M.M. ii: Incentives and Rocks

I was going to open a big can of worms today with some interesting things I found on the web.  But I'll wait until tomorrow to do that (plus it's my last day of freedom!).  Today, I'll just stick with ehh stuff.  Things that later on in the life of this blog that you'll skip over to see the juicer posts.  But hey, every sandwich needs some lettuce.

I have two lovely things for today's Motivation Monday!  Writing/Reading/Going through Hell Incentives and a DIY Rock that keeps me focused.

Writing/Reading/Going through Hell Incentives:

According the the Merriam-Webster Dictionary the word incentive means: something that incites or has a tendency to incite to determination or action.  I'd have to agree with that, I mean it's right.  Currently I have two days (including today) until I get back to school.  What do I have to do?  Read another 50pgs of The Scarlet Letter and annotate that thing to pieces, oh and fill out two worksheets for AP Biology.  Yeah, I know that I procrastinate...  So what do I do to keep myself annotating and pushing forth?  I use incentives.
I'll tell myself: If you can make it to page 170 you get 30 minutes of freedom!  If you read the next 12 pages then you can go have breakfast.  If you finish the book you get a new book, one that you actually want to read and don't have to annotate!

How can you apply this to writing?  Easy!  I know that some people are going to think "Hey, you don't have to do this, it's called determination!"  Well I'll tell you one thing, determination dies after a while which is why I don't do cross-country any more, okay that and the fact that I have a weak knee...  I've done this before with writing stories, essays, letters, etc.  Tell yourself that you'll get that cup of yogurt at the grocery store if you write 2,000 words today.  If you edit your outline that you'll edit two pieces of clothing in your closet/tools in the garage.  Allow yourself to have breaks occasionally as well.  They don't have to be set, spontaneous-ness it necessary to keep current level of sanity when doing things that you really don't want to do.  If you have a great day of writing treat yourself.  Bad day?  Don't hurt yourself over it, just look what you could have done to make it better and continue on, just strive to get better.

With these little things your teaching yourself that good things can come from writing/reading when you use this repeatedly.  You're training yourself with little gifts  like you would train a dog with puppy treats.  This may seem silly to you, but it works!  I used to tell myself that I had to get things done or else I would not be able to do things.  It didn't work.  But once I tried rewarding myself to accomplish tasks it became easier and easier!  Go ahead, give it a try!

DIY Rock Paperweight:

I enjoy writing outside.  I have a nice table on our patio which looks out into the woods.  I also enjoy going to parks and my sister's games.  However I also enjoy writing on loose leaf notebook paper... And it gets windy around here... See my issue?  I have usually just used rocks when I go outside.  However I found this rock right after my little epiphany of a new novel.  I have it my head that the colors that represent this book are similar to a peacock feather, but a little darker...  I don't know why those colors, but the came to me with Cecily.  I new that I had to paint this rock!

What you'll need:
1 rock
Paint
Brushes
An Idea
Patience

Find a rock and clean it off if it has any dirt or ickiness on it.  Then get an idea of what you want to paint.  I was using a peacock feather for my influence.  Find the paint that you want (The WalMart and Meijer around me have art paint for around $0.75 each, so I grabbed two of those and used some other paint that I had laying around the house).  Now take the brush and paint!  Allow the paint to dry at least 20-30 minutes between each layer, for the first two or three it only takes about 10 minutes at least for mine it did...  Once your done let it dry overnight.  Voilà!  You have your very own paperweight.  Mine keeps my mind focused on what I want my story to tell, what I want to show to the reading world.  It is a great driving point for me.

I think that's all folks!  I still have 25 pages left in the novel, yeah, this has been my incentive.  What do you use for your incentives if you have them or what will you use?  Do you have any little things that remind you of your story when you write?  If so, please tell me:)  I'd love to hear!

Until next time!