Motivation - I lack it
Mar. 23rd, 2008 04:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vcmwOk, this post is just so that I can try to stop beating myself up about what I have or haven't gotten done recently.
Current life situation:
In the last year I have -
Found my first professional job in my dream field (Youth Services Librarian, Yes!)
Received solid reviews and made professional connections at said job
Applied for and received national level grant at said job
Prior to winning this job, worked two part time jobs 50+ hours a week while looking for the job
Written 80,000 words of what I not-so-fondly call "the ugly novel on my thumb drive"
(ok, that last is a fudge - I started the novel in mid November of the year before last, so that's actually in the last year and a half)
Motivation lacking:
I now work only half time. I have plenty of time to finish the ugly novel, have done absurd amounts of period research on the economics, literature, and social history of the 1600s time period I'm drawing on for historical context, etc. etc.
I have at least 30 hours a week that I didn't used to have, where I could be finished with this novel. When I do sit down to write it, it goes along swimmingly. I know how at least three of the major conflicts resolve, I know what my last few scenes will be, I've set up all the characters to get on with their business.
And I haven't been sitting down to write for like, a month. I know from reading the journals of Real Authors that plenty of them feel this strange ambivalence to their written work-in-progress, so it probably doesn't suck. I have at least three people who are enthusiastically waiting to be draft-readers. I've previously sold work to paying markets (ok, an online erotic journal and it was poetry and that was going on 10 years ago, but the point remains - real authors have thought my work worthwhile in the past).
I think I'm dragging my butt because once I finish it I have to revise it and get on with the process. My first first-draft novel was so obviously the Ugly Autobiographical Novel that belongs under my bed that this wasn't a concern. I finished it and shoved it under my bed. This book is not that book, and will have to get revised, sent out, and then stuck in a drawer while I start the next one. Which I find inexplicably terrifying. Hence the foot dragging.
So I just revisited my list-o-links to my favorite f/sf novel markets that take unagented, unsolicited manuscripts and I've finished doing my taxes and I will, by gosh, actually write today. I swear.
*sigh* - Can't I just make a huge pot of coffee and finish reading Lisa Tuttle's "The Silver Bough" instead? Pretty please?
PS Isn't it strange how one's early exposure to an author colors your perspective on them forever? This is the first novel I've ever read by Ms. Tuttle, but I know I've read her stories in favorite anthologies (I can't remember if it was in the Pulphouse antho or in the Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthos or both) so I just assume that the story will work for me from the first few pages - my suspension of disbelief is all warmed up and ready to go.
In the last year I have -
Found my first professional job in my dream field (Youth Services Librarian, Yes!)
Received solid reviews and made professional connections at said job
Applied for and received national level grant at said job
Prior to winning this job, worked two part time jobs 50+ hours a week while looking for the job
Written 80,000 words of what I not-so-fondly call "the ugly novel on my thumb drive"
(ok, that last is a fudge - I started the novel in mid November of the year before last, so that's actually in the last year and a half)
Motivation lacking:
I now work only half time. I have plenty of time to finish the ugly novel, have done absurd amounts of period research on the economics, literature, and social history of the 1600s time period I'm drawing on for historical context, etc. etc.
I have at least 30 hours a week that I didn't used to have, where I could be finished with this novel. When I do sit down to write it, it goes along swimmingly. I know how at least three of the major conflicts resolve, I know what my last few scenes will be, I've set up all the characters to get on with their business.
And I haven't been sitting down to write for like, a month. I know from reading the journals of Real Authors that plenty of them feel this strange ambivalence to their written work-in-progress, so it probably doesn't suck. I have at least three people who are enthusiastically waiting to be draft-readers. I've previously sold work to paying markets (ok, an online erotic journal and it was poetry and that was going on 10 years ago, but the point remains - real authors have thought my work worthwhile in the past).
I think I'm dragging my butt because once I finish it I have to revise it and get on with the process. My first first-draft novel was so obviously the Ugly Autobiographical Novel that belongs under my bed that this wasn't a concern. I finished it and shoved it under my bed. This book is not that book, and will have to get revised, sent out, and then stuck in a drawer while I start the next one. Which I find inexplicably terrifying. Hence the foot dragging.
So I just revisited my list-o-links to my favorite f/sf novel markets that take unagented, unsolicited manuscripts and I've finished doing my taxes and I will, by gosh, actually write today. I swear.
*sigh* - Can't I just make a huge pot of coffee and finish reading Lisa Tuttle's "The Silver Bough" instead? Pretty please?
PS Isn't it strange how one's early exposure to an author colors your perspective on them forever? This is the first novel I've ever read by Ms. Tuttle, but I know I've read her stories in favorite anthologies (I can't remember if it was in the Pulphouse antho or in the Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthos or both) so I just assume that the story will work for me from the first few pages - my suspension of disbelief is all warmed up and ready to go.
