A reader asked me to write about motivational tips. Things to keep us going when, let’s face it, the world is pretty gloomy right now. Why bother writing when the publishing world is struggling so badly due to the economy and piracy?
Why?
What else are you going to do? Do you want to quit, never to realize your dream? Or do you want to write (or sing or paint or whatever) for the sheer enjoyment of it? Because it makes YOU happy? And if you’re happy, it carries forward into the other things you do.
I’m not a sit-back-and-wait kind of person. In fact, this more than anything shows my impatience to move forward, I think. One day I’m going to get to THE END of my journey but the time between now and then won’t be spent mourning things beyond my control but working toward achieving dreams, goals etc. I know a person with no goals. Literally, NO goals. She exists day to day, fretting over this and that and stuck in the same place she’s been for the last thirty years. Do you know people like that? Do you want to be them?
No. No one does.
To borrow a phrase from Nike, JUST DO IT. Whatever it is, just DO it. And when the going gets tough, and it will, keep plugging on because it makes you happy, because it means something to someone else. Not everyone fits into a box. Writers know this especially well. We view things differently than other people, always thinking, analyzing, looking for story angles, emotions, the core of why whatever it happens to be matters.
Why do I write?
Because I know life can be tough, it can be painful, it can shatter us when we least expect it. But I also know we have choices to make. When our hearts are broken, we either pick ourselves up and move on, or we allow a bad thing, or a series of bad things, to break us. Those emotions:: love, sorrow, joy, fear? I loooove writing about them because we can all identify with them.
I’m not sure this is what my reader had in mind when she posed the question to me but… there you go. My motivational tip for the day is to keep moving forward. By kindness, by the scrape of your fingernails. Always with prayer.
Still need something to motivate you? Imagine, just for a moment for those of you who don’t believe, standing before God at the end of your life and saying, “I did nothing.”
That’s motivation enough for me to nurture my talent. I can’t sing, I can’t dance, I don’t have an ear for second languages and my patience is sorely lacking at times. But I can write and I care about what I write, my characters, the problems they face. I like sitting down and getting those emotions on the page. (Heh. When the writing is going well! Talk to me on a day when the words aren’t there and see me frustrated! LOL)
What’s YOUR talent? Your gift in life? You have one (or more). Never think for a single moment that you don’t. Are you going to share it with the world today? Why not?
Kay
As in, “How many pairs of SHOES does Kay need to get through conference?”
LOL Writers are such introverts. Myself included. All the fuss makes me long for a beach chair. 
I love going to the Romance Writers of America’s National Conference. It’s a blast–but exhausting. Keeping track of it all drives me a bit batty. 
Heh. Anyway, between Journey’s DON’T STOP BELIEVING, Rick Springfield’s JESSIE’S GIRL and lots of other favorites, we had a blast. 
