I did my usual Sunday entry over at the Diary and I spoke a little about my lack of motivation when it comes to writing.  I thought I might glance back at my blog to see if I was feeling the same way around this time last year, and I think that I might have been. Maybe it’s a seasonal thing or a cyclical thing, but I just don’t feel like writing. Sometimes things come to me, additions to my WIP, conversations, ideas. I write them down… it goes nowhere, really. I sit down to add to one of the WIPs I have going and I just feel like it’s lame. So surface and not at all deep or character revealing and just… lame. I think I may have story fatigue, but I do WANT to finish both projects I have going. I just..have zero motivation.

I don’t know what else to do when I feel like this, but to wait it out. Making myself write when I don’t feel like writing results in hours of lame prose that I’ll just delete anyway. I hate everything I have written lately and when I read other people’s work, I am so jealous of the level of skill. When I read blogs and see people that are getting book deals from their writing, I’m not so much jealous as…as… I don’t know. I feel like I should be further along than I am and perhaps I am not because I give into these times when I don’t feel like writing.

I wrote a new scene for the Flirtfest and liked it at first. A few weeks later I looked at it when I went to post it and absolutely hated it. Bland, unemotional, lame, dull. So I went back to something I wrote when I was doing well.

Sometimes I wonder if I am not really a writer, if I struggle so much with writing. It should not be this hard.

So I am asking anyone who writes and reads this blog: what do you do when you’re uninspired? When ideas don’t come and everything seems lame and the writing is lackluster at best? Do you put it away for a bit? Push through? Find some inspiration somewhere, somehow, some way?

I’m sure I have asked this question before… I feel like I have. In fact, this is a rehash of the same post I seem to make every month.

I guess I should read back and see what people have said. I just hate feeling like I suck.

Looking for inspiration,

I’m not all that upset about it. I didn’t know, really, what I was going to write on. It just sounded like a good idea. And since I already have an original fiction project I need to be working on, it’s not like I’m abandoning anything. I feel good about it and feel a little less anxious removing that from my projects list.

I had a good talk with one of my writer friends yesterday. She is the second person to tell me that I should definitely un-fanfic my NaNo piece and try to turn it into a novel.

“Really?” I said. “I was thinking about never looking at it, ever again.”

“Well you are wrong,” she said, “to think that.”

So, maybe. I don’t know. It’s still unfinished and I’m really uninspired and unmotivated to finish it. I haven’t even planned out the ending. It would be totally easy to push out a few chapters and finish it off. I just can’t seem to get to it.

I’m considering writing a short story to enter into the Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers Contest. 3000 words or fewer, due at the end of February, to be posted in the Glimmer Train publication in April. That’s more my speed, and I’m currently aiming at getting something published, even if it’s someplace small. Considering I’ve never read the publication, I’m not sure if my writing is skilled enough to be printed but I won’t know until I try, no?

I’ve totally lost my oomph for my writing prompt for the Author Culture  Spin the Wheel contest. Entries aren’t due till Feb 12th, though, so… if I just buckle down and write something I could get something out. I just do not have enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do, read everything I want to read, keep up on what my peers are doing and show support, write everything I want to write and still have a life.  I don’t like rushing through this process. Something has got to give.

Ugh. It is 6:45. Morning seems to be the only time I can get any time to blog anymore. I really wish my writing made money and I could do it full time! Till then,

Hi ho, hi ho,