How do we stay motivated to write? I mean: work, school, kids, family... It all gets us tired and worked up. So how do we stay inspired rather than giving up?
It all depends on how badly you want to write. The more you want to write, the more you will make time to do it. Get up earlier, go to bed later, use lunch breaks, commutes, etc etc.
Find something that you love to write. Whenever I create something I enjoy, I get on a roll and keep going, going, going. There are many days that I want to transmute everything I write into a human being so I can punch it in the face, but you just have to take it in stride and keep trying. Each writer has a story to tell. It just takes time for all of us to figure out what it is, exactly. That's my take on it; if you really like what you're writing, you'll find the time to keep doing it.
If you're convinced that what you are doing is worthwhile (and by that I mean that it has value to YOU), then you find the time...when you can. Real life has a way of intruding. My writing endeavors have been interrupted several times - by advocacy for my children and for people with disabilities generally, by the need to suddenly deal with my aging in-laws (who hadn't planned for anything at all, they just assumed my wife and I would handle things), and by a demanding career that at times required late hours and travel. But during such times, writing was the way I stayed sane, the way I reaffirmed who I was. I once took a week off from work when my wife and kids had school (my wife is a teacher) and spent the whole time writing. Best vacation I ever had in my life. Did I get thrown off the track at times? Sure, who doesn't? I've had lapses of non-writing activity. I also followed some ideas that went nowhere, did things the wrong way, bumbled and stumbled my way through some projects that were never very promising to begin with. But I think they call that "growing". How do we stay motivated? If we're writers, we do. If not, you look up one day and suddenly realize you haven't even thought about writing in can't-remember-how-long. But, if you find yourself facing a problem in your own life, or hearing of one in a friend's, and you find yourself thinking, "Hey, I bet that would make a good novel"...or if you see someone on a train, think they have an interesting face, and suddenly find yourself devising a fictional character based on him or her...if you find yourself reading a story or watching a film and thinking, "No, no, no! Much better would be if he..." and devising a whole new idea...if you pass a house and start wondering how many different story ideas have happened there...then chances are you are one of us.
It comes from an internal drive to complete a project and get it out there. Exactly what motivates each writer is different, because the exact demand on a writer's time and focus and energy are different, and probably ever-changing. I think a writer needs to look at it as a long-term process, and set up some short term goals that fit into the scheme to reach the final objective. Making measurable progress can help one keep moving forward.
if you want/need to write, you will... it's that simple... how each writer arranges time/family/whatever will vary, but the person who has the passion it takes to be a writer' no matter what' won't let anything stop her/him...
