Smiley Board

In a recent post on her blog Cathy C's Hall of Fame my writing Yoda posed the question, "What's over your writing spot?"  I thought it an interesting question because we all have different ideas about what should motivate/inspire us to get our butts in gear.

As it happens, I have a bulletin board full of family photos.  This was not the original use for the bulletin board.  The board was supposed to be a place for me to post submission deadlines, inspirational quotes, snippets of grammatical and spelling reminders, you know, writerly stuff.  It is, instead, a collage of pictures. Not exactly what I had planned for my mad rush to publication.

In considering this, I realized that no matter how frustrated I become with the tap-tap-tapping of my fingers on the keyboard and the way it translates to the screen (rarely flashes of brilliance I'm sorry to say), all I have to do is look up and there are a dozen smiling faces reminding me that if I never publish another thing the world won't end. My life is on that board in the images of people I love, and as it turns out, that is a pretty strong motivator, especially when I'm balancing the checkbook which requires frequent glances at those photos of happy people and, often, a big fat glass of wine (but that's for another post).

Lest you think my writing space is all fun and games, I do have an erasable two month calendar tacked up next to my smiley board. This keeps track of submission deadlines and other writer type stuff so I don't feel like a total slacker.

What is your great motivator? I don't mean just for writing; I mean for anything. What motivates you to keep going on days when you'd really rather halt the world and go take a nap, or hide under one of those little umbrellas the bartender drops into your Mai Tai? Personally, I have a lot of motivators, internal and external. But I gotta say that smiley board is the best shot in the arm ever.

Til next time -
Lisa