5 Minute Fix

Remember back last week when I said I was halfway through the draft and that I'd finish by the end of the year?  Remember that?  Yeah, um, that's not gonna happen.  I'm still only about halfway through, and it looks like I'm on my way to another January finish this year.  (Or would that be next year?  Ugh.)  I took off  several days after some unexpected stress derailed me.  Correction, I allowed some unexpected stress to derail me.

But that's ok.  I'm all about practicing some zen and the art of letting go. So, I let it go.  I spent the weekend enjoying my girls and a little fresh air therapy.  It's what I needed.  It's what I wanted.  I don't regret a minute of not writing.

Now I'm ready to get back into the story.  The problem, even though it's only been a few days, is that the story feels foreign.  And I'm out of the habit.  And I'm lazy.  And I just don't want to.  Whah.    But it's not true.  I really do want to write this story, and I know better than to buy into that crap.  So what's a girl to do?  Easy.  Write.

My quick fix is usually five minute writing.  I commit to five minutes a day.  Now, I'm not going to get this story written in any reasonable amount of time in five minutes a day, but it fixes those self-defeating whiny messages.  I can write for five minutes.  Then I get to say, "I wrote today," which is a great motivator by itself.  And after just a few minutes a day, I have a new habit.  Which builds momentum.  I always say, momentum is the best tool for a writer.  Losing it sucks, and I usually try at all costs to keep it going, usually with those five minutes a day.  Plus, after just a few days I get to know my story again, and five minutes quickly becomes ten, which then becomes twenty and thirty and more.  So in just five minutes, I can fix all of those things I whined about in the previous paragraph.

But some days, I have trouble motivating myself for five minutes.  It doesn't happen often, but some days I need a little extra motivation.  A chocolate carrot.  So, I'm curious.  What do you do on those blah days?  Whether it's writing, work, shopping with the kids,  crafting, or whatever, how do you get motivated to do something you know you really want/need to do, but can't get past the blahs?  What's your chocolate carrot?