Just Some Thoughts

Examining our internet culture one comes to believe that Validation is the main motivator and desire of most humans. The validation monster is not lost on writers. I've known a lot of talented individuals who gave up on their writing dreams because they did not receive the validation they desired. But why do we care so much what others think? Why do we spend so much of our time seeking someone to approve of what we do, someone to make us feel like what we do is awesome and that we are important? And in many cases it's not just one someone but many someones. I don't have any answers for this. In my own experience I oscillate between being confident in myself and my abilities and wondering if my successes/awesomeness is fake since it often goes unwitnessed/unvalidated by others. I see any shake in my confidence as a shallow response to a world consumed by the need for validation; but maybe it's truly part of the human condition. Does the chimpanzee feel less if he makes a tool and no one witnesses it, probably not. So why do humans have to put their life on display in the hopes of getting a positive response from individuals they've never met? Maybe it's because of how rare it is to get positive responses from individuals we know. Everyone is so consumed with their own issues they don't reach out and support one another, they don't notice one another, they don't validate one another. I know those that surround me try their best to support me and I hope I return the favor but maybe I'm so caught up in my own issues that I don't. If only we spent as much time looking to one another and building the confidence of our friends and loved ones as we spend pining away in silence wishing strangers would notice us and boost us up. I know people aren't born with deep and unaltered pools of confidence, it's something we learn to build or spend a lifetime looking for. I also know that so many writers and other creative types have given up because of the lack of validation they perceived from strangers. Rejection is hard, but your dreams are worth fighting for. Even if it means fighting against the voices in your head that tell you you're no good without the validation of strangers.

Motivation

After missing my goal of having my last project edited a final time by 2009, I thought yet again about motivation and "writer's block". I am unmotivated by many things, one being work. Here is a fancy chart I made, while at work, to explain part of why I get no writing done (not included on chart is time spent making random charts):

If you're familiar with motivational charts, you've probably noticed that on most motivational charts for writers the portions dedicated to sleep and wrestling a bear would be switched, but bears are hard to come by in my neck of the woods, and all of the leg work necessary to even find a bear to wrestle makes it less appealing than sleep.

To get back to the main topic: If you're a writer and you work full time - Good luck to you, you probably will never be successful. I know that's a downer, but that's life - and no, there is no way around it.
Okay, so maybe that's a little extreme, so here are some options to consider when dealing with lack of motivation/"writer's block".

=>Take time off from your current project. Maybe a few weeks, or few months not writing will give your brain rest and allow you to start anew. But in my case, taking time off usually prolongs my lack of motivation, it doesn't really help.

=>Take the project in a new direction. Maybe your subconscious is stopping you because you are working your way to a dead end, and you need to rethink the plot so that your story will become what it is meant to be or whatever.

=> Work on a different project. Working on other story ideas, or other creative projects may rekindle your desire to work on the story that's stuck.

=> Get your life in order. It is possible that you are not motivated because you have other life issues that are haunting you when you try to sit down to write.

=> Re-prioritize. Maybe nothing is wrong with your life, as you see it, but you might be dedicating too much time to your miniature model-T sets, which not only strains your eyes, glues your fingers together, and expels fumes that give you flash backs from the 1880's; but also makes you too exhausted to finally sit down and finish the next great American novel.

Okay, you can't lose the job (or you'd be homeless) but you can cut down on bear wrestling (sorry bears, I know you love the "cuddles") and you can cut down on the miniature model-T's (sorry Henry Ford, or should I say Nazi Ford? That's right, I know your secrets Mr. Ford and I will share them with the world, once I get enough motivation to finish my novel!), that will allow you about 6 minutes and 43 seconds a day to work on that novel. If you type 50 words a minute and the average book is 80,000 words long (give or take 20,000ish), 50 over 60 equals .8333333333 words per second and you've got 403 seconds a day of writing time, carry the two, and you've got 335.833333333 words a day, divide 80,000 by that and in 238.2 days you'll have your first version (or rough draft) complete for your novel. So, about 6 years per novel. Should you quit now, maybe, that's not for me to judge. Does this scenario make you even less motivated?
Probably.
It definitely demotivated me.