Blog Chain - Dream On

I should NEVER be allowed to start a blog chain! For some reason or other, I always seem to forget and this round is no exception. Since finishing my agent revisions last week, I sort of went on mental hiatus. I still have comments to post from last round, and I'm sorry fellow chainers... I'll get to you ASAP! :)

I'm going to combine the blog chain with a post I've been thinking about writing for a while now:

What do you do to keep yourself motivated when you feel like you're not making any progress in your writing career?

It could have been last week's episode of Glee that inspired me. Aerosmith's DREAM ON has got to be one of my favorite motivational songs, and it made me think of all the times on this journey to publication where I felt like I was spinning my wheels and making no real progress at all. You begin to feel hopeless, and that's not a feeling I enjoy.

There were times when I had extreme ups and extreme downs. Requests for fulls and an agent conversation that had me soaring through the clouds, only to send me slamming down to earth. That was the worst for me, that episode almost six months ago. I leaned on my family. I whined to my friends. I cried. I cried for about three days. It was the one time that I truly felt like I needed to take an extended break from this dream of mine. My friends and crit partners rallied, telling me I was good enough, reassuring me it was only a matter of time. My kids urged me to keep going despite the odds. And my husband, usually a writing opponent, turned to me one night when I was at my lowest and said, "You're going to get up in the morning, you're going to sit down at that computer. And you're going to write."

I needed that kick in the ass. It was like waking up from a stupor. This was my dream! How could I even THINK about giving up so easily? I hadn't even broken the surface of the query pool! I wasn't even close to throwing in the towel!

Thanks to my friends and family and their kind words and in case of my husband, some firm commands, I sat down at my computer the next day and I spent the next two weeks revising my novel. I spent the next two months querying that novel, and three months to the day after that low moment... I signed with an agent. This is my dream. Some dreams are harder to achieve than others. But when I was feeling less than motivated to keep fighting, I listened to the voices around me, the ones that lifted me up from that dark place. To write a novel is a solitary thing, but I've never felt so surrounded by support as when I dreamed the dream of becoming a published author.

How do you keep motivated when you feel you're losing momentum with your writing? Check out Sandra's post after mine to see how she keeps her wheels spinning!