Lately my motivation has been missing, playing an existential game of hide and seek with me. I tell myself I want to write, but my body does not move off of the couch and walk to my computer. It does not pick up a pen and pad of paper. My body remains glued to the couch, my thumb clicking the remote control in a desperate search for happiness in some visual stimulation.

It’s been like this since I got sick about a month ago. A terrible sinus infection waylaid me into missing 3 days of work. My head hurt so much I tried not to move it at all. I laid in bed or on the sofa sleeping and watching TV, waiting for the antibiotics to kick in. The illness finally took the hint and hit the bricks, but it took my motivation to be productive along with it.

A few weeks ago I forced myself to write. I posited that if I just started putting words out into the ether they would form something good, I would feel better and my energy and desire would return like a TV star to his sitcom after a failed movie. The result was some truly abhorrent poetry that no one will ever see. All remnants of it have been destroyed and the after images scrubbed from my retinas by space-age technology.

My latest attempt to turn things around was to dig out a novel I started a few years ago. I have about 60,000 words written. I’m happy with it, I just keep getting sidetracked from working on it and before I realize it months have passed with no work being done.

First I read the whole thing to re-familiarize myself with the story. Read over all my notes and let everything bubble up inside my brain. Then I started writing. Mission accomplished, right?

Not exactly. I’m pumping out 300 words a day on the novel which is pathetic. I should be able to wake up in the morning and sneeze out 300 words. It is a start though. I haven’t discovered my motivation yet, and I’ve looked everywhere, but working on the novel again has made a difference.