Motivate Thyself

The fiction writer must rely on self-motivation.

Our season of reconnaissance is winding down. We have been mentally preparing ourselves for a career in writing fiction, but all this reading won’t do us any good, if we aren’t motivated to put all of what we are learning into practice.

James Scott Bell says there are two kinds of motivation: negative and positive. He prefers positive. I have to agree. For him, he has three pictures of writers that motivate him to keep on keeping on. He encourages us to do the same. I don’t know if I would actually hang a picture of an author on the wall. I have this weird thing about people in pictures, looking at me. I don’t like it. 🙂 That said…I’ve been thinking about what images I will choose. I’d probably have a picture of J. K. Rowling signing one of her books. (See, she wouldn’t be looking at me) She is brilliant and I hope to instill such creativity into my own writing. Then maybe I’d have a picture of a cow.

 

A little brown Jersey. They are the prettiest bovines out there, in my opinion, but the cow would represent all the jobs that I never ever want to go back to. Why a cow you say? Starting at age 16 I milked cows for three year or so, and I still have nightmares about them. Ha! My third image…I don’t know. Maybe I could claim the White Knives of Legolas hanging on my wall…or not. I think the cow is motivation enough, don’t you?

Whether our dream is to write books for a living or some other crazy, impossible-looking dream, we all need motivation to keep pressing on. So what say you? What motivates you? Do you have something visual to encourage you to keep on keeping on?  If so, what is it?If you don’t, think of one this week and share it with us. I’d love to hear what keeps people going when the going gets rough.