Tuesday, June 1, 2010

The D word

I've been feeling all sorry for myself. Licking my little wounds, but repeating those annoyingly positive phrases over and over again. For the record....your comments helped a lot more than positive affirmations.

The problem with feeling sorry for myself is the ensuing lack of productivity or focus. This time, the problem was focus. I took a whole few days in a row and wrote little snippets in about six..maybe seven different projects. Then, I printed out this whole long rough draft, all proudly displaying it for editing purposes. For read through purposes. Because I am growing, right?

*ahem*

No...I lack this thing called DISCIPLINE. I've mentioned before that I'm a little bit of a rebel, right? It takes me a long time to accept defeat when I've rebelled against something for so long. Sometimes, I'm simply rebelling to rebel. Have you noticed yet that if you say rebel a lot that it starts to lose it's cool-ness? Just saying...

DISCIPLINE AND FOCUS....it's a must have for success in any field, but even more so with writing fiction. With the hopes of making money. Any money. Discipline.

Man...have I told you that I rebelled against DISCIPLINE for approximately ..... okay, I still rebel against it. Old habits die hard, okay?

But the hard, awful, disgusting truth is that we need it in order to write a novel. We need it in order to query and wait and finally partner with an agent. Then we need it in order to sell that novel, write the next one and go through it all again.

*head on desk*

This is going to be tough. But I have to learn, acquire, and keep DISCIPLINE. At least 80% of the time. Right? How do you crack the whip when you realize you are lacking in Discipline??

3 comments:

  1. If you figure out the dscipline thing, can you let me know? I totally struggle with it and I can't even claim to be a rebel. I'm more passive-agressive...but still, it doesn't seem to be helping my word count increase.

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  2. Discipline, what's that? LOL Sometimes I'm good and sometimes I'm very bad. But I'm like that with everything not just writing.

    But yes, to get published, and the big goal, to continue to be published, requires the discipline to sit down and write. And if you rewrite, to sit down an rewrite/critique. Then the discipline to send it out and keep sending it out till it sells.

    Let's face it writing with the goal of publishing is not for panzies.

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  3. Ah yes, discipline. I'd like to say that I have it all the time, but often, discipline is a no show in my office. I get distracted checking email and blogs, or throwing another load of laundry in...

    One thing that really helps me is to think about how I will feel if I don't push myself to get some writing done. I know I'll beat myself up over it, so I apply myself so I'll feel like I accomplished something. And I'm always glad I did.

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