Writers' Wednesday: How To Stay Motivated

“I have not failed [at inventing the light bulb] 700 times. I have proven 700 ways it will not work.”
~Thomas Edison


Welcome to another Writers' Wednesday! Remember, if you leave a comment on today's post, you'll be entered into a random drawing to win a $5 Amazon gift certificate. Thanks for stopping by!

###

Sometimes it seems as though the effort of writing just isn’t worth it. You want to find an agent, and all you get are “Thanks but not right for us” letters. Or you desperately want to get published but can’t convince a publisher to request anything more than a partial. Or you really wish you could finish a darn story, but you can’t find the time or the words just won’t come.

It’s easy to give up on days like these. It’s easier to find other things to do, to just say, “Well, it isn’t meant to be."

But here, in no particular order, are 10 reasons you shouldn’t:

#1. Einstein was 4 years old before he could speak and 7 years old before he could read.

#2. A newspaper editor once fired Walt Disney because “he had no good ideas.”

#3. Beethoven’s music teacher once said of him, “As a composer, he is hopeless.”

#4. As a boy, Thomas Edison was told by his schoolteachers he was too stupid to learn anything.

#5. Leo Tolstoy flunked out of college.

#6. Winston Churchill failed 6th grade.

#7. Abraham was defeated for Congress 4 times before being elected President of the United States.

#8. Louis Pasteur was rated “mediocre” in chemistry at Royal College.

#9. Louisa May Alcott was told by an editor she could never write anything that had popular appeal.

#10. Stephen King was told, of his first horror novel Carrie, “We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell.”

Print out this page and tape it up somewhere (or heck, stick it in a drawer. I won’t care ;) ). And whenever you’re feeling discouraged, read it over. Everyone has faced challenges and disappointment and a certain level of failure in their pursuits. The truly successful don’t let it kill their spirit.

Write on!