Is anyone else finding is nearly impossible to get things done during this time of year? I have a major celeb profile due this week, and it is all I can do to crack open the document and eke out a few lousy sentences. It didn't used to be this way: in fact, I remember in years past, that December and early January were some of my busiest times (surprisingly), and maybe I just didn't have time to procrastinate, but wow, am I struggling to get off the bench these days.

I was thinking about this - my lack of motivation on this particular piece, which, incidentally, I should be loving, so it's not anything about this specific piece that has my ass dragging - and how I can jumpstart myself, when it occurred to me that this was an excellent topic for this blog. Because, it dawned on me, there is a very big difference between feeling unmotivated and thus not writing, and really and truly being blocked and thus not writing. I guess the end result is the same: a blank page, but the root of the problem can be very different.

I've found that in the past, when I've lacked motivation to tackle an article, it's often because I don't have enough information to really dive into. I need to fully and completely saturate myself with every possible angle on the subject before I am 100% confident in my writing. Which doesn't mean that I always DO this, it just means that I can definitely tell the difference in the ease with which the words flow if I am overprepared in my knowledge of my subject matter. The same holds true for this celeb piece. I was really stuck as to how to start it. I'd mentally drafted several intros, but I knew I could do better. Finally, after pouring over some past interviews of this celeb and rereading my own transcripts a few times, it came to me last night in the middle of the night. Aha! Yes! Now I'm psyched to sit down and write this baby because I know it will ring true. My preparation made that happen.

Now, alternatively, I think a lot of us get stuck with fiction, and get stuck in a way that little can be done to get us out of it. In these instances, sometimes I try to write anyway, but that's often just really depressing because the words and pages just suck. In these instances, sometimes, I step away from the work for a bit...I never stop thinking about it, but yeah, I give myself a chance to breath, to consider new angles and new obstacles for my characters, and almost inevitably, I work through my block. Of course, there's certainly something to be said for just keeping at it: fiction is a muscle that needs to be flexed, and often times, the more you flex it, the stronger it becomes...but not always. Sometimes, you just end up straining something.

So...this season, if you're finding yourself wholly unmotivated, maybe consider the cause. Are you inadequately prepared to write knowledgeably on the subject or are you just plain stuck? And if you've found yourself in my position, please do share your tips on breaking out of it? (Online shopping is certainly a good one!) :)

So there's been some discussion on a writers' board I frequent about motivation and how to stay interested and energized day in and day out with your writing. I thought this was a fantastic discussion for the blog because I feel like I'm smacked with ennui several times a year, and I know that I'm not alone in this.

For me, the best way to deal with the blahs is to branch out into something new. In this sense, writing is no different than any other job - everyone needs to change things up every now and then. That's honestly why I started writing fiction: I just got tired of the constant deadlines of the magazine work and writing piece after piece on subjects that I already knew about. What I loved most about magazine writing when I first started out was that I was learning so damn much. I mean, if you write about a variety of subjects and interview enough experts, you're bound to soak up reams of info yourself...but after a while, especially to maximize your time to money ratio, you tend to cover similar subjects over and over...and well, that's just not the best way to feed your brain, though it does help feed your bank account.

So, I started writing fiction in my off-hours. Turned out that initially, I wasn't so great at it. But it didn't matter! It energized me, made me fall back in love with writing, and that energy carried over to my magazine assignments, which I returned to with a renewed vigor.

But now, having just been given the official sign off on Time of My Life (my editor deemed it, "perfect!"), I'm faced with diving back into the grind, and lemme tell you, it's not coming easily. I have enough time to now tackle more work but I'm dragging my feet because I'm waiting for something to jump out and inspire me. Maybe it's my next book? I dunno: I'm brainstorming ideas, but I've found that brainstorming doesn't work best for me - I just need to be struck like lightening with an idea and characters, so...eh...that's not filling too much of my time. I'm staying busy with celebrity stuff and various mag work here and there...but still, I'm weighted down with that weird feeling of being both antsy and bored.

Normally, I'd take a day or two off and kick around to renew my enthusiasm - and in many cases, I think this is exactly what works - play hooky, do something you love, take a walk - and you'll return to your computer raring to go. But in my case, I'm not sure. Honestly, I think that maybe on solution is to return to work full-blast: I find that when I'm working on a ton of stuff, I have less time to think about being bored, and thus, voila, I am less bored and more stimulated by what I'm doing.

But...eh....I don't know. I'm guessing that I haven't fully laid my characters from Time of My Life to rest, and once I've fully gestated that book, I'll be fired up to move on to something bigger and better. (Which, in the meantime, means I have a lot of time for twiddling my thumbs.)

So what do you guys do when either daily or more long-term blahs hit?

So last week's post on Writer Unboxed generated some interesting comments and good food for thought. Not least because I spent the holiday weekend pouring through a new book, the kind of book that you can't believe you've been reading for hours because it seems like time stood still while you were flipping each page and the kind of book that you stay up waaaaaay past your bedtime to "just read one more chapter." The book was Barefoot by Elin Hilderbrandt, and man, I just loved it. (FYI: I don't know Elin, nor do I know her agent, editor, publicist or anyone even remotely connected to her, so I'm not just saying this to pimp her book! I really and truly loved it.)

Anyway, for those of you who didn't read my post last week, the general summary is this: first stabs at novels often suck, even if you don't see this at the time, and as a writer, even a published one, you should always strive to boost your writing each and every time you step up to the plate. I sincerely feel like Time of My Life makes leaps and bounds over The Department, and well, I don't even want to think of how crappy my (unpublished) book was before that. And Suzanne, a blog reader, posted an interesting comment - or interesting to me at least - was how she rarely heard published authors saying that they could improve their work. I guess the assumption is that getting published is enough.

Maybe for some authors it is. I think we could all name a few authors who churn out books year in year out in which the names are changed and maybe the plot is slightly varied, but more or less, the author hasn't cracked his or her success code. Hey, it works for him or her, and I don't have any problem with this.

But for me, I mean, what's the point of writing - whether you're working on your still-unpublished novel or your follow-up to your bestseller - if you're not trying to one-up your skill set each time? I think that this is where we, as writers, ideally all stand on the same ground, regardless of where you are in your writing aspirations and success. Look, it sucks when your first (or second) novel doesn't land an agent or doesn't nab a publisher, but I have enormous respect for people who can dust themselves off and say, "The experience was part of this ride; this career isn't a horizontal line; next time at the plate, I might swing and actually get a hit."

All of which leads me back to Barefoot. I read it on the recommendation of someone (I can't remember who now, because I sent a friend a note thanking her for the suggestion and it turned out she hadn't suggested it...so...if whomever recommended it is out there, thank you!), and I'm now interested in going back and reading Hilderbrand's other books (she's written six). And I'm curious to see if I can tell the difference between the first one and the sixth...because I hope that if I'm ever able to eke out six novels, that readers will be able to note the difference in quality in mine. That, to me, is what marks a successful writing career, and that, to me, is a big part of what this is all about. (That said, if all of her books are as good as Barefoot, I seriously might show up on her doorstep, kneel at her feet and ask her for her secrets!)

So tell me, have you read debut novels and been blown away by future books by the same writer? Or is this whole learning curve that I subscribe to overblown? Maybe you're just born with the ability to be a good writer and if so, each and every time you knock it out of the park? (As you can tell, I have a lot of thoughts and questions on this subject!)

I was cruising through some blogs the other day, when I came across this post on Tammie's site, which is all about how music influences her characters and her writing. And I asked her if I could raise that subject here because I think it's such a cool and relevant point.

I'm a big music-phile. (Is that a word? Probably not.) I'm completely and hopelessly addicted to my Napster to Go subscription and always devote at least a bit of time each day seeking out new bands and singers who strike literal chords within me. So after reading Tammie's post, I took some time to think about how music influenced my own writing and scene setting, as well as how much it's influenced my own life. I'm sort of someone who - at the risk of sounding like Ally McBeal (yipes!), has always had various soundtracks for my life, contingent on my mood or what phase I was currently in. More so than melody, I've always related to lyrics, and if the lyrics impact me in some way, you can bet that the song will be on rotation in my house for months or years to come. Right now, I'm sort of in this self-evaluation phase, and I'm digging melodic mid-tempo singers like Chantal Kreviazuk, Sara Bareilles, Mandy Moore, Mat Kearney, Brandi Carlile and the like. I listen to their songs and get lost in them, as if they're personally speaking to me.

And in some ways, I very much do the same with my characters. My heroine, Jillian, in Time of My Life is helplessly lost between two lives and two loves, and desperately trying to find her way back to what feels right, and so, when I hear Vanessa Carlton's "Home," it resonates and helps me dig into Jillian's mindset - it really transports me to the scenes in which Jill's trying to figure out what feels like "home." Ditto Ben Fold's "The Luckiest", which is all about how someone comes to appreciate how fortunate he is for the love he has in his life. And Five for Fighting's "The Riddle" speaks to Jillian's love for her child, even when she doesn't quite know her place in the world. I could go on like this for days: Dashboard Confessional's Stolen, Mandy Moore's "Most of Me," Snow Patrol's "Open Your Eyes," The Weepies' "The World Spins Madly On," even "Skid Row," from Little Shop of Horrors, which sounds random I know, but every time they launch into the last verse:

Someone show me a way to get out of here,
'Cause I constantly pray I'll get out of here.
Please won't somebody say I'll get out of here,
Someone gimme my shot or I'll rot here.

Show me how and I will I'll get out of here,
I'll start climbing up hill and get out of here,
Someone tell me I still can get out of here,
Someone tell Lady Luck that I'm stuck here.

Gee it sure would be swell to get out of here,
Bid the gutter farewell to get out of here,
I'd move heaven and hell to get out of Skid,
I'd give I don't know what to get out of Skid,
But a hell of a lot to get out of Skid,
People tell me there's not a way out of Skid,
But believe me I've got to get out of Skid row.

I'm always moved by the tenacity behind the lyrics and the fight in the voices behind them, and damn if it doesn't give both me and my characters a kick in the butt. (Yes, I love show tunes, so what?) :)

So, I'm always looking for music suggestions. Who or what inspires both you and your writing? Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving!!

Today, I'm over at Writer Unboxed talking about writerly karma and wondering why we all just can't be happy for each other's success...

Check it out!