You know how when you exercise with a buddy you are more likely to actually do it? The same is true for writing.

If you are serious about writing, you must come up with an external motivating factor to kick start your career.

There isn’t any more to it than that. Accountability shames us into working most of the time. That is why many people fail at working from home or sticking to their diet plan. They simply lack the external motivation that adds that extra level of stress/shame/encouragement to the process.

So, where can you find these external motivators? Aside from your friends or family members, who may get really tired of reading the same things (modified each time, of course), there are actually people out there who want to read your stuff and help you improve. This is where to find them:

• Writing Support Groups: These groups are specifically designed to help you stay motivated and stick to your writing goals. Usually, the support groups are full of supportive people, but there will always be that one dumbass who thinks his stuff is better than everyone else’s. It’s not.  Just be prepared for that guy.

• Writing Clubs: Writing clubs are similar to support groups, but may also offer prompts and writing assignments, kind of like an informal creative writing class. Depending on the members, these clubs can be very helpful; or so bad that they inspire you to write in the opposite way than you thought they would, because anyone could write better than those guys.

• Book Readings: These readings are often for published authors only, but sometimes they allow new writers to read some of their stuff. If you’re like me though, and speak way less awesomely than you write, then you may not get the feedback you were hoping for from a reading. But at least it will motivate you to try to make both your writing and speaking better.

• Creative Writing Courses: I have a grudge against the creative writing course I took, but that doesn’t mean they are all bad. In a creative writing course, there is often helpful information and new challenges to try that can drastically improve your writing. Or maybe not. But it will be motivating nonetheless.

So there you have it. Four places you can go to find external motivation for writing.

Do you use any of these motivational helps? What external sources motivate you to keep writing? 

When Twilight was extremely popular (around 2009, maybe?), I read the complete series. I have also watched the movies as they came out.

I am not a Twilight fan, but it isn’t because of the typical reason (that she is a bad writer).  I think her writing is just as good as most YA books on the market.

The reason I don’t particularly care for the series is because I find the plot ridiculous. Even in a universe where vampires would be attracted romantically to humans, I don’t think their relationship would ever work. It seemed too sudden and too shallow to produce the deep feelings that they both automatically had. I also don’t agree with whatever concept she invented about “imprinting” or whatever it was that caused such deep attachments to form.

Anyway, my opinions probably alter what I felt about the differences between the Twilight books and the Twilight movies.

Plot:

I really felt like the movie did a good job of covering the plot. They really didn’t leave a whole lot out, as far as I remember. All the main characters were there, and all the same events happened. I think, there was some extra stuff about her human classmates in the book that didn’t make it into the movies, but no one cares about them anyway.

Characters:

As stated before, I think most of the main characters were there. I don’t remember if Jacob’s father was a big presence in the movies, which I wish had been different. The Jacob/Jacob’s father thing was one of my favorite plot elements in the entire series.

Pacing: Mercifully, the pacing in the movies was much better. The pacing in the books was agonizing. I ended up skipping a lot of the descriptions and eye gazing, simply because I just couldn’t take it in the books. In the movie, at least the staring was not described. 

Overall Impressions:

Of all the movie versions of books (The Hobbit, Pretty Little Liars, and Lolita are some of my most recent comparisons), I really feel like this was one of the best. I think because the fan base was so large before the movies came out, they had to stick to the plot as much as they possibly could or they would have been tarred and feathered by the Twilight fan community.

Did you feel like the Twilight movie series was a good remake? 

Today’s quote reminds me of my husband.

Last night, I watched the first episode of the TV show, Alias. When the show first came out, I was 15 years old, and there were many little siblings in my house, so we didn’t ever watch it. I had always thought the show looked kind of cool, but I just never got around to watching it until last night when I saw it on Netflix.

Anyway, I could not get over how impossible the story line was. What CIA agency goes around scouting out 18 year-old scrawny girls and tells them to sign up because they match a “profile?” I don’t care if your dad is in the CIA, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like that. Then, they kill her fiance because he mentions that she is a spy? Bad guys or not, I just can’t ever see that happening. If anything, they would probably have killed her first.

There were a lot of other things that didn’t make sense to me either. Small things, like, what CIA agent has time for grad school? Wouldn’t it have been extremely dangerous for her friend’s sister after Alias Girl impersonated her? Can a 110 pound girl really kick people in the head that hard? Why does no one notice that she makes so much noise when she “sneaks” around? How is an all-black bugler outfit inconspicuous, especially when you walk through a white hallway?

My own experiences with suspension of disbelief

Anyway, that got me thinking about my own suspension of disbelief story. I have been in the process of writing this one particular book since 2004. I got kind of stuck plot-wise a few years ago, and I haven’t returned to it yet. Anyway, in one scene, the main character had to stop a roomful of people from drinking this one bowl full of a magic potion-type-thing that would give them magical powers. In my head, I envisioned it like some church communions where everyone goes up and takes a small sip from a single cup. So I had my main character run up and drink the whole thing before anyone else could get to it.

When my husband read it, this is how he saw it: A guy runs to the front of the room in front of a huge vat of liquid (enough for 100 or so people to drink from). He takes about 5 minutes to drink down the massive quantities of liquid keg-style, while the 100+ people in the room stand around and watch, even though they are fully armed.

Needless to say, I pulled that part of the story. The suspension of disbelief was too great.

What you can do about it

I think that many writers don’t really consider enough details in their writing. Readers will take some things on faith, but not as many as necessary for many things in stories, like the Alias episode or my story. You really have to spend some time thinking: could this really happen? And also, what would this scene really look like? I also think it is important to have someone read your writing who has a critical eye for details to let you know when something is just too far out there. This will improve your writing and make it more believable, even if you are writing about a magical world.

How do you find ways to deal with suspension of disbelief? Have you ever abandoned a story because it was too implausible? 

If you just can’t get enough of book lists, then you’ll love this series from Publisher’s Weekly.

Each year, the publication reviews the top books of the previous year. They have the top books from years going all the way back to 2009. The also have a few other features for book lists.

Since temperatures are starting to rise, you may be most interested in Summer Reads 2012. Usually, the summer reading books are a little less intense than books released throughout the rest of the year. Perhaps it is because of the tradition of beach lounging?

I actually haven’t read any of the books on this list (being pregnant really cuts down on your reading time), but some of them look really interesting!

If these books don’t catch your fancy, you may like my list of tearjerkers, books for reluctant readers, or the best sci-fi books. 

Have you read any of these books? What are your favorite warm-weather reads? 

This month’s quote series features Oscar Wilde. Today’s quote is his opinion on what makes a true friend.

(No pretty series-related graphic today because I stupidly left my computer at my in-law’s house where the graphic is stored.)

Continuing my Writing Motivation series: today’s topic is pushing through.

I’ve been working on a new writing project for a client these past few weeks, and the project is both boring and time consuming.  It’s hard for me to work up the motivation for the job. In fact, I usually can’t. So what inspires me to get through? Just pushing through.

Sometimes, there is nothing that inspires you to write. You don’t feel motivated in any way at all. When this happens, you can do two things: one, you can skip it and not do it; or two, you can just go ahead and push through and do it anyway.

I’ve found that if I wait for inspiration to strike, sometimes it will, but usually it won’t. This is especially true for my personal projects. I spend most of my day working on things that bring me money right now, that I often neglect things that have the potential to bring in more money later.

That is why this year, my goal is to push through. No more excuses. I am reaching for my goals, whether I want to at the time or not. That is why I’ve been working much harder on this blog and Schooling a Monkey. These are my projects that I am passionate about, and I want to make them happen. I also am starting to write an ebook with my sister-in-law. There is nothing holding me back except my own lack of motivation.

Sometimes what you have to do to motivate yourself is to continue anyway. Even when you don’t want to. Even when you hate yourself a little for doing it. Even when you have to skip something fun to make it happen. 

Have you ever seen that graphic that shows a little circle that says, “your comfort zone” and an arrow pointing outside the circle that says, “where the magic happens”? Well, I hate that graphic. But it does have a point. Waiting on motivation to strike may never happen. To keep moving forward, you must press through even when you don’t feel like it.

What motivates you to push through when you really don’t want to?

Congrats to Janell, who won the Gevalia coffee and Sherlock Holmes giveaway!

Janell has 24 hours to contact me with her address before I choose a different winner.

Thanks to everyone for commenting! I had a lot of fun with this giveaway, I may post another one soon. I just have to think of a good enough prize… Not much beats free coffee!

I feel like this is an extremely timely subject, because just a few weeks ago I was discussing whether self-publishing still has a bad name. 

This week, I stumbled across the list of the top-selling ebooks around the world. Guess what?  5 of the 10 best selling ebooks from the end of April were self-published! In fact, 4 of the 5 authors on the list were authors that are completely self-published. One was from a traditional author who “went rogue” and published a book on his own. If you would like the full list and details, you can view the Digital Book World article. 

So, what makes an ebook salable? For one thing, most self-publishing authors price their books well below the average price. I never understood this, but many ebook editions sold by traditional publishers are priced at the same price point as the hard copy of the book. Why would I pay $12 for a virtual book that has no pages? I feel like when you buy a hard copy of a book, you are paying for the work that went into creating the physical copy of the book and for the experience of feeling it in your hands in edition to the content of the book. When you remove the work of manufacturing the physical copy, I think the price should be lower.

I’ve paid up to $8 for a single ebook copy of a book (I really wanted it. It was “Messy” by The Fug Girls), but I don’t think I would ever pay more than that, especially for a book or author that I was unfamiliar with. Most self-published authors price their books under $5, as far as I have seen. The cheaper a book, the more likely someone casually browsing is to purchase it. I think with a lower price point, you widen your audience significantly. What some publishers do- and I really like this model- is to price their first book around 99 cents, or even make it free. Then for the other books in the series, the price goes up to $3 or $4.

I also think with self-publishing, authors have a chance to reach a concise audience. While 10 million people might not want to read a story about a crime-fighting monkey, 1 million or several hundred thousand would. This opens a space in self-publishing for niche markets that drive sales.

Those are some of my thoughts. What do you think about the rise in self-publishing sales?