Personal – Page 2 – J. V. Montague

Here’s to Hoping My Lack of Motivation Won’t Kill My Novel

I mean, the title says it all. I’m sure that in the history of everything, I am the only person to have ever struggled with motivation, and more specifically, the motivation to write. What can I say, I’m just that important.

It’s an odd feeling for a number of reasons. This past summer I was so fired up for this book, the setting, the mystery, the characters… but now the “oh, shiny” syndrome has taken over, and my poor little work in progress is as dull as carpet.

Here’s the thing about my plot bunnies; they don’t reproduce as in I get completely new ideas, nay, they mutate. I’m far too attached to my characters to ditch them like a frat boy to his girlfriend in a movie, so I just drag the poor things along, trying to find them an adequate home.

What I’m saying is that a story set in a paranormal reality akin to ours is tipping into steampunk territory. No, I don’t feel like explaining that jump to you, my dear reader. Well, okay, to be frank, I don’t even know how I made that jump (pogo stick on steroids, perhaps?).

My current WIP is an odd little child of mine that’s wandering about, bumping into things, and getting lost in closets. Maybe having it walking around gives it too much credit… that implies that it works.

It’s probably not an utterly fantastic thing that I’m falling asleep before writing the climax of this atrocity. Whoops.

It’s never seeing the light of day. Or night for that matter. Hell, it shouldn’t even see the light of my computer screen.

Don’t get me wrong (yes, I’m quite aware it’s easy to do that), I still care for it. It’s the first time I’ve ever gotten so far into a project like this (46k words) and it seems like such a shame to drop it now. I just need to kick my own ass, and get the damn thing over with.

My current strategy is to tempt myself with working on The New Thing™, but I can’t work on The New Thing™ until the Old Thing is done.

Still, it stings that I won’t really do anything with this first draft, ever. It will always be the first book I wrote; I guess that’s all it ever needs to be. I’ll bookmark the zingers of lines, I’ll take note of what worked and what didn’t, and I’ll be proud of myself for getting this far.

How have you wrangled with lacking motivation to write? Do you punch your indolent bum and force yourself to work, or are you brave enough to admit that you don’t? When do you think it’s fair to give up on a project?

Thanks for reading, friend. Until next time, don’t kill anybody and don’t die.

~Jay

2020-12-31T23:59:00

days

hours minutes seconds

until

Until I should Have My Current WIP Done

My Writing Goals

Written November 1, 2020

It’s important to set goals especially outside of the New Year. The other main reason I’m writing this is that I’m setting everything up for this god-forsaken website and it’s all a wee bit much (no, WordPress, your advice may be useful but that doesn’t mean that I won’t be a stubborn piece of work and “figure it all out on my own”). Everyone, please bear with me.

Such as it is, having let my current work in progress sit out on the counter for a little while, the impeding deadline of having it finished by the end of the year is especially tiresome. I do think I can manage, considering at the time of writing this I’m 42k words into the draft — the bare minimum for a novel is 50k. Just speed through the climax and resolution because that thing should never see the light of day (frankly, it’s embarrassing that it sees the light of the computer screen).

I want to have finished a “polished” novel by the end of my High School career. It may be a little ambitious but I have let myself down a number of times, and this is hardly different.

“I have expectations, not standards.”
– Jay Birb, far too late into the evening

I wish to get better with my editing. Get better, please, I hardly have edited anything at all. And there lies my problem. I think through doing short works, I can get a better idea of what the editing process is like. Short work editing and novel editing are differing beasts from differing lands, however, they still are technically the same species.

I want to get better at writing short stories and opinion pieces, hence, this glorious little tangle of words and code.

Alrighty, friends, lets see if this thing works. I mean, it works but does it work? Damn the English language.