Welcome back to another semi-exciting blog from me, Jason the writing fisherman! Where’s my usual fishing picture you ask? I’m waiting on that until I catch my first fish of the year which has oddly taken longer than usual to acquire. (Please, please let that occur sooner than late March when I attend the first tournament of the year or I’ll be seriously doubting my skills!) Until then I’ll post pictures somewhat relevant to what I’m doing.
So if you’ve been following me since I began this blog adventure last year, thank you by the way, then you know this is my first significant attempt in completing a novel. My past endeavors have been halfhearted, or worse yet they start off like fire then die miserably before I inevitably lose interest. Anyone else have a stack of half written manuscripts like myself?
Sad to say I was nearing that point again, gasp! After NaNoWriMo I was only able to maintain that momentum for another week or two before I stopped altogether by Christmas. I’d open the story occasionally knowing what I needed to work on, maybe even typing a few lines here and there, but mostly just staring at it feeling lost. By February 1st I readjusted my schedule to include daily writing time once again but it didn’t help my motivation and before long I’d be surfing the web or doing something else.
Finally I’d had enough. Over the weekend I reached out to my friends in the local writing club, downloaded the entire series of my favorite writing podcast (Fanboys on Fiction) and even wrote to them for help and tips. As I awaited a response from anyone episode #9 came on titled, “Writing Slumps” and suddenly the lights came on. One of the guys described the same feelings I was having and later touched on a idea I felt would help me. Soon I printed out the entire 235 page first draft (pictured) and just seeing it in this form already started igniting my fire within.
It wasn’t long after I started getting responses from everyone with great advice, especially Roger, one of the Fanboys on Fiction pod-casters, who had some terrific follow up on goals. Seems funny that just having the printed copy in hand, able to spread it out and make notes has made such a change in my whole attitude about it. So far I’ve revised/edited a chapter and a half in little more than a day and the creative juices are flowing once more!
What things do you do to keep your motivation, to keep the drive alive? What keeps you from quitting? Thanks for reading!
Jason A. Meuschke 