I found it. I found what can motivate me to keep going. This article about “The Dip.”
I’ve been frustrated by Mandy’s Story because the edits are hard and I feel like I’m fighting with it more than fixing it.
So in the article it asks these questions:
- Do you care about this story?
- Are you in love with this character?
- Does that story arc actually matter to you?
- Does this scene make you feel a strong emotion?
- And for every distracted writer out there—is that TV show/Twitter feed/game more important to you than finishing your most important writing project ever?
I do care about this story. It is more than just the story. It’s the start of a whole World, a place I created and dreamed up. There are people in this World that I need to share with others, places in Glenn Lake (the fictional town) that need to shown, explained.
I love Mandy and I feel her story needs to be told. She wants to tell it so that anyone who feels taken advantage of by someone they love (like a parent, spouse, friend) knows they can stand up to them and thrive. She does that. Stands up to her mother and then thrives without her.
The story matters to me. I’ve been in a controlling relationship and being able to stand up, move forward, and find yourself is so much a part of me. I need to figure out how to get that in my story.
The scene(s) I keep stuck on probably don’t matter as much as I’m making them out to be, but yes matter. I just need to prioritize how much they matter and move forward. This is why I keep getting stuck and falling in the dip because I’m trying to make each part too perfect rather than just regular perfect. Some of the smaller scenes really could stop and I don’t need to work them to death.
And, finally #5, except for my family, there is nothing more important than getting my story finished so I can publish. That is my goal and I need to stay focused on that fact.
So I found my motivation to get back to Mandy’s story, to finally just finish my edits already and get this thing out there for people to read.