Today is one of them.
I feel about as motivated and useful as the old tires in this picture. There are many reasons for this that I won’t get into here.
I’ve thought about opening my novel file and making myself write anyway. Is there any use in that?
Sometimes yes. Sometimes no.
I’m really just not feeling it.
I’m not going to force anything. So here’s what I am going to do. I’m going to reread what I wrote yesterday. Then I will see if anything comes to me then. If not, I’ll call it done and go do something else. But, even though I’m not “feeling it,” I have to at least put forth some type of effort.
The fact that I’m doing this blog post right now is actually a positive indicator.
I have some productivity music on (courtesy of Evan Carmichael’s YouTube channel). That usually helps. And that brings up a question.
If you’re having a day where you just don’t feel like doing whatever needs to be done (except for paid work – that’s different), what do you do to get yourself motivated to do it anyway?
Happy creating.
I was just thinking about this today but for the opposite reason. I was very motivated and productive today and yesterday. I was wondering what I did right today to be so motivated and how to generate that on the days when I’m just not feeling it.
If you figure out a good trick for that, let me know. 🙂
I totally understand having days like that. When I do, usually I take a break and do something fun. Then, later that day, I check in again, to see if I’m ready to get back to it. If not, I give myself the whole day. But if it starts to become a pattern, or I know something’s up, then I ask myself to do a little of what I might be avoiding. The first paragraph or one of the tasks on my to-do list. That often breaks the spell.
I generally wait to start writing until after dinner, so that makes taking a break for something else more difficult to do. The problem with taking breaks or even giving myself a whole day is that I’m coming off a long-term pattern of that (especially with this story), so I’m reluctant to do that because I don’t want to fall back into old habit patterns. You’re very right about the first paragraph breaking the spell. If I can get into that, then I’m good. (This was true last night, too. I ended up with almost 1,400 words by the time I quit for the night.)