“Don’t fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have.” -Unknown

When we reach for something that seems beyond our grasp, it’s very easy to get discouraged. Let’s face it. Life is full of hard knocks and we’re taught at an early age to play it safe and not risk too much.

You can’t lose what you don’t risk. Right? But another cliche’ that is just as true is “You can’t win if you don’t play.”

I know someone who is a “Could have, would have, should have” person. They talk a lot about how they’d change the past if it were possible. Personally, I’ve always maintained that all of those ‘haves’ don’t add up to squat.

I don’t want to wake up one day and say “I could have had an agent if I would have just sent out ten more submissions.”

Or…

“I might have been published if I would have devoted one more hour a day to my writing”

Isn’t that almost as bad as having an “If only” regret.

We can’t change the past, but we can commit ourselves to having perpetual forward motion. I will not let today slip away without doing something to reach my goals and achieve my dreams. The only person standing in my way is me.  And if I lose, it won’t be because I chose not to play.

I’ve spent a lot of time on these pages talking about where I gather inspiration for my stories, or as it more often happens, how circumstances and events become inspiration, but as I try to follow through on my goal of writing consistently every day, I’ve been thinking a lot about motivation.

The way it works for me, I’ll get that kernel of an idea that with a little bit of finessing and manipulating will become the concept for my next book, story, etc.  I do a little bit of prewriting: developing characters, fine tuning the relationships, the conflict, etc, and then it’s time to start writing. When the story is new and the ideas fresh, spending time with my butt firmly implanted in the chair is easy. I’m in love with the story and the hero and heroine. About two weeks later is when it starts becoming harder. Maybe scenes aren’t coming together the way I thought or a little bit of research and fact messes with my fantasy.  Staying motivated when the creativity is equally mixed with craft is the tricky part.

It’s fun to fantasize about a sweet little muse who sits on our shoulder whispering in our ear, but if I were to believe in that mine would be a cranky, old lady who whines and complains as soon as things stop going her way. Sure, all creative people have their muses and their inspirations, but the truth of the matter is taking that and turning it into a solid piece of writing takes work, a lot of it. Staying motivated throughout the process is the even harder part.

So, how do I do that? It isn’t always easy, but I firmly believe in setting goals: yearly goals, monthly goals, weekly goals, and daily goals.  Though I apply this to all aspects of my life, I’ll just focus on the writing part here. Once a year I really think about what I want to accomplish with my writing for the next year, and the important part, write it down.  From there it’s just a matter of breaking it down. In order to accomplish the big goals, what do I have to accomplish each month to make that happen.  The weekly and daily I do more as I go, because life does have a way of getting in the way of what we want to accomplish.  One week (Or month) I may write twice as much as I anticipated, which makes those days when something kept me just shy of my goal okay.  Little personal rewards for successfully achieving goals (even if it’s as minor as putting my feet up and reading for 20 minutes) help me appreciate what I’ve accomplished and making progress is a reward unto itself.

Are goals all I need to keep me motivated? No. Sure, I have days when I’m in my chair, hot coffee sitting on the desk, the file is open, and the words just don’t want to flow. In those situation I just remind myself to plug through. Maybe what I write will have to be ‘fixed up’ tomorrow, possibly even tossed out. Sometimes writing something that simply doesn’t work in the story helps me come to realize what will work, so none of it is time wasted.

When the inspiration is starting to wane, how do you keep yourself motivated?