Fantastic advice. I’d like to add what makes up part of my own motivation, if it may benefit others.
I love to read. Just about anything will do, my standards on quality are quite loose. If it entertains me, then I have no trouble with it. But sometimes there’s a book which simply should not exist, and recently I just finished one. There was little redeeming in it, and consisted of a mashup of all the popular sci-fi and action movies of the 80’s and 90’s. It even had the one liners, and somehow managed to not include what was good about any of those movies. In the words of my daughter “I can’t even…” Yet this book had well over several thousand mostly positive reviews from Amazon. bafflement increases exponentially Not only could I write a better book, I wouldn’t have to even try that hard.
But here’s the point, the person who wrote said book didn’t debate with himself or others over inconsequential details. They didn’t stress over getting a good plot or believable situations. Clearly didn’t put it in corner to chip away at over years to reach a state of perfection. They simply wrote it and published it, within whatever their current limitation was. There’s no explanation other than that they did the best of what they had. So while books like this make me consider switching entirely to non-fiction, it motivates me, because the only difference between me and them is that they actually did it. (Ignoring all the factors of luck and networking that play into this sort of thing getting published) Point is, get something done, push yourself but don’t make goals you know you can’t reach. Your worst completed work is still better than the work you never finished…and chances are better than quite a few money makers out there already.