What happens when we have our feet pulled out from under us? I have recently come back from a hiatus from writing as personal crisis in the family took all motivation from me to be involved in anything writer related. No words flowed onto the empty screen, no desire to communicate with my writer friends. Life suddenly became hollow and undesirable. How do we allow personal circumstances not to deter us from writing?

When life gets in the way, we easily push the writing aside. Yet we carry on at our day jobs as a necessity. Days you don’t want to work, you force yourself out of bed and into the office just because that is where the paycheck comes from. When does the writing become top priority in your life? How do you break through the personal circumstances and push out the story anyway? So much emotion can come from your personal circumstances to make your story enriched. But the idea of making it actual happen can be fear gripping. Life can push you on and motivate you or it can paralyze you.

Pushing through my fear this past week, I was able to finally put words to empty screen after three months of complete emptiness. Writing is something I love, yet couldn’t motivate myself to do it because I lost my biggest supporter of my writing. Pushing through that fear was freeing. Showing up for a writer’s meeting locally was another motivator. What motivated me to continue? Writer friends that continued to send me emails, messages encouraging me to continue.

Where do you find your motivation when it feels hollow and empty?