewrite a story gets better.  Patience is the key to making a great writer and more the more rejections you get, the more practice you get as well.

                                                            ii.      The moment your manuscript comes back rejected, send it out again.  For each ms you send out, have a list of one or more publishers to send it to if it comes back rejected—then do it immediately!  Do NOT wait a day.  With this constant flow of manuscripts coming and going it's hard to give a lot of thought to each individual rejection.  Instead you're creating momentum and your desire to be published becomes that much stronger.

                                                          iii.      The best way to deal with rejection is to keep busy.  Always have another project going.  Always work on another story or article.  It helps to soothe the pain of rejection because you have a new focus with a lot of promise.

6. Writers block: What you may think is writers block may actually be an essential part of the creative process.

To read more of this article, visit the website of Marisa Montes