Motivation and Sharing
I set aside yesterday afternoon as writing time, and got over 1750 words written. Which feels great after a week of crummy wordcounts. Having a whole afternoon to write was lovely. I’m going to try and use the inspiration to take better advantage of the times I have during the week. Getting up earlier in the morning would give me a lot more time: I just need a strategy for convincing my half-asleep self to actually roll out of bed.
That’s a harder problem than it might seem. I’m still trying to find reliable ways to motivate myself. Reward systems like giving myself a treat on the weekend if I make my wordcount goals all week don’t always work. I think what I’m going to try next is having something yummy to eat if I get out of bed on time. We’ll see how that goes.
On another subject, I’m glad I set up a “practice” blog and Twitter account now, before I really need them. I’m not naturally prone to sharing interesting things about my life with people. Pretty much the opposite. My natural inclination is to assume that nothing about me or my opinions is interesting to anyone else. Which, of course, I know logically isn’t true. But it’s a hard switch for me to make to looking for and remembering little interesting bits to post.
It’s also a good thing I didn’t try to do this five or ten years ago. I’ve come a long way in self-confidence.
In the spirit of sharing interesting things, here are two great posts from the last week on the Deadline Dames blog. The first one, The Myth of Luck, is the antidote to all the talk about how luck is a big part of the publishing world. To a certain extent that’s true. Hitting the right editor’s desk at the right time can be a big help. But that’s not what’s important. The other post, Go ahead, take the cookie, is about the nightmare of book signings where no one shows up, and one thing you can do about it.