Tag Archives: Motivation

November 11, 2016 · 11:01 am

Bribery…and why it works so well during NaNoWrimo

So this is a totally ridiculous, narcissistic blog post today. I’m going full honesty here and tell you how I stay motivated to write so much during the NANOWRIMO challenge. Be prepared…you may learn something that clouds your opinion of me forever.

Okay…Taking a huge, cleansing breath…Here goes.

I bribe myself to keep writing.

I know! How awful is that?? I should be writing because I want to, not because I’ll get a reward if I do. The 50,000+ word book SHOULD be the reward. The ONLY reward.

But no, it’s not.

I start off with a mountain of motivation each morning as I sit at my laptop, fingers flying across the keyboard, giving full vent to all the thoughts and scenes and dialogue that have been running through my brain for the previous 8 hours – the time I should be sleeping but, well,  you know. Chronic Insomnia. The brain that never shuts down. That’s me.

Anyhooooo….

I start off like a speeding train and about hour 2-3 I start to get a little fatigued, a little distracted, a little, well, bored. I know I have many more words to write – can feel them jumping out of my fingertips in their efforts to break free from my mind – but I start to wane. To keep myself glued to my chair ( figuratively, folks) I’ve developed little bribery rewards for my diligence. Here are just a few of the things I pamper myself with for my perseverance at the laptop:

  • If I get another 1000 words down, I’ll have a cup of tea and a Peppermint Patty
  • If I finish this chapter I’ll troll thru Amazon and look for new books to read
  • If I hit my 2500 minimum daily word count, I’ll schedule a facial this afternoon
  • If I can get this dialogue perfect in the next 20 minutes, I’ll go get lunch at Panera.
  • If I exceed my daily goal I’ll go shopping for makeup/skin care products/perfume, in other words, I’ll go to Sephora.

See how this works???

And isn’t it ridiculous? I didn’t raise my child to do what’s right in life by bribing her. I would  have never even thought of that. Her father and I taught her to do what is correct simply for the reward of getting it right. We didn’t say, “do you your homework and you’ll get a cookie. Get an A on a report and I’ll take you shopping.” We never even gave cash for good report cards. The end result – the good grades – was its own reward. None other was needed.

Why can’t I, then, as a fully formed and functioning adult, heed that wisdom?

See? I told you your opinion of me would get clouded.

Le sigh….

When I’m not ruminating on my hapless state or bribing myself to go on, you can find me here:

Tweet Me//Read Me// Visit Me// Picture Me//Pin Me//Friend Me//Google+

And if you are in need of it, here’s a little distracting motivation for you to peruse and ponder…nano23

you’re welcome………

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Filed under Author, Contemporary Romance, Dialogue, Kensington Publishers, Life challenges, love, Lyrical Author, NaNoWriMo, New Hampshire, Romance, Romance Books, RWA, Strong Women, WIld Rose Press AUthor

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December 4, 2014 · 10:20 am

A question of personality….

My daughter – just for fun, mind you – performed a personality profile on me the other day. This is the link to that profile: http://www.personalitypage.com/ISFJ.html. Apparently, I am typed as THE NURTURER. I am introverted, use my five senses to coordinate through life, feel a great deal of emotion about things, and am judgmental.

Uh – BINGO!

Part of the profile states, “has a rich inner world that is not usually obvious to observers. They( nurturers) constantly take in information about people and situations that is personally important to them, and store it away.”

Uh – BINGO, again!

Hellooooo!  Doesn’t this description sound like a writer to you??

As a pysch major, I know the value I put in my character’s motivations, feelings, habits, and lifestyle decisions. Every action has a meaning, reason, and reaction and it’s my job to keep them all spinning in the air on the page so the reader is entertained and the characters are ultimately fulfilled. But just like people, every character has his/her own distinct personality. And again, it’s my job to know every facet of the character, every flaw, every quirk, every subtle nuance that makes them, well, them.

When I used to write mysteries, I did detailed character profiles, especially for my villains. I needed to know exactly why they were doing what they were doing – namely, murdering people. Since I am not a murderer myself ( thank you, Jesus!), I needed to know what goes into the psychological makeup of a person that would entice them and then compel them to kill another human being. I had to dissect their internal motivations, compulsions, and desires to find the one fatal piece of their internal makeup that could enable them to take a life.

At the time I read extensively on the “Killer’s Mind.” Book after book, page after page of forensic psychology on why killers kill. It was a dark time in my mind and I think it showed in the kind of work I was producing. When I found myself going to dark places in my head once too ofter, I stopped writing for while. Or in this case, about five years.

Then I started writing happy things again like romances. Believe me, my brain – and my family – thank me daily.

Even though I am no longer writing about people who have slunk low on the  humanity scale, I still need to  know who my characters are. So I still do mini psych profiles of them in order to get inside their heads while they are inside mine.

Okay, this is starting to sound like a Stephen King book premise….but I think you get my drift.

You can find many personality profiles on line if you like arm chair psych-pop, but you can also get insights from a few well known books as well. My three favs are:

Writer’s Guide to Character traits, by Linda N. Edelstein, PH.d

A Writer’s Guide to Characterization, by Victoria Lynn Schmidt

45 Master Characters, also by Victoria Lynn Schmidt,

You will get a wealth of knowledge and insights into internal and external motivations for characters’ responses, as well as an ability to track and assign personality traits to your characters, if you are in need of that knowledge.

Oh, and my own personality profile – the one I listed at the top of this page – it was spot-on accurate. You might want to click around on the link and find out how you are characterized, and discover just what it is exactly that makes you tick.

Eyeopening is a good way to describe how I felt when I read mine through. Eyeopening and maybe just a tad frightening as well.

 

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December 2, 2014 · 12:24 pm

What motivates you to keep writing?

NaNoWriMo2014 is over and I was lucky enough to reach the goal of 50,000 words early this year, due to a kick-ass and thorough plot line/outline and the ability to devote time to it every single day. I’m not done with the story yet, not by a yardstick. This challenge is a huge motivator for me to keep on writing after November 30th rolls around. The fact I’ve been able to keep the writing momentum up and sailing is a major reason why I’m so far along in my w.i.p.

With the holidays just next door, this ability to devote so much time every day to writing may – out of necessity – take a back seat. I don’t want it to, and I’m planning on it not, but life does intervene. It’s difficult for anyone, whether they’re writing, or training for a marathon, to keep the momentum at such a high level. So this got me to thinking: How do you stay motivated to keep on writing? What, exactly, motivates you to continue?

For me, the story and the characters won’t leave me alone until I commit them and their antics down on the page. This is the truth: I get woken up from a deep sleep many nights by storylines and characters intruding on my slumber. They want their stories known. Now, before you start to think I suffer from delusions or latent schizophrenia, hear me out.

When my mind rests ( as in sleep ) my characters come out to play in my dreams. They say exactly what they want to say, do exactly what they want to do, and basically tell me what I should be writing about them.

Okay. So maybe it does sound a little delusional and schizophrenic.

What can I say?

Anyway. These characters and their stories inspire me to put their lives down on paper.

And there are a lot of them hanging out in the backroom, tiny recesses of my mind. They will not leave me alone and get out of my head until they are locked into my laptop, so I have to give them a platform. This kind of sounds like a Stephen King plot line: irate characters torment fiction writer until they literally pop-out on the page!

You know…..

So, for me it’s the characters and their desires to be freed from the confines of my imagination.

What motivates you to keep writing? What will be your driving force to keep the momentum going  after NaNoWriMo 2014 is but a memory?

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May 12, 2014 · 9:05 am

Motivation

The dictionary definition of motivation is the act or process of giving someone a reason for doing something (Merriam Webster).  Deb Dixon, in Goal, Motivation and Conflict, tells us “Motivation is the “why.” Why do characters want something? The motivation is what drives characters to achieve their goals.” She also tells us that motivation is both an internal and an external concept.

Your characters  must be motivated towards a goal. Otherwise, they will just be dancing around on the page, happy and carefree with no worries. How do you spell b-o-r-i-n-g? They need to be moving towards or working towards a goal and the reason for that goal is what is motivating them. I think this holds true in real life as well, not just simply in our fictional characters.

Some days, when the words are flowing through my mind faster than my typing fingers can keep up, I never question what motivates me to write. To me, writing is like breathing: I have to do it or I will surely die. My tag line for this blog is Writing is my oxygen. I mean that.

Then there are days where I can’t get my mind to tell my fingers what to type. My brain is clouded, cluttered, and non-cooperative. But even on those frustrating days when the words don’t come easily, I still never have to question my motivation to write. I just have to or I know I will die. Sounds melodramatic, doesn’t it? Yeah, that’s me:  Melodrama’s my middle name. You thought it was Mary, didn’t you? Na-uh! Margaret-Melodrama Jaeger.

If I were a character in a novel and Deb Dixon was analyzing my character motivation, it might go something like this: External motivation: needs to write in her blog everyday so she doesn’t die. Internal motivation: writing is the one thing that is mine and mine alone, that gives me unlimited pleasure, and makes me feel worthy of living. I need to write just like I need to breath.

I think I’ve got this one; no worries. Now, applying it my characters may be a tad more difficult. And it should be. Otherwise my characters will be – here’s that word again –  boring!

My quote from today is from ubersuccesful writer Barbara Kingsolver: “The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is to live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance, but live right in it, under its roof.”

What I hope for is the ability and freedom to write until I take my last breath. Seems to me like my hope and my motivation are pretty much the same thing!

Any thoughts?

 

 

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May 10, 2014 · 8:20 am

Deb Dixon Conference

On this lovely day before Mother’s Day, I’m privileged to be attending the Deb Dixon  Book In A Day Conference in Nashua with my New Hampshire RWA chapter. This was the perfect Mother’s day present  I gave to myself. Deb Dixon has an amazing CV and her landmark instructional book, Goal, Motivation and Conflict, helped me plot my last two books. I was able to pen them so easily, I wished I had known about her book when I was a neophyte writer.

After attending two writing conferences in two weeks ( last week was the NECRWA conference in Boston), I am uberinspired with my writing. I’ve updated my goals and I’m going to be starting something new tomorrow. Each day that I can – and hopefully that will be everyday – I plan on putting a quote up on this blog and will try to relate it to my writing journey. I hope you will join me in this new endeavor.

For now, I’m off to learn from the master, Deb Dixon.

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Filed under Author, Contemporary Romance, Editors, New Hampshire, NHRWA, Romance, Strong Women

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April 19, 2014 · 8:41 am

When the past becomes the present

Okay, that title is a little obscure. This is the story behind it.

In my thirties, I pretty much made a living doing freelance article writing for newspapers and magazines. That’s how I made cash. I didn’t need to work because my husband’s salary was more than enough and we both wanted our child to have a parent at home, not both of them always working. At the same time I was writing a great deal of fiction – mainly short stories – and had lots of success with awards and publications. I was also harboring a secret: I was writing book length romantic fiction and murder mysteries. I never attempted to get them published. I wrote them simply for my enjoyment when I had a few hours of time to myself. I liked my stories and I didn’t really care if anyone else ever saw them.

Fast forward a few years and I went back into the workforce as a favor. I didn’t have the time to devote to any kind of writing – freelance or fiction – so I let it slide for about 15 years.

A few more years ahead now. One day I was downsized at my job. Not let go,  but my hours were severely cut. My daughter was gone and on her own, my husband was still working full time, and now I found myself with more time for myself than I’d had in a decade. There is only so much house cleaning and working out at the gym that you can do in a given day, so I decided to pull some of my old fiction stories out and reread them.

Here’s the part of the story that’s weird. I don’t even remember writing most of them. There was a four year window where I actually penned 8 full length novels – each  300- 400 pages. During this prolific time I was shuffling my daughter to school, dance class, karate class, etc. I was making entire home cooked meals EVERY NIGHT of the week and my house looked great. And I still managed to spend all that time writing. I had an entire series of books devoted to one family. I started rereading them last year after I was down sized. I couldn’t remember what I’d written so it was like finding a new author and a new set of works to delight in. Some of them were pretty good, I thought. A little dated, because they were written before Iphones and such, but I started reworking them and modernizing them.

Lo and behold, two of them won contests and the editors at two publishing houses asked for complete manuscripts. I’m waiting to hear back from them as I write this.

It’s a funny thing when your past endeavors come forth to the present. I wonder if I’d tried to submit them for publication back then if they would have been accepted.  Or, did I need to write them and then put them away, only to turn to them again at this stage in my life.  I’ll never really know the answer. Suffice it to say, I had a great deal of fun rereading and reworking them. If this leads to publication, so be it. If it doesn’t, I know I’ll still be writing into the next decades of my life.

And who knows: maybe I’ll find something in the future that I’m writing now and will be surprised by all over again.

Like I said: it’s weird.

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April 12, 2014 · 7:47 am

Are your characters motivated?

We all know that fiction is propelled by conflict. Two people  who just sit on the page enamored with one another is a very boring story that no one will read. Throw in a little conflict and it makes the story move forward. The same can  be said for motivation. What makes your characters do what they do? What end game are they interested in? What’s the goal? What lead them to this thinking?

In a phrase: what motivates them?

My favorite adult fiction book of all time is Gone With the Wind I know: it’s dated, hard to read in some parts because of the way the dialect is written, and sometimes you just want to slap Scarlet O’Hara like she slapped poor Prissy.  Scarlet is a conniving, lying, spoiled  vixen of a woman. But you want to root for her because everything she does, everything she becomes, is motivated by two central truths in her life- she loves Ashley Wilkes and she loves Tara. She will do whatever she has to in order to accomplish her goal of having both. And she does. Her motivation is to prove to Ashley that he really loves her and not  Melly. When the war destroys her family and her home, she is motivated beyond reason to help Tara rise again to the splendor it was pre-war. She marries men she does not love for their money and for the security they bring to her. She cares for Melly when she is sick and dying only because she wants to be close to Ashley. She really is a bitch in every sense of the word, but still, you root for her because she fights for what she wants, and to hell with everyone and everything else.

That’s motivation in it’s sincerest form.

What motivates your characters? Is it a desire to save the family homestead despite not having the visible means to do it? Is it revenge on the person  your character thinks did them wrong? Is it greed? Lust? Love? Whatever your characters want you need to be clear about it, because the reader wants what they want FOR them, and wants to see them overcome obstacles to get it.

There’s no motivation in a boy meets girl-boy gets girl story. Now, a boy meets girl-boys loses girl- boy gets girl in the end story is the stuff of romantic dreams. This is what romance readers want. They want to know what motivates the two characters to fall in love. What obstacles must they overcome to wind up together? Are their motivations at cross purposes and it looks like they’ll never make it? All this drives the story and what drives the character is their motivation.

What motivation do you give your characters? Is it strong enough to sustain an entire novel about it? If not, how could you make it stronger? Sit back and re-evaluate what you want for you characters and what they want. It should be the same thing. Your goal is deciding how to effectively help them attain that goal without losing sight of their motivation.

 

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