The Bells Are Ringing!

Must admit, I'm starting to get a little bit worried that my hiney is heading for a pretty severe motivation spanking this week, because not only am I struggling to get words on paper, but I'm having a hard time getting motivated to deal with the weeds in the yard. So in that respect the alarm bells are ringing! On the plus side, I've been exercising, eating healthier, and got the additional tasks J set done. However, when J and I discussed motivation yesterday, she asked me if I thought that she needed to be tougher and stricter on me, and being the idiot that I am I said she probably does - arghhh me and my big mouth. Furthermore, at the time of that conversation I was feeling pretty confident that I could scamble and get myself back on track where the writing was concerned, but now I'm not so sure. Over confidence will bite you in the ass everytime - literally!

What gets me the most though is that I really love writing, and I want to write, but I'm really struggling to get a more detailed plot down on paper. In short, my story seems to be stalling, and I'm not sure how to get it going again. Maybe this is the writers block that I keep hearing authors talking about. That in itself isn't so bad, but the real problem is that as I blank out I get distracted, and the next thing I know I've wasted an hour or two surfing the web. I think J would be understanding of the block, but it's the time wasting that follows which is the issue here.

Anyway, Part of me is really tempted to start over, dump the couple of starting chapters that I wrote a while back, and start clean. The problem with that is that I like the first chapter, and I can visualize the end, but it's the really big bit in the middle that's the problem! Hang on a second, something just struck me - maybe, while I like the starting chapter, I don't like the direction that it takes the story, and the main character. Woohoo, minor breakthrough there, because I hadn't really thought about that until just now!

I guess if writing was that easy more people would do it; however, I know deep down that I can write, I have a pretty good grasp of story structure, and I know I'm capable of writing this damn novel. So what's going on? Is it work ethic or poor self discipline that's enticing me to distraction when I hit a block? Not completely sure, but I would lay down money against it being connected to bad habits more than anything else. I'm so used to wasting time, especially when I know I should be doing other stuff, that it's just second nature when things get tough or I hit a road block. It's not until I find my back against the wall that I end up getting motivated to get done what needs doing! There again, that's probably the point of the motivational spankings - to provide a painful consequence so that I'll be more motivated to push past the blocks, and not be tempted to fall back into bad habits where I make the choice to waste time.

On a positive note, luckily my behavior seems to have been fine, because she hasn't called me out on any rude or disrespectful behavior. There's been no instances of lying that I'm aware of, and I've only caught myself swearing a couple of times, but I think they slipped past J - either that or she has gotten so used to hearing it that it didn't register. I just need to try harder in that area, and for the most part I've been good. The point being that I was convinced my butt would be black and blue by now due to bad / disrespectful behavior, and I can only conclude that the threat of a spanking hanging over me is having some good positive affect.