Motivation

I’m sitting here having written only one line today and two yesterday. I’m starting to get worried as I now lack the motivation to really get stuck into my novel. I have been running situations, ideas and plots through my head for a long time but have produced nothing.

In Hiney’s biography he says of his subject, Raymond Chandler, ‘Wherever he and Cissy [his by then sick wife] were living, he would wake early, work till lunchtime at his typewriter, and then finish for the day.’ He goes on to quote Chandler as saying, ‘The important thing is that there should be a space of time, say four hours a day at least, when a professional writer doesn’t do anything but write. He doesn’t have to write, and if he doesn’t feel like it, he shouldn’t try. He can look out the window or stand on his head or writhe on the floor, but he is not allowed to do any other positive thing.’ (Raymond Chandler; A Biography - Page 122)

So this morning I set my alarm for Seven O’clock hoping to get some work done. I eventually rose around Ten and was disappointed in myself. I must make more of an effort to catch up on sleep (I work into the early hours of the morning on Thursday, Friday and Saturday) and to motivate myself. I will set my alarm for Seven again tomorrow and I will get myself up and writing.

‘Write as often as possible, not with the idea at once of getting into print, but as if you were learning an instrument.’ – J.B. Priestley (Writing a novel by Nigel Watts - Page 139)

On that note, here are a few lines from the last couple of days that will no doubt go through some tuning;

Her Bacardi breath hugged me. / Her Brandy breath hugged me. / The smell of Cognac caressed my nostrils.

---------------------

He must have had no idea what the insides of his trouser pockets felt like.

(Note: I quite like the above line, though I’m trying to think of something a bit more subtle for describing a cheapskate or tightwad. One of Chandler’s lines I particularly like is from The Little Sister when he describes an actress as looking ‘almost as hard to get as a haircut.’ It could have been a lot more explicit but isn’t and because of that it is funnier.)

---------------------

Looking through the bottom of the glass after my first drink made the place look distorted but by my last drink it looked normal. I preferred it distorted.

---------------------

Her bank balance clearly went up as her knickers went down. / Her bank balance clearly rose as her morality sank.