Find Your Fire

Hi friends!

Happy Monday! It’s been a minute since I’ve posted because I was finishing up the second draft of my book before traveling back home to Ohio for a few days before going on vacation to Austin, TX this week! I wrote the first draft of this book I’m working on during NaNoWriMo and started the second draft in January. I scrapped pretty much everything besides the characters and basic plot points from my first draft and rewrote the second draft. My original draft was 50,000 words. My second draft is 70,000 words! I still can’t believe I wrote that much! While the book still isn’t perfect and I think I need about 30,000 more words for the story to be more fleshed out, the second draft is such a big improvement from the first one. This week’s motivational Monday is dedicated to finding what sets your soul on fire. I think we are all searching for this feeling of purpose with something we’re passionate about. And it's totally different for everyone. I’m lucky in that I always knew I loved writing. In fact, you could say I was obsessed with it.

So finding what set my soul on fire was easy. The hard part was finding the courage to do it. It wasn’t enough to simply write a day here, let a few months pass, and then pick up the pen again. I’ve had to boldly chase this thing that set my soul on fire on a daily basis.

But simply writing on a daily basis isn't always enough. Before I began this book, I had written a draft of another book. Although I loved the characters and the plot, after setting the project aside for some period of time, when I returned to that project I just wasn't passionate about it anymore. So I stopped writing it. Was it tough to do? Yes and no. I was mad at myself for not sticking with the project, but now that I have this one, I'm really glad I'm not still working on it. Sometimes you have to say no so that you can say yes to things that REALLY light up that fire in our souls.

Maybe one day I'll pick that first project back up, but I think the best writing comes when you are obsessed with an idea. That idea you just can't stop thinking about. This isn't to say writing still isn't hard or writer's block doesn't happen, but when you have an idea for a book you love, you are invested in constantly improving that book and seeing it through to the end to the best of your abilities. It ignites something inside of you like a fire. And once you find this fire, you must let it blaze.

Thanks for stopping by my blog! Hope to see you around here sometime soon!

Taylor