Tag Archives: motivation

Beating The Writing Blues

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This was my Sunday morning:

I have 3 novels on the go, all of them past the first draft stage. One of them, a Woman’s  fiction novel, The Dating Club, I’m working with a professional editor (www.JennieNash.com). I am still uncertain whether I will go the traditional route with this novel or self-publish.  The two others are crime fictions. I  entered the The Red River Murderess in first crime novel contests last year but alas didn’t make it. Still, I think it’s a good novel and so I queried a publishing house about it. I sent out my third novel, Cora’s Cry for Help, to agents who are looking for writers (see Writer’s Digest, October 2013).

I also went online and found such sites as http://www.writersservices.com . An awfully interesting sight but who has a week of holidays to go through it? I also went on the forums on Backspace and found  IntenseDebate.com  What the heck is that all about? All I could figure out is that it had something to do with my wordpress blogs. But what? I don’t know.  Then, I found that I should be on the author program of Goodreads. Guess who’s on it? Meg Cabot, John Irving, Margaret Atwood. Come on! These are big league authors.

All this takes up a lot of time and energy and left me well…feeling blue. I mean what was the point of my continuing to edit Cora’s Cry for Help if it was to go nowhere?  The entire process left me discouraged and my writer’s soul felt like it was empty.

So, instead, I headed out to the Botanical Gardens.

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They are currently holding an international mosaic exhibition and I thought that the change of scenery would inspire me. Inspire me it did. I got all sorts of ideas for my blog www.agirlcalledbrenda.wordpress.com  This was stimulating but it also meant more work.  I am already overwhelmed with writing projects.

After the Botanical Gardens I headed to the National Library (really, if ever you are in Montreal, you ought to pay this a visit. It is spectacular, not to mention that it is in the wonderful Latin quarter of the city) to return some books. I then remembered that in my novel The Dating Club, my protagonist was going to India.  So I took out a few travel books on India and boy was I back in the game. I was reading all about India, a country I’ve been dreaming of visiting for years. All in the name of research for my novel. And that’s how I beat the writing blues.

AGAIN MOTIVATION

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I have been talking a lot about motivation these days. Saturday evening I went to see Midnight in Paris with a meet-up group I belong to. The movie brought me back to Paris, especially at the beginning of the movie where Woody Allen gives us a grand tour of the city. But the movie is also about literature and writing and a longing for the past and it made me think how my writing is moving at such a slow pace and that I am lacking the passion that I seek in writing.

These meet-ups are always an opportunity to meet new people. And I did. I met Judy. It so happens that she’s a counselor and when I mentioned to her how I was lacking motivation in my writing she responded by saying what I’ve known for years: follow your intention with action. It’s not good enough to just want to picture myself as a writer although that is a necessary step. At least for me it is. She suggested that before I fall asleep I ask whoever or whatever it is that makes good writers write to give me the motivation that I need to keep going on my novel. This I do. Not only before I fall asleep but when I awake. I pray to the gods of motivation. Give me names I can hear you skeptics out there. So here they are: Continue reading →