Monday Motivation

Monday Motivation

Trying to increase my daily word count and not hate my summertime writing

I'm struggling with my writing right now and I'm going to blame it on the summer. I love having my kids home! I love our backyard sleepovers and movie marathons and barbecues. It's just hard to find motivation when other things are going on. or MAYBE I hate the ending of the book and need to rewrite it but I'm not sure how so that probably means I need to go back and see where the story took a wrong turn and then I need to revise it or take out the offending chapters. pantpantpant. UGH.


I just read a book about increasing word count that I really enjoyed. I mostly read the first part and skimmed the second (it dealt with plotting a novel but I'm not ready to write a new story yet).

2K to 10K: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love by Rachel Aaron

These are the three ideas I took away from the book:

1. Everyday before you open the word doc of your story, take 5 minutes to write out what you're going to write for the day.

*This is actually what I decided to start doing before I read this book.

2. After writing your 5 minutes, see how you feel. If you're excited about the scene, write it! If you're not, rework it until you are excited. No more boring scenes in your story.

*I can get behind this idea, obviously! Here's to trying something new.

3. Everyday keep a record of your writing. Make a note of the time you start, time you stop, how many words and where you wrote. The author keeps these stats in excel and tracks when her most productive times and places for word count is.

*I love this idea. I also found an app that helps a little bit with that too. It's called writeometer.

I'm hoping these ideas help me get some words written this summer. I get hangry (what would a cross between not writing and frustrated be??) when I haven't written for a few days. I need to write something everyday, even a blog post helps.


What do you do to get excited about writing? Or finding the time? Is your writing schedule different in the summer vs. during school?

Keep your mountain in sight

“Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley.” James Rogers

The above quote reminds me of Neil Gaiman's graduation speech at the University of Arts.


"Something that worked for me was imagining that where I wanted to be – an author, primarily of fiction, making good books, making good comics and supporting myself through my words – was a mountain. A distant mountain. My goal.
And I knew that as long as I kept walking towards the mountain I would be all right. And when I truly was not sure what to do, I could stop, and think about whether it was taking me towards or away from the mountain.
I said no to editorial jobs on magazines, proper jobs that would have paid proper money because I knew that, attractive though they were, for me they would have been walking away from the mountain. And if those job offers had come along earlier I might have taken them, because they still would have been closer to the mountain than I was at the time."

I love that analogy! Keep your mountain in sight and keep walking towards it. Don't let anything distract you off the path, even if you can't see that path from the valley, keep walking toward your goal. You. Will. Make. It.