motivation Archives - Irreverent Muse

Prevailing against Expectations

Posted on August 31, 2016 by Michell

I’ve been guilty of setting high expectations for myself throughout my life. Things like, if I work my butt off this year, I will show my boss I deserve that raise. Then, when I do my part and the other party doesn’t quite live up to their end of the bargain, I’m disappointed and frustrated. Usually when that happened (in the past) I started looking elsewhere. Let me tell you, moving jobs really sucks, even when you only do it every four or five years. The same has been true of my writing journey. If I write good stuff, am friendly, promote others and help out where and when I can, surely good things will happen, won’t they? Except, I’m […]

Are Villains Bad?

Posted on February 4, 2015 by Michell

I’m doing some writing workshops this year just like I did last year and I wanted to explore something that can be as simple or as complex as the audience is ready for. I wanted something that would be relevant to Grade 1 students all the way to adults. So, I decided that this year, I would tackle some of the questions regarding character motivation. As you might imagine, what motivates characters (as with living, breathing people) is as varied as the population of our imaginations. I also didn’t think a workshop titled Character Motivations was all that interesting. What I settled for was Good Villains and Bad Heroes. I thought it might be fun to blog about my thought […]

Motivation

Posted on November 25, 2014 by Michell

There are definitely times when I am feeling somewhat less than motivated to work on that next book or story. I know I’ve got deadlines, but the story is dragging or I’m tired or not feeling well. Then there are times when I simply cannot wait to get the next book written. Those are, I’m happy to say, happening more and more frequently. Most often, these motivations are triggered by a fan telling me how much they enjoyed my book or books. Tonight I had the pleasure to hang out with a local Cub Scout group. I’ve been with them before as a guest author. This time the few I saw last year were telling their buddies who I hadn’t […]

Beat but not Beaten

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Michell

I have this tendency to overcommitt myself. Now, if I didn’t care about actually fulfilling my commitments, it wouldn’t be much of a problem. That is not the case, however. When I say I’m going to do something, I do it and try to do it well. That in itself is not a character flaw (as far as I know), but it does tend to wear me down over time. Take Scouts, for example. I love being a Scout leader, but about this time every year I start to get cranky. The craziness of the troop and the lost days and nights every month make me wonder if I really want to do it again next year and please, please, […]

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