How to stay MOTIVATED!

Motivation is the driving force for success.  Nothing important that has ever been done was accomplished through an unmotivated person.  I'm sure there are just as many moments in your life as there have been in mine where you did something, changed something, threw caution to the wind, etc, because something motivated you to do it; maybe a girl or guy that you liked, maybe it was the picture of someone you wanted to be like, maybe it was a powerful speech made by a hero or someone you looked up.  Whatever it was, it got you to do something that, at that moment in time in your life, was above and beyond your norm.

Now, motivation is obviously a personal and relative term.  What may be motivating to one person will not motivate another and to another it may have the exact opposite effect.  For example, I love fitness.  I couldn't give a number of how many Youtube video's of my bodybuilding idols I've watched to learn how to workout or to just motivate myself to go to the gym.  Yet there are people that I know that when they see that kind of dedication and physical accomplishment they think, and tell me, "I'll never look that good, so why go?" or "I could never look like that, so why try?" or they are just overwhelmed by the figurative mountain of work that they would have to climb to achieve a relative equal amount of success in their personal lives.

Your success will never be theirs, neither theirs yours.  You have to want it for the right reasons.  You have to find what motivates YOU and make the changes necessary to allow that motivation to take hold and affect your actions.  Losing motivation is one of the easiest things to do; in fact, it can happen when you don't do anything at all.  And that's why it's so dangerous.  Motivation requires constant nourishment; it will die, unquestionably, if you don't feed it.  Find what motivates you and then research everything there is to find about that thing.  If its music, search every music player available and every artist to find the songs that you can listen to to keep you motivated.  If you need motivation in fitness, don't expect a memory or thought of your idols to keep you motivated; hang a picture on the front of your door so that every time you leave you are reminded of what you are working for.  If you're like me and need motivation for writing, you need to fall in love with your story again and again and again.  If you don't love it it's not worth your time.

When I began my first book I had no idea what I was doing.  It was a few paragraphs over a page or two in a Word document and my brother just so happened to come across it.  He read it and he liked what he read.  He was sincere when he told me that I should expand on the story and keep writing; he actually wanted to see where it could go.  That was my motivation in the beginning.  Now, it did/does help that one of the main characters is based on him.  However, that was my motivation.  Now, along with him, my motivation mainly comes from my story.  I WANT to find out what happens, I get excited when I start journeying to new places in my world that I haven't really ironed out completely the details.  I love writing and having my story come to me as I stare at the screen, an actual story unfolding before my eyes filled with what I have created.

You have the potential to not only be motivated but to motivate.  Find whatever it is that motivates you and never let go of it.  Seek it out, learn everything you can about it and you'll see great things happen.  One of my most inspirational idols and personal favorites, Arnold Schwarzenegger, once said in a motivational speech "Don't be afraid to fail!".  I second that.

Note keeping is KEY!

Note keeping, in my experience, has been vital to my story and helping it progress while keeping track of the important details, both large and small.  With fiction, I would say that most of my story comes to me while I am away from the keyboard so it has been extremely helpful to keep detailed notes on what comes to mind so that I don't forget any of the details.  I have a section of notes on my phone and iPad and on my computer in many different Word documents.
You may find, like myself, that you don't end up using all of the notes that you take down during any given period of time but what I have found is that while I go over the notes that I have taken more ideas flood into my mind and help me to create, sometimes, an even better idea/story line that I like more.  Much of the notes that you do take may never be put onto paper or into your story but they will always affect what does get put down.
Look at it this way, notes are the refiners fire to a story...in a sense.  They can help you, as you read through them, smooth the edges of characters that you aren't fully sure of what their persona will be like, how their personality will come across, the reasons behind the many, many action of all of the different characters in your story, how the world will work...whether it will be more or less similar to other books of the same genre, and even your writing style.
Take careful notes when your story decides to give you small clips in your imagination; more often that not it will be for your story's betterment.

-The Fit Author