It's never usually one single thing that makes you stop a reconsider something. There's always one final thing that brings it all to a catalyst but when things happen in such quick succession as for me in the last 12 hours it makes you sit up and pay attention much quicker.

Last night I said to my husband that I still had two scenes to write tomorrow (now today). He replied, "You have two scenes you want to write." I quickly corrected myself. Indeed, I have two scenes that I want to write today. No one is really going to care if I write them today, if I write them at all, except me.

Holly Lisle announced her big life changing New Year Resolution a couple days ago and her blog post today was the first in making that happen. She shares how we can make our lives what we want them to be, how we can find the dreams to change our worlds, the dreams that matter to us. The bit that really caught me was this: "If you feel guilty because you aren’t doing it, the reason you aren’t doing it is because it doesn’t matter to you." I think all writers have felt guilty about not writing but WHY? Most aspiring writers acknowledge that they are writing for themselves but why does it matter to you?

A cat of impossible colour linked to a fitness blog that twists New Years Resolutions right on their head. They talk about giving yourself a gift in 2010. If you resolve to lose weight there is an inherent struggle in just those two little words. If you think about why you want to lose weight, why it really matters to you, what you will be getting out of losing weight, then you find the gift to yourself. That gift of feeling healthy and have more energy is what will motivate you to lose the weight.

So...

I'm sitting here "wanting" to revise five scenes a week on Family Trust because:

  • Five scenes a week is a realistic goal.
  • Five scenes a week will result in one chapter a week and one chapter a week will result in the book completely revised in a couple months... why do I want the novel revised?
  • So I can write something new! But I could stop now and write something new.
  • I want to know I can finish revising a novel. But you know there's more you could revise from reading Revise Your Novel lessons. Do you really want to keep working on it for another six months?
  • No, no, no! I need to revise it to my level of knowledge at the time. I've sent it to beta readers. I'm revising to their comments. Why do I want the novel revised?
  • So I can submit it to agents and publishers. So I can get experience submitting and being rejected. So I can learn from the experience and improve my writing. So I can become published.
Now here's a question I know the answer to: Why do you want to be a published writer?

"I write to challenge myself, to test myself and push myself beyond what I think I can accomplish. I write to learn about people, about places, about culture, about life and about myself. I write to entertain, to create, to teach and to inspire."

It's that last sentence that leads to writing for publication. It's right there on the blog, just on the right, but how often do I read it? How often do I remind myself that this is the gift I give to myself whenever I write, whenever I revise, whenever I offer my stories up to the world? This is only the second time that I've paid this little paragraph the attention it deserves, the attention I need to give it. No wonder I'm having so much trouble!