How to stay motivated in the long game
Eyes on the (far away) prize
Hello darlings!
I hope everyone’s February has been full to the absolute brim with kicking ass and taking names!
One question that I often get is how I stay motivated to keep working on research, particularly long term projects. And oh wow is that a good question because the answer is often I don’t!
But this is a good week to talk about perseverance – we sent back page proofs on The Power of the Badge, a book on sheriffs that has been underway in some fashion since 2012! I also submitted a project that I started working on in 2017 this week!
(sometimes people ask if they can pay for MHAWS. No thank you. But you could pre-order this book if you want to support me! Apparently, pre-orders matter! To whom and why, I don’t know!)
So how the hell do I stay motivated? Here are my simple twenty-seven steps to staying engaged on a research project or projects: Step 1: open the document. Step 2-26: ???. Step 3: profit.
(Okay but seriously. Open the fucking document. And:)
Channel some main character shit
The first thing that keeps me motivated is challenging some main character shit by placing myself at the center of my story (sound up, NSFW). To stay motivated, I need to convince myself that my performance matters – it is central to the whole fucking thing. So I better just put on the show. (Please don’t develop main character syndrome though – you aren’t actually the main character in the whole fucking world!)
Main characters:
Do really hard things, but make it look easy
Do easy things but make them look really impressive
Don’t quit
(OR they quit all the time at the exact right time to move the story forward)
Keep coming back
Main character energy while writing is incredibly hard because we work for some imagined audience (journal editors, book editors, reviewers, readers, your nemeses) that doesn’t actually exist. Sometimes that audience is more supportive than any audience will ever be. Sometimes it is more critical. Sometimes (ahem, all the fucking time) we imagine that this audience will fixate on the same small problems that we see as HUGE. It turns out that we are fucking WRONG about all those things. The most likely outcome is that the audience is all those things (supportive/critical/esoteric) but also the final most damning / most freeing: there is no audience at all. No one thinks about your work. Reviewers will barely pay attention. Readers won’t read. So you just have to do the performance / write the damn thing for yourself.
So – sometimes when I am afraid or sad or disgusted with my work, I think: WWMCMD? (what would main character Mirya do?) And I put on a kickass playlist and do some vocal warm-ups and get to this shit.
Get help
I am not someone who is capable to doing this all by myself. I need a community to help me. That might include coauthors who keep me motivated by regular deadlines and interesting conversations and blowing my mind with their smarts. Coauthors keep me from doing really stupid shit.
Community also (for me) includes an editor like Kelly Clancy, who will read my work and make sure that I’m not embarrassing myself with my writing. Also, sending things to Kelly gives me a deadline that I would not necessarily otherwise abide by (I mean, I’d set that goal, but would I meet it? No).
I adore my writing groups and they help keep me focused on long term projects. Also it is very comforting to see that other people are still working on the same fucking project forever. Want to start your own? Some guidance, some more guidance, an article about starting one for people in disaster zones, and an article on one I started.
Work towards the magic
Writing is hard. If it was easy, then everyone would write a goddamn book. If anyone could do it, then they would. This process is, I’m convinced, magic. But it’s the kind of magic that only happens when you put in the work, day in and day out. That seems wrong, right? That magic requires work when we think of it as the flash – the AHA moment. The problem (for me, at least) is that the AHA moment’s likelihood of happening increases every time I work on a project. With every paper I read. When I finally can pull all the threads together. I can’t figure out what the spell is until I’ve assembled all the ingredients. So sit your ass at your desk and work on conjuring. (Serious – just open the fucking document)
Fuck the haters / Don’t let failures destroy you
Sometimes some one says something that sticks in your gut for years. To them, it was a passing comment (for me: “that seems like a fine, small contribution” or “not sure who will care about this, but okay”) and to you – earth-shattering. But you know what? Fuck those people. If you find their comments to be motivating, cool. Use it. If not, go to therapy, complain to your friends, and then move the fuck on. Open the document.
XOXOX
Mirya