Kim Baccellia over at the YA Authors You've Never Heard Of posted last Sunday (the 22nd) a posting on what is motivating her to write. She posted a video of the song "Unwritten" and then an episode of "Roswell".
I too have been lacking motivational wise to write. I have a ton of stories to complete (okay a few state stories) and am not motivated to get them written. I don't know what is up with that but I really need to get them written, edited and published since I have 44 more to get done over the course of the next 8 years.
Also, sometime the week before reading Kim's posting, daughter and I were chatting and I was reading her a bit of my new novel, Imogene: Innocense Lost and she asked me, "Where do you come up with your characters' names?"... "You have Sarah Beth in this one and Mary Beth in the other one, and Matt, and what's the other girl's name? and Matt's friend - oh yeah Guy" at which point she decided Guy for a name was funny. My answer was that the names kind of come to me when I write a little bit of a story. Somtimes I may have a name in mind and sometimes the names take a while to come up with. I have to do some research through baby name sites and sometimes look up what the meaning of the name is before deciding whether it is the name I need to be using.
Imogene came to me while I was writing the first scene of the story (and this may or may not really show up in the story because I think the story really starts with the next part) and Sarah Beth was the other name that came to me. I wrote the first couple of paragraphs with Sarah Beth being the daughter and Imogene being the mother, but as I wrote a few more sentences, I suddenly changed the names around. Imogene became the daughter. I can't explain what inspired me to do that but it happened. Now I have a very clear picture of who Imogene was and who she has become over the 10 years the story occurs; the story actually will be over a short period of time - a month or less but really starts ten years prior to the actual story that will be told when Imogene goes missing while the family is abroad.
How do we go from the inspiration to the motivation to get the stories written? It really isn't an easy task but if we are serious enough to take on writing stories and want to make this our chosen profession, we must keep at it.
I've had students ask similar questions - what is your inspiration for this? or what motivates you to write? - and I'm sure the answers they are looking for are something on the lines of fame and fortune but that isn't why we become writers. The money would be nice but I only would like to earn enough from my books to support me or to have all my events and book related expenses covered as well as travel funds and enough left over that I can pay my bills.
I'd be happy if someone were to contact me and say, "We really like your books and think you have a wonderful concept here; We'd like to sponsor your state books" and put money down to cover all my expenses with no worries of how events will be paid for, hotels, travel, et cetera; but for now, I will have to keep plugging away, taking my inspirations and going with the flow and keep myself motivated to write whatever it is that needs to be written (and right now it looks like Imogene is begging to be written). No more back burners; now is the time to write (this week will be an especially good one for me as all the hand clinic doctors will be out of the office and what little bit of work we have won't amount to much for any of us).
So if you are an author, what keeps you motivated to write your stories? What inspires you or inspired you in the first place to write your stories? Comments welcome on the topic. E :)
PS - don't forget I'm doing ebook giveaways for followers. When I reach 150 followers on this blog, I'll send you a code to download either Finally Home or both "The Tulip Kiss" and "The Proposal"; just for being a follower. Basically 150 downloads will be given away. I only need 59 more folks to follow the blog to start contacting you all to get your download to you.
Keep on writing and see you all in the postings - E :)
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