Motivations i.e. the fine art of getting your arse into gear

Well, here's a blog title that will need to be edited should my children's novel series ever receive syndication. Nonetheless, 'Pulling your socks up' lacks the requisite bite.

I've been procrastinating. Yes, we've been here before haven't we. Naughty writer, bad writer, go to your bed! Since I last wrote, I have written not one word beyond such useful bon mot's such as "Must pick up some bread" and "I'll give u a call tmrw," the later of which, I hope you will note from the 'trendy' approach to spelling as capitalised upon by today's 'yoof', took the form of a text message. And yes, I have posted an occasional cry for help on the writers' forum I frequent (more on that in a moment) but the sum total of words faithfully tapped out in the ever-long quest for fame an glory - not-a-one. This has to change.

The reason for this uncharacteristic foray into motivation? Today I went book shopping, working under the principle that if I spend money on a 'hobby' (I blanche at using that word to describe my writing which has been the essence of my soul since I learned my very first cliche) then that MUST mean I'm serious about it (while history will attest that, in fact, I am now just a few steps away from abandoning said 'hobby' completely - or at least putting it on indefinite hiatus until I decide I need to do some more hobby-shopping). But shop I did, purchasing such tomes as 'How not to write a book' and 'The 38 most common fiction writing mistakes'. I have since then been dipping in and out of the latter, written by Jack M. Bickham, and tomorrow I intend to dig out the highlighter and page-markers and label up the most helpful passages. Now I'm not going to reproduce the content of the book here as if I get sued I will almost certainly have to resort to prositution to pay the legal fees, but the first chapter dealt with something that made me immediately stub out my cigarette and stride purposefully towards the laptop: The Procrastinator, i.e. the author who keeps thinking up reasons as to why they cannot write. I could tick many of these examples as being accurate. I could probably suggest a few examples myself, but the thrust of it was that the difference between a writer and a deluded person with dreams is down to procrastination. Deluded people always have excuses for not having written. These reasons will stop their stories from ever being written. Before long, how can they call themselves a writer?

Gulp. The one positive thing about being a writer is that you can refer to yourself as such without having documented evidence of success. Yes, so it's best not to introduce yourself in this way until you have been published because the barely disguised mocking of your contemporaries will forever haunt your nightmares, but at least you can feel it inside. At least it's better than thinking of yourself in the terms of whatever soul-sucking job you're currently forced into. But if I can't think of myself as a writer? Well, then I am nothing.

So I'll start tomorrow. I just hope that it won't always be tomorrow.