Monday Motivation

There are days when it's hard to get going. Picture this: I'm a quarter of the way through writing a book. The initial enthusiasm of the story, its exciting novelty, has worn off. The end looks a million miles away, and I know I have weeks of writing to go. The finish line isn't just distant; it can't be seen. It can be hard to keep going.

My agent, who is also a writer (a damned good one), had the next book of a series to work on. I was telling her how much I looked forward to reading it. However, she was having trouble starting. "It's going to take so long." She faced that long slog of getting idea down in concrete form and couldn't fathom the effort.

I told her what I tell myself when my own post-first-quarter blues hits. "You're looking at the big picture. Don't. You can't write your book in a day."

When the project looms, it's easy to forget that every book starts with a sentence. That a story is constructed of these building blocks, one sentence after another, laid out singly. When I find myself thinking about the big picture and it freaks me out, I commit to just one sentence instead. As long as I've written one sentence, I've done something, and that's good enough. The amazing thing is that once I've written that sentence, 99.9 percent of the time I can keep writing. And though I don't write a book in a day (wouldn't that be awesome?), I get something done. Often more than I thought I could. Plodding along, but making progress nevertheless.

One sentence at a time. One step at a time. As long as you put forth a little effort, as long as you move forward, you're doing well. As Dory says, "Just keep swimming" and you'll get where you're going.