Jay Lake has a post about motivation that I tried responding to a couple of times but decided instead to post about it here, myself.

Some of my motivations sound very similar to Jay’s, in that I gave myself permission to succeed. Failure’s easy. That just means you have to work harder, do more, etc. Success is much more difficult. It means changing your self-definition. Once I gave myself permission to succeed, permission to be a writer and write, I really started writing. It’s a mind-shift, a perception shift. I watched it happen to my nephew when he was about 25. He’d always considered himself a writer (as I had) but there’s a difference. I can’t really explain it better than you finally gain your wings and have the courage to use them.

I’ve been thinking about how I’ve been getting through this past month, this 100 days push of mine. And part of it, for me, is a different self-definition. Today was a very bad day for me physically. Can’t even begin to tell you how shitty I felt (still feel.) I had horrific allergies all day, including at least half a dozen sneezing fits (where I can’t do anything but sneeze for up to three minutes. Which doesn’t sound like much — until you’ve actually done it for three minutes, barely able to catch your breath in between violent sneezes.)

I still wrote tonight. I’m still on target. Why? Because I’m tough. That’s just part of how I define myself. I’m both my mother’s daughter, as well as my father’s daughter. And they taught me how to be tough, and push through. It’s just what you do sometimes.