The Ups and Downs of Writing

So I haven't mentioned this yet, but my sister and I are writing a book. It's a long and painful process that started two summers ago when my sister randomly had an idea for a book about fairies. Yes, you read that right, fairies. And for some reason writing a book about fairies seemed like the greatest idea ever known to man and we immediately and passionately started scribbling away at pages upon pages and hoping that one day we'd be able to piece them together into something vaguely coherent and interesting. The book was going to be done by the fall, then the winter, then the next summer, then the next fall... Queue an insane amount of wedding planning on my end and a new baby on hers and needless to say the book is still not done.

As anyone who has attempted to write a book, or really anyone who has started a project that can't be completed in one quick afternoon, can testify to, there are a lot of obstacles in the process. It seems to be a never ending loop of moments of extreme motivation (I like to call these the "We can totally finish the book in the next month if we just write and edit every day" moments, also known as the "Moments of Improbable Optimism") and those where you can't even stand to look at the pages yet alone pick up a pen to work on them (I call these the "Most Frequently Occurring Moments"). And to make matters worse, all the while, throughout this up and down, "I can do it", "I can't do it," never-ending saga, is an underlying feeling of guilt every time you even consider spending a minute doing anything other than working on the book.

And so, like any respectable underachieving slacker, you find numerous other things to occupy your time instead in the hope that avoidance will somehow result in spontaneous motivation.

For instance, creating a craft storage cubby area:

Or reorganizing all of the books on your bookshelf by color:

and all of the movies:

Or making an earring holder out of yarn:

Until you reach a point where you realize that if you don't work on the book more months will inevitably pass and the possibility of EVER completing the freaking thing will fly out the window as quickly as the idea first popped into your head.

But of course that's easier said than done. So in my final attempt at procrastination, I decided to make something that might actually help me become motivated to write again.

So, for your viewing pleasure, and inspired by a pinterest post by my lovely friend over at Make It Sing here it is:

In case you can't read it it says:

Write
Some letters make a word
Write
Some words make a sentence
Write
Some sentences make a page
Write
Some pages make a chapter
Write
Some chapters make a book

...and in its new home on my desk with Bobblehead Seth: