A young man wrote me the other day saying that he had been inspired by some ideas he had, but didn’t get too far in putting them in narrative form, and implied that he was awaiting the motivation to try again.

You can’t hang around waiting for motivation. You can wait for the inspiration to try motivating yourself, but that could mean doing nothing for an awful long time. We writers should always take the shorter route (in terms of time) and get on with the obvious. We already have the ideas ( or the material as my correspondent called it) even if it is in only some vague form. Writing is what cements them together. We have to dispense with the laziness, and the fears of failure that overcome us, and put in both the physical and the mental effort to motivate ourselves; apply the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair, and write. That is what those of us who tag ourselves as writers do, isn’t it? We write. We must dispel any notions of being blocked because that is only another way of saying that we are awaiting motivation. The effort can be punishing, but if you ever want to have that finished manuscript in your hand, wish to see the work published, then there is no other way.

I appear to have had some problems with the connection of my blog to Linked in. I hope they have been resolved but I ask anyone still having trouble to please let me know.