It’s Wednesday, you lucky people, and that means it’s time for Wednesday Ramblings. This week, the gang (Bronwyn Green, Kris Norris, Jess Jarman, Jenny Trout, Gwendolyn Cease, Kelly St. James, and Leigh Jones) and I take a look at what motivates us to write.

Remember that scene in Star Wars when Darth Vader is chasing Luke down the trench in the Death Star? Ol’ Darth says, “The Force is strong with this one.” I have a motivating force too. OCT. I hesitate to go so far as to call it OCD…it’s not really obsessive compulsive DISEASE; it’s more like obsessive compulsive TENDENCY.

I like numbers. I like to watch them grow. Watching the word count on a manuscript get larger and larger is a huge motivator for me. It frustrated me to no end when I was having issues with my Scrivener writing program. No matter how much I wrote, it continued to list my word count as 21K. Yes, I got so bad that late at night when everyone else was in bed, I was going through and compiling my word count by hand. By hand! With a calculator and a chewed-on pencil. That’s just not right, people. Just today I figured out my problem; a couple of my sections were being treated as if they were manuscripts, not sub-sections of the actual manuscript. With a few right clicks, my word count soared to over 48K. Motivation!

I like to-do lists. I like to watch the scratch marks cut it down one chore at a time. This is my current one. You’ll notice “blog post” is still on there. Any minute now, I’ll be able to scratch it off. Ahh, the satisfaction. I even admit to being one of those people who, if I do something not on my list, I add it just so I can scratch it off. What can I say? It’s motivation. I always put my current writing goal on my to-do list too. You’ll see this one says “finish chapter.” Kind of vague but it works for me.

The other thing I like to use is minutes spent writing. I set the timer, most often for an hour. If I get up to get a drink a water, I note the minutes left so that I can crank it back up to that time when I’m done.

See my issue? Some might say I’m motivated by results, and although that sounds nice, I’m not sure that’s true. I’m pretty sure it’s OCT pure and simple, and it’s strong with this one. On the plus side, my OCT is a huge motivator for me. And what motivates me, only makes me stronger. Or something like that.

I have to go scratch off “blog post” on my to-do list. What about you? What’s your  motivator?