Fear and (No) Motivation in St. Louis

I have not accomplished any writing for at least a week now, possibly somewhat longer. I've lost track, actually. So many things are going wrong for me in my life that I have trouble picking up the pen and putting it to paper. I've finally tracked the phenomenon down to fear, in the last couple of days--fear that I will fail in my writing, too. Fear that my work will get rejected again, as it has countless times before. Fear that I really can't write after all, because I don't have any talent, and that people are only lying to be "nice" when they tell me they like my work.

I guess I figure that since nothing else is going right, why should my writing? I'm thinking in particular of the short story I sent in to a magazine, which I am waiting to hear back about, and also of the novel that I am currently close to finishing.

So how do you get over the fears and start to write again? How do you make yourself pick up that pen? Do you just write through the fear, or do you need to do something, a cleansing ritual or what have you, before you can again? Thoughts and advice, my fellow writers?

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The (Short) March of Progress

Frustrated with my lack of motivation (and thus lack of writing progress), I IMed my friend Echo online tonight, and within minutes of talking about writing with her, I was writing again. Of course, this lasted for, oh, maybe 10-15 minutes before my daughter woke up and started crying for food.

So life goes.

But I got a little more writing done. A few paragraphs, at least. Yay me!

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Oh, the Irony!

How do you motivate yourself to write? It's the oddest thing: now that I have some time to work on my writing today, I'm having a tough time making myself do it. I tried so hard to write during my daughter's (rare) two hour nap today, and I accomplished...a paragraph. *sigh* I think perhaps I was tired, because I had to get up early for a doctor's appointment today; he wanted to meet with me and see how my medication was going, after having been on it for about six weeks or so.

I had a couple of short naps today during my daughter's other naps, so I'm not nearly as tired as I could be. My daughter is asleep for the evening (read: for a few hours, until she wakes up crying for food), yet I'm still unable to make myself write, even though I want to and I'm not nearly as tired as I was this afternoon.

So what gives? I've solved my problem with the short story, so that's not it. I almost feel like I don't want to work on it. Maybe I should work on something else this evening instead. I have been thinking about my Mer novel, and one of my old book series, lately. Perhaps my muse is trying to tell me something.

Or perhaps I just need to make a really big pot of (decaffinated) tea.

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Finding My Writing Groove Again...

Well, I arrived back on Monday. The baby shower was nice, and I got to see my family for a few days. I wrote very little while I was there, however. I had a feeling that that would happen. It was hard to find the time alone to write, and I've never been able to write very well with too many people around. I can't concentrate with a bunch of side conversations going on around me. Plus, my nephew was there, and I spent a lot of my time playing, watching, or reading to him.

The little writing I did do, however, was some more of the book review I'm working on. I'm hoping to re-start my writing habits using that, beginning tomorrow. Today I did research, mostly. I'm looking up various forms of poetry and articles about writing poetry in the hopes that they will offer some advice or insights I can use to improve my poetry. I need to go through some of my poetry soon and see what I think is currently submission-quality, then look up some markets that I think might work for them.

Well, my story was rejected. I found out the night that I came back from my trip, which kind of sucked because I was already tired from driving all day. Maybe that's why I felt only slightly disappointed and almost indifferent. *sigh* It's too bad. I put a lot of work into it, and I thought that it came out rather well. I'll be curious to see what stories did make the cut when that particular publication comes out. I might try submitting my story elsewhere eventually, but for now I think I want to take a break from it for a while and work on something else. Then I can go back to it with fresh eyes and see if I think it has any weaknesses that I didn't catch before.

I'm hoping to begin working on the fairy tale re-tellings just as soon as I can get back into my writing groove. I'm having trouble getting back into my daily habits since the break from it during my trip. I lack the motivation on the one hand, but on the other hand I just forget to sit down and make myself do it. There's so much going on now, and so much I'm trying to accomplish before the baby comes. I simply don't have time for everything, and I'm feeling very anxious and impatient to get the baby's room ready. It should have been done months ago, but like everything else around here, it's been put off for various reasons. And some of the stuff still gets put off, but I'm doing what I can right now and hopefully I can get my husband to help out. But even that's hard because he's working overtime almost all the time now, so the little time he has to be home and help is usually gone, and on the days he doesn't work overtime, he's so tired that he sleeps all morning and I still don't get help. And yet, we need the money at the same time...

I really wish my story had won instead of being rejected. It wouldn't have been much money, but it would have been something. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever get published. Or have a normal job again.

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