First off, sorry for not posting this yesterday. The interwebs decided they hated me and wouldn’t let me submit. Urg.
As many of you already know, Ellen Hopkins is feeling the burn of book banners. She was set for a school visit in OK; when a couple days before the visit, one parent demanded her books be taken off the library shelves. Her appearance at the school was canceled (though the librarian was great and found an alternate venue for her to speak at). Read Ellen’s story on her blog.
For Banned Books Week, Ellen wrote a poem, “Manifesto”. It is all kinds of powerful. Here is Ellen reading it:
To read the words of “Manifesto”, visit the Banned Books Week site.
I have actually never read Ellen’s books, though they are on my (incredibly long) list of books to read. Here is what I do know about them: my seventeen-year-old sister is not a big reader. There is a small handful of books she will actually read. But she devours Ellen’s books. She loves them. No matter what the subject matter of a book, I think that is a powerful thing.
If a person wants to protect their child from a certain book, that is fine. They should keep it from THEIR child. I will not stand for others telling my (future) children what they can and cannot read.
And now…
Personality Toolkit: Drive
Writing is a solitary process. Sure, writers have support systems. I have Bubba, who is always encouraging me, my first readers, my friends and family, who help me along, and countless others. But, when it comes down to it, getting the writing done is on me and me alone.
Without the drive and self-motivation to get things done, novels would never be written. There are too many things in life to distract from writing (except, of course, when I am really in it and writing becomes an almost unsafe distraction from the rest of life). Nobody else is going to motivate me to work (though Bubba does a great job of trying), so I need to motivate myself.
I have found the source of self-motivation is a sense of accountability.
Ways I have given myself a sense of accountability:
- I tell people I am a writer. I don’t write in the shadows, but out in the open.
- I share my writing goals with others.
- I built a website and put myself out there.
- I talk about writing and my journey to complete strangers (and friends as well) on this blog.
All of these things-and many more-keep me accountable. Accountability motivates me. So, even on days when I don’t really feel like writing, I put words on the page. I push the distractions aside and tell my story.
How do you motivate yourself?
